Before Starting

All the tutorials on this page assume that you have basic knowledge of Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign. If you require assistance, please consult your graphic designer. 
If you do not have a graphic designer we have graphic design services available to you as flat rate services. Please view the Hire a Designer page for rates of design and purchase. 

Understanding Print Safe Area & Bleed 

All print documents usually have to have a print safe area and bleed.

Print Safe Area

The print safe area is the area within a document that all text and important content should be within, this is to insure that when the document is printed and trimmed that these areas will not be trimmed or look unbalanced.

 Bleed

The bleed is extra area around the actual size of the finished document, this is to insure that 
when the document is printed and trimmed that document has artwork edge to edge

Understanding Colour Space Simplified 

Colour space is how the colour is represented on a computer and screen, there are two types of colour space, CMYK and RGB, all print work uses these colour spaces. A colour profile is a standard form of translating and reproducing the colour you see on your computer screen to printed material. We maily use one to three colour profiles for all our printing jobs. Below are explanations of colour profiles and their uses.

CMYK Colour space Profile U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2
Used for all general printing, business cards, flyers etc. 

RGB Colour space Profile Adobe RGB 1998 or sRGBIEC61966-2.1
Mainly used for printing photos, canvas

Managing colour for printing is a science and goes to great depths, which is beyond the scope and requirements for most customers we do most of the work for you when we process your artwork,  if colour managing for print interests you please read and research yourself 

Creating Artwork with Adobe  Photoshop | Posters | Photos | Canvas | Signange

1. Download the required template from the templates page and open it up in Photoshop

2. Make sure you document is set to 300 dpi resolution with either RGB or CMYK Colour space 

CMYK Colour space Profile U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2 
RGB Colour space Profile Adobe RGB 1998 or sRGBIEC61966-2.1

* Artwork should be converted to CMYK colour for eveything except photo and canvas prints 

3. Create you art work in the artwork safe area and enshure there is bleed

4. Once the artwork is finished check either flattern the file or save the file as a flatterned PDF / PSD / TIFF  / JPEG / PNG

Note. For Photo, Canvas Prints ideal formats is TIFF / JPEG / PNG

Now the file is ready to be uploaded for ordering your print.

Maximum File size for sending art is : 34mb

Creating Artwork with Adobe  Illustrator | General Print | Posters | Photos | Canvas | Signange

1. Download the required template from the templates page and open it up in Illustrator

2. Make sure you document is set to use CMYK Colour space with the proifle U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2

3. Create you art work in the artwork safe area and enshure there is bleed

4. Once the artwork is finished check the following

• Outline all text

• Embed all placed Images from the links pallet 

5. Save the file as Adobe PDF file with the preset [Illustrator Default]

Now the file is ready to be uploaded for ordering your print.

Maximum File size for uploading art is : 34mb

Creating Artwork for Large Format Printing  Posters | Photos | Canvas | Signange

Artwork for large format printing is usually created with Adobe Illustrator with placed raster images.
The reason why Illustrator is preferble as it allows you to create very large design and prints with very 
small sizes due to it being a vector drawing application. 

Large format prints do not need the artwork to be at actual size as this will make the file unnecessarily lage, you can make the print file 1/2 or 1/4 the actual printed size with a resolution of 300 or 600 dpi.
Large format print artwork shuld use the RGB colourspae and document profiles as this allows the finished artwork files to be smaller in MB’s for uploading

Example.

If you need a print which is 2m x 1m and lager, then you can make the print file at half or quarter size  
1/2 Size :  1000 x 500 mm @ 300dpi

 or 

1/4 Size : 500mm x 250mm  the size @ 600dpi

The most important thing to remember is that if you do the artwork at 1/4 scale then set the resolution to 600dpi, if you do the the artwork at 1/2 scale then 
set the resolution to 300dpi.

1. Create the artwork in either 1/2 scale @ 300dpi or 1/4 scale @ 600dpi with document setting in RGB   

2. Once the artwork is finished save the file as a flatterned PDF /  TIFF  / JPEG / PNG

Maximum File size for sending art is : 34mb

Creating Artwork for Tshirt Prints

Artwork for T-Shirts are usually created with Adobe Illustrator with placed raster images.
The reason why Illustrator is preferable as it allows the artwork to be formatted for a variety of printing techniques from traditional screen printing 
through to heat transfers and direct to garment.

1. Download the required template from the templates page and open it up in Illustrator 

2. When you open the template file you will see 2 art-boards, front and back, create your art on the art layer, or place raster art on this layer with a transparent background 
There are size guidelines for you art, scale and size your artwork to fit within the size guides for front and back designs or just front designs if there are no back prints. 

3. Once the artwork is finished check the following

• Outline all text
• Embed all placed Images from the links pallet
• If you are doing contour cutting, create a new layer on top of the artwork layer and draw your cut lines on here 

5. Save the file as Adobe PDF file with the preset [Illustrator Default]

Now the file is ready to be uploaded for ordering your print.

Maximum File size for uploading art is : 34mb