>>I'm always afraid to do printable designs in Photoshop for fear of the dreaded pixels showing.<<

Just last night I had a pixel reveal itself to me while waiting for a bus. It was disgusting!

>>When designing stuff that will be sent off to the printers, what is an ideal DPI?<<

Stick to .01 DPI. It's far more predictable.

>>Is there specific thing I should do to setup my workplace in Photoshop or Illustrator in order to amke it easier for the printers and for me (crop lines, etc)?<<

Yes. Be sure you cut out the part on the side of the software packages that describes how you no longer need a designer to do professional graphic design. Then tape this, or scan this, when sending your stuff to the printer. They'll really appreciate the headsup info of what to expect.

>>What is an ideal format to send the finalized product in? PDF? EPS? Huge JPG?<<

Microsoft Paint is prefered by most commercial printers, though some now accept lino-cuts as well.

>>I reallize some of these questions might sound stupid but I'm taking my chances.<<

Chances that you might sound stupid?

>>Instead doing things wrong I'd rather ask and learn and figure it out the right way<<

Or, maybe do the right thing and pay for someone who's already figured out the right way, long ago?

Best of luck.

I'm guessing I missed out on some nasty comment there. Damn.

Hi Christian, welcome to GDF!

The best way to determine how to set up your file is to talk to your printer ahead of time... they may have a preferred file format or some special instructions that will save you time in the long run.

Here is a great article about building a relationship with your printer:
http://www.graphicdesignforum.com/ar...lationship.htm

In my experience, pdf files are the most universally accepted, and if you will be using a combination of Illustrator and Photoshop you might want to do the actual layout in Adobe InDesign (if you have it). You can export a pdf directly from ID when you are ready to print.

Good luck!

Sorry, I keep forgetting some people actually have skin thinner than mine. My point is that coming here looking for instruction on how to do the job we 'designerly human beings' do after much training and real hard work reveals a low level of respect for us. (Designerly human beings? It sounds like some kind of genetic mutation.)

Especially when it's implied that only a modest 4 questions is all that is necessary to guarantee good poster reproduction.

A student, or a beginner-- different story. But this sounds like a small business person who's either too gullible to not believe in the software package hype, or someone happy to avoid paying for a designer. Why should we support this? I'm missing something big here about why bypassing a designer is an acceptable solution.

(Do I get any points for not using any bad words? And hey... I thought my dpi answer was fun!)

I AM a printer.
I might be the only large format screen and digital printer in here, I'm not sure though.
Let's see if I can help.

1) ILLUSTRATOR. Use Illustrator. Don't jump back and forth unless you have images or something to place into Illustrator. For consistent color and predictable (and easily editable/fixable.... and all the other -ables) use Illustrator. Spec PMS colors, too. (Or whatever your printer wants). Outline fonts when you send the final version. Or send the fonts. Don't expecte spot colors in Photoshop to match spot colors in Illustrator, cause they won't!

2) check with your printer on this one. We print everything at 150ppi. Billboards are around 37ppi, I think. It depends on how far away you'll be from the poster. Most printshops operate between 100 and 200ppi. Only fine art photography is at 300ppi anymore, in my opinion and experience. BTW, DPI is a printer measurement. Printers print at dpi, or dots per inch. PPI is pixels per inch - this is what relates to your raster images.

3) You can set bleed (we use 1/4" bleed) and set crop marks. In Illustrator, make sure you set your page size to what the final poster size should be, then put your bleed outside of that. You can have the program set crop marks - select nothing, then go to the edit menu (I think) and down to add crop marks. I'm not looking at Illustrator right now, so someone correct me if that is inaccurate.

4) JPG? Ack ack! PDF and EPS are best, however EPS cannot carry color management with it. I suggest talking to the printer. We like to get the original files to print from, then we can decide what is best for every job. Illustrator files are easy to print. A lot of shops take PDF as a standard, but they are uneditable. Makes some things tough.

These questions are not stupid.
In fact, you are very smart for asking these things in advance. Too many times do we get crap files that we can't do a thing with, and if only the customer talked to us beforehand, it would have been avoided. Remember, garbage in, garbage out!!!!!!
My only other advice would be to talk to the printer before you start, or if that isn't possible, talk to them ASAP. Every shop has different requirements and requests.
Good luck, hope this helps!!

p.s. What kind of posters? can I see?

Jon

welcome to the forum, kovachjon. thanks for taking the time to reply.

Thanks kovachjon and morea for your help. Greatly appreciated. As for Broacher, I would've liked to read your comment. Seemed pretty funny.

Sorry if we amateurs are making things tuffer for you but if I can pay for the program and do the design myself and make it come out like I want it too, I'll do that. Saves me money and I'm not really cheating.

I'm talking a poster here not a phonebook, I personnaly don't need to hire a professionnal graphic designer for a simple poster. In fact last time I hired a professionnal gd to make a poster, it wasnt all that nice. Me and my 5 amateur years of learning by trial and error, asking questions and taking a few basic gd classes can do something thats more visually attractive.

Anyways, thanks to those who are helping me out. I appreciate it!

Brocher's post has been restored.

Excuse me for trying to keep the forum a friendly place.

I was playing his game a bit. You didn't necessarily need to restore it. I was being sarcastic about liking to read it. I don't need to be a "professionnal" graphic designer to be sarcastic.

Funny jokes Broacher. I laughed. That's a good sign. Fortunately, even if the post would've said there, I'm not stupid enough to take any of that crap. But thanks for the laugh, made my four "stupid questions" worthwhile asking.

Apart from the above statement, your advice was very good. But your first statement "Most printshops operate between 100 and 200ppi" I must disagree with. Most offset printing is done at 300 dpi - any lower and pixels become obvious. But then again, I assume you were referring to large format printers? Fine art photography is usually done at higher resolutions than 300 dpi as the line screens are that much higher, usually 175 to 200 lpi, with a recommended resolution of 350 to 400 dpi for images.

>>Funny jokes Broacher. I laughed. That's a good sign.<<

Thanks. I appreciate your attitude. I don't know-- we all work with pros outside of our own profession all the time. I mean, I was at the mechanic last week trying to describe to him what I 'thought' might be wrong with my car, and it was all he could do to keep from bursting out loud laughing. In fact, he did have a little fun at my expense but I didn't mind--in fact, I laughed along (and pointed out his pathetic business card)-- it's part of building up the trust relationship between client and professional. I feel very confident that HE knows what he's doing and I'm very happy with that feeling.

And hey, for car stuff I quite often take advantage of online mechanic forums for determining the best follow-through on a vehicle purchase, or repair. Most of the time, the main question is-- should I take it in, or is this something real easy to do?

Maybe when they finally come out with Adobe-Brakeshop or CorelMuffle I'll be tempted to try these expensive repairs myself, but... probably not.

And yesterday I 'spent' over two hours training a worker in another department teaching the bare basics of page layout design all the while thinking, 'why don't I just do this myself?'. I mean, she really appreciated the session, but it made me wonder why is design, as a professional skill, so 'give-away-able' in so many people's eyes?

So I apologize for my curtness. The truth is, just about anyone can take just about anything these days and make it into a poster at just about any printshop. Sure, design quality is usually important-- but sometimes, it's important to be absent. I tend to stop for the garage sale advertised with a sign using scrawled black marker on a piece of brown cardboard stapled to a telephone pole, than I would for a professional looking 'kit' sale. Why? It's a question of authenticity-- and that becomes a form and function question. Which is what I would have asked you about first, if you walked into my office. It's not who makes it, or with what tool, or at what degree of 'professionalism'-- it's WHY are you making it, and what do we have to work with that starts the design gears turning. You odds of success are (I think) much better with a pro designer, but only if you can't afford to know the true value of any errors you might not even know you're making. It's like-- if my car engine starts making a funny noise, and I tap it with a wrench and it goes away, I can choose to slowly close the hood, and convince myself to feel confident in my mechanical abilities-- or lose sleep over wondering what's really wrong.

>>I'm talking a poster here not a phonebook, I personnaly don't need to hire a professionnal graphic designer for a simple poster.<<

Now I'm LOL! Most designers I know roll their eyes at the words 'phonebook' and graphic design being used in the same sentence. As for simple posters-- hold onto that thought. That is, a great poster design always looks so simple. But then, most things skillfully done always do.

>>Excuse me for trying to keep the forum a friendly place.<<

Kool, I appreciate your concern, and understand your reasons for preferring cautious preventive censorship over the riskier fineline of my sarcasm. In this case, we seem to have sailed through it without loss of limb, and perhaps just a little more stronger.

I'm on a lot of design forums. This one rates as perhaps no. 2 in the area of 'most cautious' on the 'release the moderators' button. The other extreme-- un-moderated, well... we probably all have enough bad experiences with these to believe they're hardly ever worth it. But I would strongly disagree. Some of the BEST stuff I've ever learned about techniques, hardware, design and business have come from places where it is a free-for-all. Yep, many of these burned out quickly, but a rare few have matured. The HOW forums is a great positive example of what CAN happen to an unmoderated forum's evloution when the 'neighbourhood' hits a good mix. Sure, it's not perfect, but it's honestly so. And yes, there have been fights among neighbours, drive-by shootings-- but with a large enough core or regulars, who share enough respect for each other, it not only survived, but became stronger, in many ways.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to have moderators-- they're very useful and effective 'fire extinguishers' for when things get hot, real fast. But sometimes, they're a bit like my smoke detector in my upstairs hall, going off when I open the oven to flip my fries. I bet it's a pretty thankless task sometimes, and you're right to be cautious, only I hope you folks do discuss at least the possibility that a little friendliness can be sacrificed for a little more truth. Because even though the truth is often unbelievably cruel, it also gives us the strength and courage to understand and grow. At least, I think so.

Kovachjon you aren't the only wide format guy here.
A 10" x 20" poster barely qualifies as large format. The person in the original post REALLY NEEDS TO TALK TO THE PRINTER THEY INTEND TO USE. While the wide format people do work anywhere from 15 to 200dpi, like Eggles said, most regular printers want at least 300. I would require at least 200 dpi when doing a poster this small on an HP5500 just because the image is small.

As for using Illy or Photoshop. You can place photoshop images into Illustrator as long as they are at the resolution your printer wants them at AT FINAL PRINT SIZE. Place is operative. Do Not embed them.

Broacher I'm with you, man. All the way.