SHARP IMAGE PRINTING

What is a Bleed?

In the printing world, bleed is a very important concept that deals with the edges of paper and how it is printed or cut. Since printers essentially grab each sheet of paper by the edges to feed it through the printer, no printer is capable of printing all the way to the outer edge of the material.

In addition, paper and other material is often printed at a very high speed, which can cause it to not feed through the printer in exact perfect alignment—even when using a professional printing service.

If you print words, logos or images all the way to the edges of your template, they will likely end up appearing slightly cut off in the final product. Understanding bleed margins help prevent this problem by expanding the text or image outside of the designated printed area, resulting in a polished and professional final product.

What are cropmarks?

Crop marks, also known as trim marks, are lines printed in the corners of your publication’s sheet or sheets of paper to show the printer where to trim the paper. They are used by commercial printers for creating bleeds where an image or color on the page needs to extend all the way to the edge of the paper. Printers generally can’t actually print to the very edge of the paper, so instead they print on a larger sheet of paper and then trim it down to the correct size, and crop marks are used to define where to trim. So, to print crop marks, you must print on a paper size that is larger than the page size you have set for your publication.

At what resolution should I save my photos and graphics?

Picture resolution should be set to 300 dpi at the final use size.

Pictures and graphics pulled from the internet are often low resolution, typically 72 dpi. You should avoid using these low resolution graphics, as they will appear pixilated and blocky when printed.

Also note that you should save all photos in CMYK mode, not RGB mode when possible. Images saved in RGB mode may not print properly. If you are unable to save your image in CYMK mode, please contact us for assistance.

Why do the printed colors look different from the colors on my screen?

In short, printers and monitors produce colors in very different ways.

Monitors use the RGB (red, green, blue) color model, which usually supports a wider spectrum of colors. Printers use the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) color model, which can reproduce most—but not all—of the colors in the RGB color model. Depending on the equipment used, CMYK generally matches 85–90% of the colors in the RGB model.

When a color is selected from the RGB model that is out of the range of the CMYK model, the application chooses what it thinks is the closest color that will match. Programs like Adobe Photoshop will allow you to choose which color will be replaced. Others may not.

When color is critical it is best to allow extra time test prints and color adjustments.

What types of paper are available for me to print on?

We can help you find just the right paper for your project. Please speak with an associate for information on the types, sizes and colors of paper available for your printing needs.