Call (813) 685-9206

Artwork Specifications

Commercial printing requires artwork that meets minimum specifications. If you’re going to submit your own artwork for printing, please review these requirements.

If you’re unfamiliar with these technical requirements, we’ll be glad to create your artwork for you. Call 813-685-9206 for more information.

General Specs

All files and graphics need to be at these specifications.

  • RESOLUTION: 300 ppi or higher resolution
  • BLEED: .125-inch (1/8-inch) bleed on all sides
  • COLOR: CMYK color space [ COLOR PROFILE: U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 ]
  • SAFE AREA: A minimum of .125-inch (1/8-inch) safe area inside the trim size.
  • BORDERS: There is sometimes a slight shift in printing or trimming a piece. Borders close to the edge may be slightly off center. If exact borders are required, call 813-685-9206 for options.
  • FLATTENED GRAPHICS: Flatten all raster graphics like Photoshop and TIFF files. Flatten all layers.
  • TRANSPARENCY: Transparency in artwork can sometimes cause problems. Flatten all transparency effects like glows, shadows and opacity less than 100%.
  • RICH BLACKS: Rich Black is a mixture containing all four of the cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) colors. This is necessary because no black ink is truly black, and the mixture of the four inks helps to make the black even more black, or “rich black.” We recommend the following setting for Rich Blacks: C-60, M-40, Y-40, K-100

Metallics and Metallic Inks

Call 813-685-9206 for information on setting up Photoshop files for Metallic colors.

Foil, Spot UV and Spot Color

Foil, spot UV and spot color items require an additional file the exact size as the color ink file. These “spot” files have these specifications:

  • Exact pixel size and resolution as the cooresponding ink file
  • BLACK: Black pixels where the spot or foil application will be.
  • WHITE: White pixels where there is NOT spot or foil application
  • Foil and spot UV cannot overlap.

Booklets

To ensure the pagination is correct, the pages should be provided as single pages, not as spreads, except on 4 and 6 page brochures where printer spreads are required. Please include the page number in the file name with the front cover as page 1.

File Types

We can accept the following file types.

TIFF or JPEG (High Resolution, High Quality)

  • Recommended format
  • Flattened files, no layers

PDF

  • PDF/X-1a:2001 standards
  • All fonts and graphics embedded
  • All graphics at 300 ppi, CMYK color

EPS

  • All fonts outlined/converted to paths
  • We cannot print from Word or Publisher files.