When colors or an image go to the edge of the artwork, a Bleed is necessary. This is an 1/8″ space that extends beyond the edge (or Trim) and enables the printer to make sure that your artwork does not have an unintended margin.

Crop Marks indicate where your finished piece will be Trimmed, at least 1/8″ inside the Bleed area. The Crop Marks indicate the edge of the finished piece.

Printers recommend that all text or imagery stay within 1/8″ inside of the Trim area. If there is any variation in the trimming process, all of the important information will be visible on your finished piece.

When a product is printed, it should be at a higher ‘resolution’ than artwork designed for computer screens. Printing resolution is measured in Dots Per Inch (DPI) while screen resolution is measured in Pixels Per Inch (PPI).  You can produce press-resolution artwork by using Vector programs, such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Indesign and by saving your artwork as a Press-Quality pdf. Photos taken with a digital camera or artwork created with Photoshop are called Raster graphics, and are made up of pixels. If you are using a Raster program such as Photoshop, you should make sure your image size is set at 300PPI to create a press-resolution piece. Generally, a digital photograph should not be scaled larger than it’s original size to avoid ‘pixelation’.

All artwork designed to be printed should use a CMYK color space. CMYK stnds for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, the colors that are combined to create all of the colors that appear on your finished piece. Artwork designed for screen uses RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color space. If possible, convert your artwork to CMYK, however, artwork using the RGB color space can be converted by Sprint using RIP – or ‘Raster Image ‘Processor’ software.

Recommended:

Press-Quality PDF
High resolution JPG (JPEG)
TIF or TIFF
EPS

Not recommended:

GIF

The preferred file format for most printed products is a ‘Press-Quality’ PDF. Files produced using Vector programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Indesign can be saved as Press-Quality PDFs. Artwork produced using Raster programs such as Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Fireworks can be saved as a high resolution JPG or TIFF. It is not recommended to print from GIF files as they are low resolution and have a limited color spectrum.  Sprint will also accept native files such as .ai (Adobe Illustrator), .indd (Indesign), .psd (Photoshop), or .doc/.docx (Microsoft Word).

We use standard paper sizes as follows:
Letter: 8.5″ x 11″
Legal: 8.5″ x 14″
Tabloid: 11″ x 17″
Our oversized printer can print up to 36″ x 48″
We also print any custom size you need.