JR's Printing Workshop

Today I had a workshop with JR which focussed on how to produce high quality printed work for our Pre - Major and Final Major Project. He gave us many different pointers on how to print our work appropriately.

In Photoshop...

1. If your page is A3, allow a 3mm bleed.
2. Use 'Rulers' to mark A3 size on canvas.
3. Always paint into the bleed to allow a margin for cropping your image. 
4. Use 'Canvas Size' to add bleed, click 'relative' and add millimetres. 
5. Use CMYK for low end printing, RGB for high end.
6. In general, use 300dpi for printing, 600 or 720 for Giclee or high end prints.
7. Use JPEGs, however using PNG allows transparency in an image.
8. Export using 'Save for Web', this is also how to export gifs
9. 'Save As' feature will not reduce the dpi of an image

In InDesign...

1. Use to export a PDF
2. When you export, make sure the only box ticked in 'General' is 'View PDF'
3. Make sure that 'Crop Marks' is ticked on 'Marks and Bleeds'
4. Ensure that you save the settings as a preset.

The perfect set up for an A3 page showing rulers and the 3mm bleed.