Bleed & Trim
1/16" on all sides will be trimmed off, this is called the bleed. Make sure you do no have any important content in this area. Please adjust your text and graphics to be 1/8" inside of your document on all four sides. We cannot guarantee any print job cuts without the added bleed. There are no exceptions. If you have any question regarding this policy, you may call us, or use our design templates.

Trim Line
The trim line is the actual size of your document. When your document is finished, the trim line will be the edge of the completed product.

Safe Zone
Your safe zone starts 1/8" inside the trim line. The layout area is the space where it is "safe" to put your design, content, and type.

Resolution
We require that all submitted artwork be 300 DPI (Dots Per Inch). If you design a job under 300 DPI, when printed, the finished product will appear to be fuzzy and at times, unreadable. See the examples below where one image was created at 300 DPI and the other created at 72 DPI and then interpolated to 300 DPI.

 

Many customers will use photos from a web page and enlarge it to fit their print design. Most images taken from web pages are 72 DPI, and if enlarged will look like the image above.

Design software will "interpolate" a low resolution image. Interpolation is adding pixels that do not exist and "guess" their color by sampling the colors from surrounding pixels. On large areas of similar color, this can be acceptable, but in areas where the colors are different for each pixel, the programs makes a wild guess -- and the result is not likely to be particularly good -- the image will just look fuzzy.

Size
Your print files should be designed in the size that it is being ordered. Please refer to our design templates for exact size and formats.

Borders
If your job requires a border, please note that in order to have your border almost exact, we recommend AT LEAST a minimum of .25" on all sides. Our cutters are specialists in their field, however due to paper shift, we cannot guarantee it would be exactly balanced on all sides.

Color Space
There are two types of color spaces that are used for graphic and print design: RGB (Red, Green, Blue), these are the colors your monitor uses to display everything. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black), thee are the colors used in process printing. Color shifts are usually not visible in color photographs; however, rich and solid colors (like a background) can be affected by a color conversion. Files should be started in CMYK color mode instead of RGB so that you will not need to do a color conversion.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION Regarding Color Reproduction
Because of limitations with the combo printing process, the differences in equipment, ink, paper, and neighboring image ink requirements, the accuracy of color reproduction is not guaranteed. By placing an order with Print 5k, you agree to this limitation.

The Color Black
Large, solid black areas and text over 36 point should use Rich Black to prevent the color from looking gray. Rich Black consists of 50% cyan (C), 40% magenta (M), 30% yellow (Y), and 100% black (K). For smaller text, we recommend using 100% black only.

4 Color Blacks (Rich Blacks)
If you have small, thin text below 36 point on your piece, it is STRONGLY recommended that you do not use 4-color black. Although, using a 4-color black is recommended on larger areas, using 4-color or rich black on small areas will make you text blurry and at times, unreadable.

Why Does This Happen?
Process printing uses 4 primary color inks that overlay each other to provide the full color spectrum on the paper. Although precise, the registration of the 4 color inks will shift during the printing process. If you use all 4 colors to create your black, they will not line-up precisely, creating a blurring effect. (See Above)

This is especially evident on small text, or small lines, 12 point and smaller. In order to fix this, we require that all small text be created using 100% black only, which is 0% cyan, 0% magenta, 0% yellow, and 100% black. This way, as the primary colors shift, it will not affect the black color.

Fonts
Convert fonts to outlines/paths when possible. By converting fonts to outlines in programs like Adobe Illustrator and FreeHand, you will avoid having to send the fonts with your file. When converting to outlines, the text becomes a vector shape and will look no different than its original state.

In Adobe Photoshop, text can be rasterized and therefore does not need the fonts. Keep in mind that after rasterizing it, no further changes can be made to the text.

If your fonts are not converted to outlines or rasterized, your design may not be printed/viewed the way it was meant to be seen.

File Names
In order to make the pre-flight process more efficient, please use unique file names for files you are submitting. The file name should reflect the job name that was given when ordering. Example: YourCompany_4x6_front.eps and YourCompany_4x6_back.eps