Tips on Pre-flight before sending to the printers

Arron Lock has kindly agreed to write some articles for design shard, you can check out his web site and follow him on Twitter

He’s compiled some tips that should be taken in to consideration before presenting your files to the printer for printing. Expect to see more posts from him in the coming weeks as well as other authors.

Define Page Size and/or Bleeds correctly

Page elements that bleed should extend 1/8″ past the page boundary. The page dimensions should be exactly the same as your final trim size of the piece. DO NOT build your page elements in the middle of a bigger page and manually add crop or registration marks. They will probably get printed and your piece will suck.

Provide bitmap images at adequate minimum resolution

NEVER, EVER, EVER use image you copied from a website in your print job. Not only will this violate some copyright laws, it will also render a very ugly result. Web images are almost always 72dpi. You want to use images that are at least 300dpi.

Provide import source files

If you are using an image editing program like Photoshop, you may want to include the layered PSD file so that if any minor adjustments could be made by the printer. THIS IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR THINGS TO BE INCORRECT TO BEGIN WITH.

Supply image files in CMYK mode

Things are printed in CMYK. Things on screen are viewed in RGB. It is much easier to work on files in an RGB profile as it allows for the most flexibility in image editing. However, make sure you flatten and convert these files to CMYK before they are used in the final work. If sent to press while still in RGB mode, chances are good that the printing software will kick up all sorts of errors.

Define spot and/or process colors correctly

Speaking of colors, it is a good idea to define all spot and process colors so the printer has either a PMS number or a CMYK formula to use. You should really be doing this any way to keep everything consistent.

Provide proofs

You should always provide a proof to the printer so they know what the job should look like when it’s finished. I like to use a PDF because they are pretty much universally utilized.

Include all imports…ALL imports

This is one of the most critical steps that some, ahem, “designers” forget about. Anytime you use an image, logo or graphic in a file to be printed it isn’t actually copying that image. It is linking it to the original files location.

So if you don’t include these with your packaged file set when it goes to the printer guess what, you aren’t gonna have any of those linked images in the final work. Lucky for you most current page layout software like Adobe InDesign, Quark and Pagemaker (do people still use Pagemaker?) can do this for you by running a “Preflight” or “Package” command.

Include all fonts…ALL fonts

Sending all the fonts used in a job is VERY important. If you use a font that your printer doesn’t have then one of two things will happen.

Your job will be printed with the closest match the software can find
(if you are using a reputable printer this should really never be the case)
The printer will contact you to get the appropriate font from you.

Communicate with your printer

Talk to the people who will be handling your job. Let them know exactly what you want to accomplish with your printed work and they will be able to guide you in making sure everything is correct.

Some definitions:

CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black), the four process color inks. These are the inks used to print full color images.

Bleed: When an image or printed color extends beyond the trimmed edge of a page. Bleeding ensures that the print extends to the edges of the paper. The paper is usually trimmed to the desired size after printing.

Spot Color: An ink formula resulting in a specific color. Each spot color will need its own film/plate. Referred to as PMS (Pantone) colors sometimes.

Process Color: One of the 4 colors in CMYK – Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black

Proof: A rendering of what the final printed result will look like.

Author of this post: Arron Lock

Self proclaimed "Rock Star Designer" and "Photoshop Ninja", you can also follow me on twitter See all posts by: Arron Lock

43 Comments (Leave a Comment)

CAD Printing Chicago

May 13, 2012

those are good tips, i think that this will make a big difference in quality and efficiency.
Reply
Green Hat

November 2, 2011

Fantastic article! Pre-flight is a lost art. The amount of times our printers get RGB or low res images is not funny! There are so many things to consider, and with print, the finished article exactly that, finished. No updating or tweaking like web. Many thanks for this article.
Reply
Stan @ Sonic Print

@sonicprint July 30, 2010

This subject is NEAR and DEAR to my heart. As a printing company, the quality of files that we receive has degraded greatly in the last 10 years. We’ve found that a lot of people sacrifice quality design for budget and hire their brother cousin has photoshop to design. Just because I buy a microscope doesn’t make me a scientist– but I digress.

If I may add a few things —

1) Native files are great(indesign, quark, .ai) but there is always elements missing and not included like you said in the post. Someone always forgets an image, or a font and there is a delay. Truthfully, I think most printers would rather PDFs with fonts outlined. The wild west days of PDFs have settled down for the most part most PDFs will output through prepress fine.

2) If you’re printing CMYK process, it’s a given not to design in RGB, but it’s also important to make sure you’re not using a PMS palette. This can give you a surprise because if the pre-press tech doesn’t catch it, the rip will completely disregard the PMS colors when outputting your prints for only process printing. This happens a lot with small PMS logos dropped in to a process job. They will disappear from final output unless flattened before output.

4) Flatten transparencies and turn off overprint. These are two things that will look fine on the screen and even when printed on your desk printer but it will wreck things when going through a rip. Some rips can pick this stuff up but many will disregard this information and you’ll end up with a surprise after output.

When getting a PDF proof sometimes prepress departments will flatten the image for proofing but not when sending it to the rip to save your fonts from being raster. Transparencies and Overprint will get you if you don’t want it!

I have a much more comprehensive list, but I’m not sure if you want me to post it on your blog. I would be glad to post the link if you’d like so I can help designers.

Last part of my rambling.. :)
Many of these problems will be caught by a good prepress tech – however.. when they have 50 files to preflight, sometimes these issues will slip through the cracks and cause a headache for everyone!

Stan –
SonicPrint.com Printing in Tampa
Reply
Florinda Glodo

February 20, 2010

Enjoy your blog…found it via bing. Subscribed!

Thanks,

Free Printing Samples
Reply
Annika

January 25, 2010

real good tips..this page is on my favourite pages’ list now :)
Reply
Luke Harmes

December 16, 2009

“It is much easier to work on files in an RGB” but when you convert it to CMYK your colour will slightly differ as the RGB colour gamma is larger than CMYK, So just make sure your happy with the CMYK output before sending off
.-= Luke Harmes´s last blog ..My artwork contains gradients =-.
Reply
kaiser

November 9, 2009

some things i´d suggest to add/edit:

* converting into curves possible, but then the printer can´t edit missspellings themselfs and for e.g. folders with a lot of txt explode in size and make printers angree if they got slow machines

* NEVER PRINT A PDF, save! it to get the right colors (plain cyan stays plain cyan and doesn´t get converted to xy% of C M Y and K)

* Provide your main/reference colors as ai-palletes (spelled correctly?)

nice blog and thanks for the post.
Reply