It’s not unusual for people to have images that aren’t quite print ready.
Sometimes you see an image on the internet that you really want a sticker of or something else and so you download it. Other times a designer designed your logo or artwork a long time ago and all you are left with is some version that is not quite as useful as the original file the designer used when making the files…and you have no options of different file formats or larger, good quality sizes.
We can help.
See samples of before and after our artwork department cleaned up the image, logo, or words.
When the process is done we will deliver a .AI or .EPS file to you that is vector type graphic and can be used from that point on. This kind of graphic can be used as small as possible or as large as a skyscraper without loss of quality.
Image Quality
What is DPI or PPI?
DPI refers to Dots Per Inch in printing. The more dots you can input per square inch of material the higher quality printing you will see visually. PPI refers to Pixels Per Inch and is more commonly used on computers, but still refers to the quality of an image per physical inch. DPI and PPI are also commonly referred to as resolution. Images that use pixels, or dots are known as raster images. Each tiny pixel is assigned a color and all the pixels together make up an entire image. The most commonly seen raster images are through digital cameras, scanners and monitors.
Because the resolution is directly related to the physical size of the image, if you take an image that is 1″ x 1″ at 300 dots per inch and then you scale up your image to 2″ x 2″ your dots in that inch just got spread over 2 inches, so 300dpi becomes 150dpi.
Internet Images
When viewing images on the internet you see them through a browser that only displays the images at 72dpi. If you download these images for print you are using a low resolution image at a small size. If it is scaled up, the 72dpi goes down to a lower resolution proportionately to how much it’s scaled. This results in poor looking printed materials.
Print Ready Vector vs Raster
One way designers get around being stuck with one size is to design in vector art programs (typically Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw). Vector art programs use paths and shapes instead of pixels (Raster images) to determine shape and color. These shapes and paths can be enlarged and are not dependant to a pixel size, so their quality remains intact when sized. Typically people use vector programs to create logos and text, but are popular among designers because of their friendliness towards scalability. Email artwork@graphicsexpressllc.com to find out about getting YOUR artwork vectorized.
Print ready artwork means exactly what it says…Is your artwork ready to print at the SIZE and QUALITY you want? Looking at what we’ve discussed above about DPI and Size and how they are related, does the image you are submitting fall into what the printer needs to make a high quality sticker for you?
Preferred File Types
.AI (Adobe Illustrator file)
Manageable File Types
.EPS (Encapsulated Postscript file)
.PDF (Portable Document Format)
.JPG (Joint Photography Experts Group file)
How does Transfer Tape work?
Transfer tape, also known as application tape, makes applying a cut-out sticker easy. It is called transfer tape because it transfers your cut vinyl graphics from the backing to the sticker’s final location. Below are the steps for applying a decal to your project. Please be sure to clean the surface the decal will be applied to.
