Print Design TipsTips and Information About Printing

For non-professionals and especially those who are first timers in the field of print and design, there are so many acronyms and new jargon flying around which makes it very distracting at best and off-putting at worst.  Here is the very best business tip you are ever going to get – if you have a supplier loading you with jargon, make them explain what they are talking about or fire them!

Before you get to that drastic stage, here are some of the more commonly used acronyms and language used in the field of resolution.  Resolution is how clearly an image and text is presented from the original image to reproduction; a high resolution image will typically be capable of much better reproduction especially if the original is enlarged in your brochure or publication.  You may see some images look blurry in some publications and this is due to low resolution images being enlarged so much that you see the dots or pixels which make up the image and as we are now using some jargon (pixels) we’d better get you clued in!

Pixel

A pixel is the smallest data component of an image – you may see them as the dots on a computer screen (if they are large enough) or in a photograph especially in a newspaper.  Pixel is a combination of two words – “pix” (for picture) and “el” from element – picture element, the smallest building blocks of an image in printing and digital reproduction.

PPI – Pixels Per Inch

This is the number of pixels displayed in an image.  When you look at a digital image on your computer screen, that image is composed of pixels and the more pixels per inch that there are, the higher the resolution i.e. the picture looks more clearer and sharper.

When you are using PPI you must understand it is relating to the screen resolution and not the image resolution or the finished, printed reproduction.  Adobe Photoshop uses PPI but Corel Photo-Paint uses DPI just to add to the confusion which leads us neatly onto….

DPI – Dots Per Inch

DPI measures the printer resolution and refers to the dots of ink used by an image setter or other printer used to reproduce the text and images of your project.  This is a better measure than PPI because it relates directly to the finished article and not the representation on the computer screen which may look fantastic but let you down when printed off.

LPI – Lines Per Inch

This refers to how a printer creates the finished image and text on paper – it specifically refers to how a printer prints lines of halftone spots which recreates a continuous image.  The number of these lines per inch is the LPI – the more the better the reproduction – LPI is sometimes referred to as the line frequency or halftone resolution.

SPI – Samples Per Inch

SPI is the scanner and digital image resolution; a scanner actually takes portions of the original image to be scanned  and not the entire image (it is not a photograph for instance) and the more samples it takes, the greater the amount of the original image is recreated and this increases the resolution of the scanned image.  The higher the SPI then the greater the resolution produced.

In many cases your brochure will be the first impression you make on a potential customer or client, so it is important that yours be well-designed. The following elements are part of any well-made brochure: originality, design, images, color, and page bleed.

The originality of your brochure is somewhat self explanatory. This applies not so much to the design of the brochure, but how your company is represented. It should inform the audience of something unique about your company in order to make you stand out. The design of your brochure has to do with its outline and layout. In cases like this it is best to go for a simple design that is uncluttered and easy to read. Make sure only necessary information is included.

The images that are used in your brochure should always be the highest quality possible. Always ask the person who is designing your brochure what type of images they will be using. Sometimes they will take their own photos and other times they may prefer to use stock images. Regardless, make sure that they use high-resolution images.

Color is important in a well-designed brochure. Colors have a way of invoking feeling and emotion in a person. The colors used in the brochure should also go well with the images used such as the company logo. Finally there is the page bleed. This is where color runs off the edges of your brochure when printing in order to account for any shifts that may occur. At least a 1/8 bleed is recommended.

If you have ever taken a picture with a digital camera, you may have noticed that the quality of the pictures that your camera produces differs depending on the size that you print them out at. Because of this, you must be very careful to always print your pictures out at a size that will present you with the best possible quality of images.

Many people submit the photos that they have taken with their digital cameras to professional printers, only to get poor prints back. They are quick to blame the printer, but the reason why the print is of such poor quality is because the resolution was too low for the size of the image.

In order to make sure that you get the best quality of images possible, there are a few things that you should take into consideration: the number of pixels that are in the photo, what resolution the photos should be printed at, and what the best print possible under these circumstances is.

In order to determine how many pixels are in your photo, you will have to look at the settings of your camera. For an example, the typical 5 mega pixel camera has a 1944 x 2592 pixel count. The lowest recommended resolution is 240 ppi, or pixels per inch. Divide the pixels per inch into the total pixel count of your photo and you will get the maximum size in inches that your pictures should be printed at. Continuing the previous example, a 5 mega pixel camera with a 240 ppi should be printed at a size of 8.1 x 10.8. Whenever you try to print a picture at a size that is larger than the pixel count allows for, you are going to get a blurred and pixilated image.