bleeds

[amelia]

sometimes i recieve files that should have bleeds but do not. the customer wants us to trim right to the edge, which if double sided can be a nightmare at times. does anyone here ever try to recreate bleeds?

[popejoydesign]

I have but found it to be nothing but a huge headache. Now I just refuse to accept files unless they have a bleed were necessary.

[Mynock]

Sometimes I just print it at something like 102% or something depending on the size and artwork boarder.

[PrintDriver]

It all depends on how much time til the print due date.
If it's tomorrow, we do it and file the time under 'Rush'.
If it's next month we bounce it back.

[Broacher]

Kinda gives a new meaning to the ol' "giving 110%" cliche, doesn't it?

[amelia]

if recreating, do you charge for it?

[cybercholo]

If it's a solid color, sample it and add it, but it's an image I would do the 102% like Mynock said, 110% is way too much, and make sure that important stuff doesn't get cut off, like text.

[Broacher]

Surcharge. Add the same percentage to the bill's total.

[DesignerScott]

At my 'current' job I have to add bleed all the friggin time. Sometimes it's all vector and not a problem, and sometimes I have to go into photoshop and add a 1/4 inch on every side because they also didn't give any cut margin.
I'm pretty good with makin' something from nothing in photoshop though.
...And charge for it ! HA! I can't even get the ol' company to charge for creating entire layouts most of the time. Customer services says 'Oh yah, we'll add $$$ art charges, but I know that they just take them off at the end of the day, because they weren't 'customer approved' art charges.

[LeftBrain Artist]

Adding bleeds to solid colors is no big deal. If its a photograph and theres nothing critical at the edges, enlarging the image may work, as long as there's nothing that drastically shifts in relation to a placed image. If the image must remain in a fixed position to satisfy aesthetic/alignment issues - I usually open the file in photoshop, duplicate the background layer, then open up the canvas to the correct bleed dimensions and clone in a bleed zone in the background layer (this ensures the original image remains undamaged by the cloning process). It can look a little goofy sometimes, but its better than seeing a bright white line. If the image doesnt have a lot of tonal variety, you can just choose a color/tone thats more or less common and plop that behind the areas requiring bleed.

Do I bill for this? You betcha - luckily I get to estimate the jobs, and if I see it needs to be done, I'll account for doing that (even if I don't tell them I'll be doing it).

[amelia]

Thank you for all of your responses. I normally throw my hands up and growl at the phone. I'm going to try this next time and tell the CS about this solution when I get it down.

[budafist]

We are encouraged to fix things our end so that we don't look incompetant. But at the same time you want to throw the file back at them so that they learn for next time.

It's a hard call sometimes.

[Botchup]

I'm in the same boat, lots of customer's send us files without any bleed (they don't really know what they're doing remember - I would have done it before I started this job... ).

Anyway, when they send us a straight PDF to output, if there isn't any bleed on it, we reply immediately asking if they can put the bleed on themselves. Most of the time they do it and remember for next time, and the other times they ask us to fix it and we charge out on how much time was spent.

The rubberstamp tool in Photoshop is a God send (for adding bleed to photos).

[budafist]

Our clients are often given the files from their own designers. If we ask the client for bleed, they normally don't know what we are going on about and so are reluctant to go back to their designer asking for this "bleed" thing we're asking for.

I may have forgotten to add bleed before I got my job now. I think the thing with bleed and especially trim and registration marks is that they are a guard against any of your design getting cut off.

[PrintDriver]

They are for far more than that in wide format. And they are bigger too.