Taking digital designs into the real world can be fraught with gotchas and gremlins. We’re so used to the world being digital that some of us have forgotten how to prep our work for poster printing.
If you’re thinking of doing a run of poster designs for a campaign, party, gig or simply to adorn your own walls with, here’s a guide to how to print your work. Follow our tips and you'll soon be poster printing with confidence – and you'll no longer have to worry about that guy in the print shop laughing at you...
01. CMYK or RGB?
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| Work in CMYK rather than RGB |
In Photoshop you can easily switch to this mode via 'Image > Mode > CMYK color', to give you a more accurate representation of how your colours will print.
02. Converting to CMYK If you’ve been working in RGB and have converted your work to CMYK, just before you send the file for printing you may notice the greens and blues in your image have become lifeless and dull. You can use Photoshop’s Gamut warning tool ('File > View > Gamut warning') to highlight the colours that will have trouble converting from RGB to CMYK. How to master colour theory The RGB colour space has a greater array of colours than CMYK. Remember: all the computer-specific colours you pick in Photoshop for your poster then have to printed with a selection of real-world inks. Those that can't be replicated will become 'out of gamut', and be printed with what is possible with the available inks.
03. Set the right resolution
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| Set the correct DPI and your poster won't look too blurry (image: Luke Woodhouse) |
When resolutions are too low the end result can be a blurred and pixelated poster. In Photoshop you can set the dots per inch on creating a new document by going to 'File > New' and entering 300 in the Resolution box.
04. Set the right size for poster printing
Popular poster printing sizes are A2 (594mm x 420mm), A3 (420mm x 297mm) and A4 (297mm x 210mm). Paper choice and weight can be discussed with your printer but 170gsm Silk or Gloss Art FSC or 150gsm are good choices. GSM stands for grams per square meter and determines how heavy the paper stock is.
05. How to supply your files
Supply your print files in the PDF format (print resolution at 300 DPI) or tiffs with no compression at the same DPI. It is possible to send JPGs if they’re high-res enough. So if you just want to print a poster of your pet pooch from a photo on your smartphone you can do this by sending a JPG, but be warned: the edges of the photo will be cut off and the colour will shift.
06. What is litho printing?
A wide variety of mass-produced print items (books, posters, newspapers and so on) are produced using litho printing. Put simply, a litho print involves the printer making a set of 'plates' that are used to press the image to the paper. Creating these plates comes at a cost and doesn’t offer the immediacy of digital poster printing. The initial outlay can be expensive but if you’re doing a large print run and want to output up to A1, it’s the process that offers a higher quality print and finish than digital printing.
07. Digital vs litho printing You have two choices for poster printing: digital or litho. (Well, okay you have three: you can always print at home. But chances are you don’t have a printer big enough.) The choice between digital and litho printing will mostly be dependent on the money you have for the print job and how soon you need it doing. Digital printing with inkjet or laser printers is the cheaper and quicker of the two and good for smaller print runs. If budget is an issue and you’re not being too exacting over the quality, go with digital printing. This is also fine if you're not going above A3.
08. Choose the right poster printing shop
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| Do your homework and ask around to find the best printer for your needs |
In the Lagos, for example, Metroprint is well known for high quality wand specialist work as well as being one of the few places around to use laser light source printers and genuine black and white photographic prints. For high quality crystal clear prints on heavy stock quality Kodak paper these are the people to visit. However, you might just want to print lots of stuff digitally without a special finish or on the highest grade paper. So don't write off high street poster printing at places such as Prontaprint and Romaron. There's a reason they're everywhere: they offer a decent, affordable service and will print your photo posters direct from a memory stick, mobile phone, Instagram or Facebook, and can help you enhance your work with a range of photo art effects.
09. The importance of spellcheck
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| Got words on your poster? Then double and triple check them |
Print101naija advises that you to "spellcheck, spellcheck, spellcheck. Then get your mum to spellcheck it and anyone else who will read it for you. There's nothing more soul-destroying than a typo, and they're easy to miss if you're too close to your masterpiece."10. What is 'bleed'? 'Bleed' is simply a little area (usually 3 or 5mm) around the edge of your poster design that (depending on how the printer cuts the paper down) may or may not be shown in the finished result. It's essentially your room for error and ensures there isn't a random white line on the edges of your printed poster. Programs such as InDesign and QuarkXPress make it easy by showing you guides, so you can see where the bleed starts and finishes. Always ask the printer you're using (or check your own printer settings) to determine how much bleed is required. 11. What is 'trim'? The trim is the edge of the final printed output. To prevent text and logos being chopped off the final output they should be placed with some breathing space around them, and no closer to the trim edge than 1/8in.
12. Use vectors
Designer Westman advises: "When it comes to printing, especially large-format printing, vectors are your friend. Try to design as much as possible in a vector-based program such as Adobe Illustrator. Not only will it reduce your file size, but it will ensure that you get the crispest print result."
13. Check your fonts Always run a pre-print check. This will bring up any issues, such as RGB files being used or fonts used that aren’t embedded. In InDesign this is known as a 'pre-flight'. The programme can package up all your print files and links ('File > Package') into one folder, which will spare you any missing font nightmares.
14. Get your blacks right for poster printing
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| Paul westman advises you avoid RGB black as it will look grey in print |
Paul westman suggests: “When printing posters using black, there are so many different types of black you can use (RGB, Photoshop, neutral rich, registration, flat, designer, and so on).
"My tip would be to avoid RGB black as this is primarily used for the web/digital and will look washed-out and grey in print. Which black you should use will depend entirely on your printing process and what paper stock you're using, especially if you're printing solid blacks. "When I designed a recent infographic piece, I spent days printing various different blacks on different stocks of paper to get the most accurate black whilst making sure the colours didn't bleed into each other; a really lengthy but worthwhile process. Always leave plenty of time to test your blacks – it can completely ruin a fantastic poster design if you don't."
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