Printing a design is distinctly different from the editing process, because unexpected changes might happen anytime. Everything seems great, neat and well-colored when you are editing the design.
But, once you get into printing, you might find it totally altered. Let’s learn about some basic tips to check before printing your design.
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Designing for printing is quite challenging for designers, quite big actually. The hardest part comes from size, room and color that surprisingly make their own changes during the editing process.
The fear begins from the moment you start your graphic design. Even for a skilled editor, printing a design doesn’t always go well. The printed out doesn’t look as perfect as the design.
A bitter truth, there is no undo once you hit the button. The paper shows either good or poor results and the choice left is to accept it.
Therefore, there are a number of steps you can make before printing the design. Read on for more information.
First thing first, get your file ready. Prepare your ready-to-print file properly unless you want to deal with another problem.
There are a lot of software or applications you can consider for preparing your file documents.
Each of them has their advantages and disadvantages. Photoshop, for example, has various settings to keep your image quality during printing.
In addition, you have to be familiar with types of format files such as png, jpg, jpeg, pdf and others. Make sure to adjust the format beforehand, conforming your printing needs.
PNG is a lossless compression file format, commonly used for website images. Designers also use this format to have a better printing result.
JPG and JPEG are the same format but quite different. JPEG is rare to be found because it reduces the characters, decreasing the image quality up to 10x.
PDF is next on the line. Some designers still use this format even though its quality is not as good as PNG, yet PDF is way better than JPEG. With the permanent setting format, PDF deserves second place.
More formats are still available out there. Thus, always prepare your file in more than one format to meet any printing format.
Before printing a design, always make sure it is already in HD resolution, to minimize printing damage. Otherwise, it would come out poor.
Also, adjust the setting on editing applications or software and save the file in high quality format.
In general, file resolution is set to minimum 300 dots per inch yet it depends on the image as well. Some files don’t work with the same number.
DPI still needs another adjustment, according to the selected printing media, preventing blurry results.
Once we are done with quality setting, pay more attention to image size. Check the file size to speed the printing process.
At the same time, it prevents the printing staff from making some unwanted changes on your design.
For a great printing quality, change or convert your RGB format to CMYK. These two are common in printing settings.
CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow an Black which belong to primary colors. Compared to Red, Green and Blue or RGB, those primary colors provide brighter results.
When you are printing a design, CMYK is able to limit the dark yet extend more colors. This format works great for t-shirts, brochures and other printings.
CMYK format itself is based on printer tint colors. This format will give you the most true color of your design, no changes were made.
This setting, however, is optional, subjected to the printer. But converting your file to CMYK will keep you from upcoming issues.
Apart from file-related problems above, the lack of briefing is another issue during printing design. Having good communication between staff printing and customers is something you shouldn’t argue about.
A well-built communication mostly happens at professional companies, since their staff actively engage in two-ways conversation for a clear briefing.
This effort gives the company an additional point which to some extent will get their customer repeating their orders. Indeed, hospitality is a part of a company selling value.
Once a good relationship is established, customers will effortlessly communicate their needs and the company understands it. Otherwise, miss-communication will lead to your destructive printing design.
After all the settings, remember to choose the right print media for your needs. Some people think they can print any design in various media.
Indeed, it is possible yet some adjustments are still needed. Knowing which media we can use for printing will get you a better result, such as hvs or art paper.
Printing a design should conform to the creator’s purpose. Unless we want to randomly choose a media.
If you want to print your banner out, it is unlikely possible to have hvs paper as the media but Germany, China or Korea flexi and Poly A and B do.
It works vise versa, you won’t have an art paper for a brochure. Thing is, choosing the right media should consider the design purpose.
Once more, printing isn’t as easy as pressing the “print” button and converting them to customers’ selected media. There are more to consider before printing a design to make customers’ wishes come true.
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