The following is intended to assist you in saving your jobs for outputting to film.
When followed, it ensures:
• Quick processing of your jobs
• Greatly minimises risk of mistakes happening
• Greatly minimises risk of misunderstanding
• Minimises your costs when we don’t have to spend undue and chargeable time on your job
Images
Bitmap images:
General: Save images in TIFF format and avoid use of JPG images (terrible quality loss can occur). Colour and greyscale images to be 300 dpi at the final size used (i.e. an image using up a full A4 page must be in 300 dpi at A4 size and not 300 dpi at the scanned sized and then enlarged in the layout program). If you receive digital images from outside (images you are not scanning yourself) and they are not the correct size - resize them in Photoshop in the menu Image/image size with the resample option on. Resizing in Photoshop is an emergency solution and not something to do if you are scanning the images yourself - there you scan with the right percentage (ratio of original to final output size).
The same applies to B&W images (lineart, including scanned B&W text) except they should be either saved in bitmap mode at 1200 dpi or greyscale in 600 dpi.
Clean and remove scratches, dirt etc. in scanned images in Photoshop using the “Rubber Stamp” and/or “healing brush” tools. Healing brush is not available prior to Photoshop 7.
If you have made a clipping path in Photoshop in order to have a transparent background in a bitmap image, this image should be saved as an EPS from Photoshop.
Full colour images: Always save as CMYK (RGB images do not colour separate).
Greyscale images: Always save in greyscale and never in indexed colour. Do not save in CMYK unless for very specific reasons in an otherwise full colour job.
Special for spot colour jobs: Spot colour jobs should NEVER be sent in the colours of the intended end result (unless they are to be printed in cyan, magenta, yellow or black). These colours should be converted into cyan, magenta, yellow or black. Ie a 3 colour job of orange, navy blue and black can be sent as yellow (orange), cyan (navy blue) and black. Since spot colours are chosen by the printer specifically to match the desired result, the printer needs films of solids and tints for every colour used. As such, any bitmap images to be printed in other than black must be CMYK images containing only tints and solids in the relevant channels. Ie in the above mentioned 3 colour job of orange, navy blue and black, an image that needs to be printed in orange only must be CMYK but containing only the image in the yellow channel, another image with navy blue and black must only contain the image in the cyan and black channels and an image that will appear only in black must be saved in greyscale format.
Vector Images:
Vector images must ONLY be saved and placed as Illustrator EPS files.
You can do your artwork in CorelDraw provided you save as an AI file, open it in Illustrator and save it as an EPS file. Alternatively you can copy the file from CorelDraw and paste it into a document in Illustrator which you then save. If the image is already placed in PageMaker you can copy it from there and paste it in Illustrator from where you save the EPS and relink your file in Pagemaker to the EPS you just made.
Be VERY careful when using .WMF, .EMF or other vector formats. Again the rule is to make them EPS files but you have to double check them in Illustrator because sometimes lines that are seen on screen don’t actually have any stroke and as such dont show on the film. Check the stroke in Illustrator and adjust if necessary. WMF and EMF files do not show in Pagemaker’s links manager and are therefore very easy to miss when you don’t know they are there - they do not colour separate.
Any fonts used in vector images MUST be converted to curves/outlines.
Never use CorelDraw to directly make EPS files - they don’t work.
Laying your work:
Whichever programme you use to lay your work there are some general rules.
• If an image or background goes to the edge, ALWAYS make a bleed. We use 2 mm.
• Always define all colours you use in the document as “Process” “CMYK” colours
• For spot colour jobs see above in images, the same applies to colours used in documents.
• If possible, always imposition booklets etc. that are to be output 2-up, 4-up etc.
• If we are to imposition your work (which we charge for) - never have items that cross over a reader’s spread. A same colour background that goes over two pages must be split so that there are two backgrounds - one on each page. The same applies to an image that crosses over from one page to another - it must be split into two images where the relevant bit of the picture is on its relevant side without spilling over onto the other side. An excpetion to this is for instance a centerspread or the middle of a section in perfect binding, ie. anything that will end up printed on the same sheet of paper.
• When impositioning several of an item on one sheet of paper (ie. visiting cards or jobs for work and turn) take into account any bleeds and always provide the cut marks.
• When possible, always create curves/outlines of your text. If this is not possible, save all fonts used in the document when taking it for outputting.
• Never embed a graphic in the document. Link it and remember to save ALL your links with the document.
• Make use of the pre-flight functions available in Pagemaker and InDesign to locate any problems such as RGB images, missing fonts etc
• Make use of the packaging/saving for service provider functions in Pagemaker and Indesign to automatically save your documents with all links and fonts in one directory.
We strongly recommend the use of Adobe InDesign for laying out work as it offers almost infinite advantages to Pagemaker in ease of use and in preparing films. InDesign, for instance, supports transparency allowing you to place native Photoshop (PSD) documents with transparency and layers directly.