File Formats for Professional Printing - Help!

[illstrator]

Guys,

I work for a company who has recently asked me to fill the shoes of our graphic artist. Basically because I have a lot of background with photoshop and I generally do the designing and then pass the torch on to a contracted design artist who translates my artwork into the necessary formats for printing in large scale. I just purchased Adobe CS2 premium and I am confused about formats for printing.

What format will be needed for large scale professional printing. A .ai vector file or a .eps? I have no clue on this general topic - so any detailed response will be very helpful.

Basically what needs to be done for me to get a file professionally printed. Can I make the images in photoshop and convert them into .eps or .ai? I have no clue. Thanks!

 

[blueark]

I'd say .eps rather than .ai, as they can be imported into other apps if your printer uses older versions of Illustrator (they should be up to date, but the reality is sometimes different). PDF is also an option.

Photoshop image embedded into the Illustrator file become part of the eps, so as long as you can get them into Illustrator, it doesn't really matter what format they're in. However, they will be raster images rather than vector, so for large format, they will push the file size up considerably. I would suggest doing as much artwork as possible directly in Illustrator, only using Photoshop where it's really needed.

 

[tangerinewoman]

I would do your layout in InDesign. You can keep your illustrator files as .ai and your photoshops as .psd. Your layout artwork will be a manageable size, all your files will simply be linked to this InDesign file and all should print well.

Vector files use vectors(!) to make the artwork, whereas psd files use pixels. They are interchangeable to some extent, but in general illustrator files are good for line artwork and logos, whereas photoshop files are obviously good for photographs. they should be 300dpi at 100% (use the info palette in InDesign to see your effective ppi (or dpi to you and me)).

All text can be done in InDesign. Before you print, you need to package your artwork – this means it will collect all your linked Illustrator and p'shop files (and fonts, although that's illegal really) and any profiles - and those are the files you send to the printer. The alternative is to make a print ready pdf, very easy in InDesign and tends to be what printers ask for these days.

Good luck. Sorry if you know any of this already...

 

[nicksims]

Tangerinewoman,

Would you mind elaborating on the "(and fonts, although that's illegal really)".

Your reply was helpful to me, but I was wondering about this font thing.

Thanks.

Nick

 

[blueark]

Well, it might be illegal. When you buy fonts, there is a licence agreement you should, in theory, check for usage restrictions. Most of the big name font suppliers allow you to supply a font you legally own to a printer for the express purpose of outputting your job, provided they don't keep a permanent copy for themselves.

However, some font companies don't allow you to do this, insisting that the printer should buy a copy of the font too. It really is a stupid, shortsighted practice that is ignored by most, and thankfully not practiced by most (all?) of the major font producers, but just be aware of it anyway.

 

[nicksims]

Thanks, blueark. That was my suspicion, but I wasn't sure.


Nick

 

[illstrator]

Guys,

Very helpful. Things are starting to make a lot more sense to me now. Plus I'm glad this wasn't over my head .

Enjoy the day.

 

[xPox]

You really should speak with your printer before building the artwork in any one program. Ask them what format works best for them. If they have to rebuild your artwork because it's not compatible with the software they use, it will cost you a lot extra.

 

[illstrator]

Ok I already posted this in InDesign not know this subject would come up in this thread.

To reply to what xPox said -- my printing guy said it's more efficient for them if i do my layout in InDesign after I create the artwork in Illustrator. I've never used InDesign and I'm still learning a lot of the Adobe programs. He was saying that it is very inefficient to create all artwork in Illustrator and directly save it as an EPS through Illustrator. He said that the best way is to use InDesign to lay out the images and text and then save it for printing.

Does this make any sense to you guys? I don't know InDesign at all so for one I have no idea how to do this and two why is it inefficient to save Illustrator files into EPS straight through that program?

HOpe this makes sense.

Thanks in advance.

 

[tangerinewoman]

InDesign is specifically designed to do page layouts and multi-page documents. It's designed to run efficiently with lots of pages, images and text.

Illustrator is more for one-off pieces of artwork kind-of-thing, and tends to run really slowly if you start placing lots of images into it.

I've found that often InDesign can do exactly what Illustrator can do (and vice versa), but it really depends exactly what you're trying to achieve? Let me know and I'll try and give you more advice.

 

[illstrator]

Well for this particular project it's business cards. There are 7 different business cards that need to be printed. So when you said that InDesign is basically for page layouts and multi-page documents, business cards would fall under that category, right? -- this would make sense for business cards but what if we were designing a magazine ad or a promotional flyer for the mail?


Thanks for all the advice, you have no idea how helpful this is.

 

[jmgalvin]

Illustrator will do just fine for bus cards. Each card (meaning for each person) is sent as a separate file. We lay them out at 10 cards per page using a standard bus card layout template, but some printers are jsut as happy just getting one card and they'll set it to their liking. Multipage refers to things like books, pamphlets, magazines - multiple pages for one doc.

Using OSX 10.3.9 on a G4

 

[tangerinewoman]

Personally I would do them in InDesign, but then I do know the programme well. You could set up a page (85mm x 55mm or whatever) with 3mm bleed (if you're having a colour for example) and do a 7 page document. Then you could leave the printer to do the difficult bit with working out how to print however many on a page (that's their job really!).

Illustrator would work technically just as well, and if you know that programme well then it may be the easier option. You could use a template (as jmgalvin suggests) or you could rely on the printer to translate 7 individual illustrator files.

Ads and flyers could also be done in Illustrator, but honestly, if you're going to be doing a lot of this sort of stuff I would get to grips with InDesign. I don't know where you're based, but in England printers increasingly want print-ready pdfs, and InDesign is geared up to make them beautifully.

I prepared a 196-page book to print never having used InDesign before, but using one of those visual quickstart guides (

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...4348668?v=glance&n=266239&s=gateway&v=glance)

as a tutor, and it really is worth the money.

 

[nicksims]

My 2 cents... I use both Illy and InD. I started with Illy and then learned InD.

Illstratr- if you are comfortable with Illy, you'll be fine with InD. Sure there are some differences, but you'll catch on quickly. When I use InD for the layout (even 1 page projects with a graphic from Illustrator), there have been so many times when I've had the 'ol "Aha!" for something that was simpler and more intuitive than Illy. Very satisfying.

I make the business cards in Illy, but more so because I started doing it that way and like my layout templates- I'm just used to them. Also, the files aren't that large. Illy manages them pretty smoothly (CS2 on a 2 yr-old laptop with 1gb of ram- nothing fancy, win xp).

For larger files, I agree with tangerinewoman. I don't know the reasons why, but it just seems to work more smoothly and quickly when I have larger graphics, placed files, photoshop files... as well as multiple pages.

Nick

 

[rossmcd]

I'd do the logo design in Illustrator and then each layout of business cards, letterhead, or whatever other document in Indesign.

Depending on the artwork, you could put all seven business cards (per your example) in a single Indesign file then export to PDF (press quality) as per the needs of your printer...either in separate files or in one file.

Good luck