Here at Shropshire Printing, we care about the quality of your final print as much as you do. That’s why we’ve created a handy guide for those of you wanting to make your own artwork.
If you want to put your feet up and let us do the work, that’s absolutely fine too – get in touch to discuss your artwork requirements with our friendly team on (01952) 885446 or email us on [email protected].
For the budding creators to the professional designers though, here is a simple and easy guide on how to prep for your print.
Resolution
We require images to be a minimum of 300dpi as anything lower than that will typically print quite fuzzy.
Web based images (for example, anything you grab from Google Images) will be at 72dpi and is not suitable for print.
for Print
from google images
Bleed, Safe Area and Trim
Don’t be alarmed when we ask for ‘bleed’ on your prints – it’s not as scary as it sounds.
Bleed is the area around your design which allows things like colours or patterned backgrounds to look their best and not have any white lines around them. If your print has just a white background, you don’t need bleed.
Safe area is just that – if you have important info, such as an email address or your Instagram handle, you wouldn’t want it cut off.
The end of the safe area is called the Trim and that’s exactly where we’ll cut.
Typically we ask for 3mm of bleed (each side) and a 5mm safe area. See the image to the right for an example.
Colour
We need your artwork in CMYK where possible.
This is the standard for colour printing and ensures you get the colours you’re expecting from us.
RGB colours are screen and light based colours, whereas printing uses CMYK pigment colour processes. Colours you see on your screen may not match when printing in CMYK, so we suggest converting your document before printing.
If you’re looking for Pantone specific colours, get in touch and we’ll be able to assist.
File types
Our favourite is the classic PDF, but we also accept ai and packaged indesign files.
Many of our products have downloadable indd templates too!
File Transfer
You can use our handy upload system to get your files directly to us, alternatively we’re happy to work with Dropbox, Google Drive and WeTransfer.
When sending via WeTransfer, please put your order number in the notes box.
If that’s all a bit of a minefield then not to worry!
We have an excellent and friendly design and print team in house that would be happy to help, just click here to discover more about this service or fill in the form below to get in touch.