Raggydoll Posted March 5, 2020 Author Posted March 5, 2020 10 minutes ago, gregory said: You're quite right - my last was the whole card ! But the killer is avoiding dropping anything critical too close to the edge. Yes, that’s the thing most people have had to fix. That, and low resolution. So always make sure nothing sits too close to the edge, and when you work in a larger format you must remember to make the safety lines proportionally bigger. Half an inch is for the finished size. Same goes for 300DPI - it’s for the finished card. Please feel free to work as big as you like and then save it down to 300 once you are done. One thing some people might not know is that DPI is dependent on the size of the original artwork. So the bigger the artwork, the bigger DPI you can have. It’s not possible to make a tiny picture and then try to make it huge with a scanner. So work as big as you can (preferably not bigger than what fits on your scanner, though 😊 )
Perenelle Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 (edited) Thanks for the measurements, that's what I needed help with, proportion size. I did read the first post but was still confused. Thanks again. Actually one more question: if I do 7"x10.5", what size would that make my bleed border? Sorry for all the math questions but I have a learning disability. Numbers are very hard for me to figure out. My image is so simple that nothing crucial will be anywhere near the border as it happens. Edited March 5, 2020 by Perenelle Another question
geoxena Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 (edited) 45 minutes ago, Perenelle said: Thanks for the measurements, that's what I needed help with, proportion size. I did read the first post but was still confused. Thanks again. Actually one more question: if I do 7"x10.5", what size would that make my bleed border? Sorry for all the math questions but I have a learning disability. Numbers are very hard for me to figure out. My image is so simple that nothing crucial will be anywhere near the border as it happens. Hi Perenelle, no need to apologize. I was confused at first, too and totally messed up my first card and had to add height to it, but now that I've done three, I got it. It's a half-inch on each side and the top for the finished card. Since you'd be making yours at a bit over twice that big, double it and then some. So ~ I'd say keep the important elements inside the area that is 1.25 to 1.5 inches from the edges, all around. You still need your artwork going to the full 7 inches to prevent blank white space, just keep details inside that boundary Make sense? Edited March 5, 2020 by geoxena
Perenelle Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 Eeeeee thanks yes! I just posted my sketch, this will be easy!
geoxena Posted March 5, 2020 Posted March 5, 2020 Just now, Perenelle said: Eeeeee thanks yes! I just posted my sketch, this will be easy! I just edited my answer to you. Glad it all makes sense and you're happy about it!
Starlight Posted March 6, 2020 Posted March 6, 2020 @geoxena - thank you for the dimensions! I'm making a collage piece and knowing how big a space I have to work with is very helpful. 🙂
Raggydoll Posted March 6, 2020 Author Posted March 6, 2020 Thank you so much @geoxena for helping me explain the measurements! We don’t use inches over here so I always have to google everything first. So I really appreciate not having to do that this time 🥰
Starlight Posted March 6, 2020 Posted March 6, 2020 3 hours ago, Raggydoll said: We don’t use inches over here so I always have to google everything first. So I really appreciate not having to do that this time 🥰 Your dimensions were helpful, too, Raggy, and they're what I used for my first 2 cards. That Geoxena worked out the ratio and scaled up was particularly useful for me this time because I needed to print my "canvas" before working on the card. 🙂 (We don't use inches here either but I temporarily changed the settings in Word...)
Perenelle Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) On 3/5/2020 at 4:17 PM, geoxena said: Hi Perenelle, no need to apologize. I was confused at first, too and totally messed up my first card and had to add height to it, but now that I've done three, I got it. It's a half-inch on each side and the top for the finished card. Since you'd be making yours at a bit over twice that big, double it and then some. So ~ I'd say keep the important elements inside the area that is 1.25 to 1.5 inches from the edges, all around. You still need your artwork going to the full 7 inches to prevent blank white space, just keep details inside that boundary Make sense? OK so I have an inch and a quarter all the way around, when I shrink the card does it include the margin? Just want to get this right! Edited March 7, 2020 by Perenelle Correction
gregory Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 Your image needs to have NOTHING within the "margin" that you mind losing. At the final size - 2.99 x 4.47 inches - you want nothing that's important to you within 1/4 inch of the edge, as it may be cut off when the cards are actually cut by the printer. Your image, as supplied to the forum, needs to have no border at all.
Perenelle Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 So it gets cut off within the image? That's fine, everything is in the middle. I left the margin as per the answer I got regarding the size of the image itself, I know the card image has the right measurement. I'll just totally crop the margins off when I shrink it.
geoxena Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 (edited) 53 minutes ago, Perenelle said: So it gets cut off within the image? That's fine, everything is in the middle. I left the margin as per the answer I got regarding the size of the image itself, I know the card image has the right measurement. I'll just totally crop the margins off when I shrink it. No, you don't crop the "margins" off!! That would defeat the purpose of having margins. The area between the inch and a quarter margin and the edge of the paper is the bleed area, which needs to be filled with artwork - just not the most important details - so that there is no blank space along any edges if the printer cuts the cards a little inaccurately. So, your entire 7x10.5" drawing gets scanned at 300 dpi and then reduced to 897x1342 pixels, which is 2.99x4.47 inches. Am I being clear? Got it? Edit: what you're calling the margins is the bleed area and it's just supposed to be an area without anything crucially important. It's still part of the picture! Please look at the image Raggydoll included in her 1st post of the Big Info thread! Edited March 7, 2020 by geoxena
gregory Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 There should be none of that black around the edges. Just the actual image, going right to the edge of the space that size. What may be cut off will be the 1/2 inch of image, round the edges. Look at some of the other cards. No margins showing. .
katrinka Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 13 minutes ago, gregory said: There should be none of that black around the edges. Just the actual image, going right to the edge of the space that size. What may be cut off will be the 1/2 inch of image, round the edges. Look at some of the other cards. No margins showing. This. The thing is, I've had cards printed up before. They generally come out a little off-center, so you want to allow for that. You might lose a little on the right - but it could be the let instead, or the top or bottom. You want to be prepared for that.
joy Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 1 minute ago, katrinka said: This. The thing is, I've had cards printed up before. They generally come out a little off-center, so you want to allow for that. You might lose a little on the right - but it could be the let instead, or the top or bottom. You want to be prepared for that. Exactly!!! 'Bleed' really says it can go if it has too but it still has to be part of the image.
gregory Posted March 7, 2020 Posted March 7, 2020 48 minutes ago, joy said: Exactly!!! 'Bleed' really says it can go if it has too but it still has to be part of the image. That's a BRILLIANT way of putting it.
Starlight Posted March 8, 2020 Posted March 8, 2020 I have my image down to the right size pixel-wise, but it's humungous in terms of file size. What do I do? I can re-scan it, but I would prefer to use what I"ve already scanned if at all possible because I had to do some final editing to the scanned image and I'd have to re-do that work as well... 🙂
Raggydoll Posted March 8, 2020 Author Posted March 8, 2020 1 hour ago, Starlight said: I have my image down to the right size pixel-wise, but it's humungous in terms of file size. What do I do? I can re-scan it, but I would prefer to use what I"ve already scanned if at all possible because I had to do some final editing to the scanned image and I'd have to re-do that work as well... 🙂 Save as jpg should do the trick, that automatically shrinks it so it can be emailed.
Starlight Posted March 8, 2020 Posted March 8, 2020 (edited) 9 minutes ago, Raggydoll said: Save as jpg should do the trick, that automatically shrinks it so it can be emailed. Ok, I'll give that a go! Thankjs, Raggy.🙂 Edited March 8, 2020 by Starlight
Raggydoll Posted March 8, 2020 Author Posted March 8, 2020 @Perenelle The others have already explained it really well but the artwork must be extended ALL THE WAY to fill the entire 897x1342 area. You just make sure that the key details of your card are in the middle. The artwork on the sides is more like filler but still has to be there. If we do not extend it all the way then there is a very real risk that you will have a white edge on one or more sides of your cards. And they (the techies) at printerstudio would complain if we tried to give them such a file, so we won’t. Please read the big info thread and look at this info sheet again:
Starlight Posted March 8, 2020 Posted March 8, 2020 On 3/5/2020 at 5:40 PM, Raggydoll said: Yes, that’s the thing most people have had to fix. That, and low resolution. So always make sure nothing sits too close to the edge, and when you work in a larger format you must remember to make the safety lines proportionally bigger. Half an inch is for the finished size. Same goes for 300DPI - it’s for the finished card. Please feel free to work as big as you like and then save it down to 300 once you are done. I'm a bit confused. I scanned a 7x10.5 inch image at 600DPI in png format. Had a whopping 63 MB file size as a result - which was completely expected. I altered the pixel width and height so that the image fit into 897x1342 card dimensions and saved it as a jpg. The file size is now 479 KB. Does this mean image quality has been affected?
Raggydoll Posted March 8, 2020 Author Posted March 8, 2020 7 minutes ago, Starlight said: I'm a bit confused. I scanned a 7x10.5 inch image at 600DPI in png format. Had a whopping 63 MB file size as a result - which was completely expected. I altered the pixel width and height so that the image fit into 897x1342 card dimensions and saved it as a jpg. The file size is now 479 KB. Does this mean image quality has been affected? Yes, changing to jpg will affect the quality but it will not affect it to such a degree that it will be in any way visible in a small format. There is absolutely no need to have a really high resolution or a really high format to get a sharp image in that size. The measurements that we have listed for the complete card is the same as the recommended size measurements that printerstudio offers. The reson why we do not post the printerstudio template here is that we don't want anyone to send us a picture that is too tall. We have calculated so we have room for a title box below and that needs to be taken into consideration. So no need to worry, you are doing exactly right. We have all shrunk our pictures down! There would be absolutely no way for us to upload 78 pictures at 63 MB. Printerstudios website would likely not allow it, and if they did, it would take until the end of the year 😄
Starlight Posted March 8, 2020 Posted March 8, 2020 1 minute ago, Raggydoll said: Yes, changing to jpg will affect the quality but it will not affect it to such a degree that it will be in any way visible in a small format. There is absolutely no need to have a really high resolution or a really high format to get a sharp image in that size. Ah, cool! Thanks for explaining that, Raggy! 🙂
Raggydoll Posted March 8, 2020 Author Posted March 8, 2020 In this post I will try to visually demonstrate the importance of bleedlines and safety area. I will show you two different images and what they will look like as finished cards. The photos I am using for this demonstration was sourced freely on unsplash.com Example 1: Here I can see straight away that there is too little extra space around the moth on both sides. When I turn it into a card and test it in the template, here is what will happen: The red lines will not be visible on the finished card, they just mark the safe area. See how the wings are cut off? Anything outside of those red lines can get cut off, so this is an image we would not use as is. Example 2 This image has plenty of neutral space around the butterfly and around the plant that its sitting on. Here is what it would look like: This is an image we could use, no problems. The bleed area is a little less than 0,5 inch on the sides so if you use our instructions then you will be perfectly fine. If you work in a larger format then you must remember to also increase this bleed area proportionally, but ALWAYS EXTEND THE ART ALL THE WAY. It is not to be left "blank" but rather neutral.
Perenelle Posted March 16, 2020 Posted March 16, 2020 On 3/8/2020 at 12:28 AM, Raggydoll said: In this post I will try to visually demonstrate the importance of bleedlines and safety area. I will show you two different images and what they will look like as finished cards. The photos I am using for this demonstration was sourced freely on unsplash.com Example 1: Here I can see straight away that there is too little extra space around the moth on both sides. When I turn it into a card and test it in the template, here is what will happen: The red lines will not be visible on the finished card, they just mark the safe area. See how the wings are cut off? Anything outside of those red lines can get cut off, so this is an image we would not use as is. Example 2 This image has plenty of neutral space around the butterfly and around the plant that its sitting on. Here is what it would look like: This is an image we could use, no problems. The bleed area is a little less than 0,5 inch on the sides so if you use our instructions then you will be perfectly fine. If you work in a larger format then you must remember to also increase this bleed area proportionally, but ALWAYS EXTEND THE ART ALL THE WAY. It is not to be left "blank" but rather neutral. Yes that's the part that got me confused. Thanks!!
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