Arranging files for printing, Costs ?

NeVeR

Hi,

The company I work for have asked me to get some Ad’s ready for running in a Magazine.

There are about 7 A4 ad’s in total.

I’ve been supplied with most of the Artwork and text from the Manufactures. The layout is up to me, The Manufactures don’t have adverts ready made so that’s why I’m making them.

As this is not part of my normal job I will be charging the company for working on this outside of office hours.

How much should I be charging them.

These Ad’s will be running in all the Sky Magazines in April.

minikin

We charge out our artwork at about €50+vat per hour, which is reasonably average in the industry.

NeVeR

I'm making about 6/7 adverts.

I've linked to some of the ad's

These ones are in Low res.

http://www.davidstokes.com/work/DPS_eye_in_chest_david_low_res.pdf
http://www.davidstokes.com/work/eye_in_chest_new_david_low_res.pdf
http://www.davidstokes.com/work/sonos_low_res.pdf
http://www.davidstokes.com/work/mouth_in_eye_new_david_low_res.pdf

minikin

Dave,

Just had a quick look at "DPS_eye_in_chest_david_low_res.pdf"

The pdf's indicate that they were created in photoshop... you really need to lay these out in indesign/quark. The "Pioneer" and "seeing and hearing like never before" text will look cack when printed, you should be able to get vector versions of these.

Not mad on the font you've used for the body text... not the most legible.

I would clip around the actual tv... having a bit of graduated background suddenly stopping doesn't work.

h.t.h.

NeVeR

those are Pioneers Fonts i have to use them.

Just wondering how did you know i used Photoshop.I did. but just wondering how you knew.. these are low res the text does look bad. bit it looks ok in high res. the printers siad it will do.

and the seeing and hearing text is vector.

heggie

so ask the printers these questions then! some people are ungrateful for free advice!

minikin

how did I know? years of experience! I'm lead designer in a print company...
The "seeing and hearing" text may have been vector but placing a vector file into photoshop means it will be rasterised... this is why professional designers don't do any layout in photoplop... it's not a layout program.

To some extent you can save your file as a pdf, retaining some vectors, but you will never get the same quality output as you would if you laid it out in the appropriate package.

Have you set up the files as cmyk, with bleed, are the images 300dpi?

I've said it on here a few times... photoshop is not a print layout program.
Some printers will take anything to print as work is work, they may not give a damn about final output quality. (You know the way local papers suggest people send in their ads as jpgs... it's pure shoddy, any decent prepress house would have demanded proper artwork) I don't want to worry you, I'm not saying you won't be happy with the final printed ad... I'm just saying that you're not doing it in a way that guarantees you'll get professional results..

sorry if this came accross as a lecture, coming towards the end of a twelve hour work day and I usually get crabby when I don't get my 6pm jaffa cakes...

NeVeR

Sorry Heggie. I wasnt been disrespectful. If i came across that way i'm sorry.

Minikin thank you for your reply. I do have Indesign in work. But i'm only gettin use to it. I've downloaded the lynda.com tutorials and i'm watching them over time. It's just these ad's have to be in on a deadline. I only found out on Friday with had to have them running. and the deadline in this friday/monday

The next time i will have them ready in indesign.

I started this thread asking what i should charge the company i work for.

I make websites as normal.. and they gave me this. so i said i would give it ago. Any help is great . Thanks Minikin

minikin

hope i didn't sound like a pr1ck, defn don't undersell yourself - as i said min. €50 an hour... if the boss kicks off tell him to get a prepress house to prep them so... will cost more.

heggie

sorry maybe i was being harsh, i've lost a days productivity due to a software ****up added to that a flu thing too! If they're telling you what typeface to use, kindly suggest why you think another may work better etc. Also, you might find illustrator closer to the photoshop UI, and that would be better for laying it out

Gordon

Feel the love

A client asked me to layout something for flyers and the printers needed CMYK, 300dpi JPG. (150mm2 ish). Jpg? are printers defaulting to hires jpgs now as opposed to Illustrator/Quark files?

NeVeR

I have Illustrator.. But i'm not that good at it,, I used photshop because i know it lol.. As i said i'm learning indesign.

No Minikin you didnt. It's good advice.

No problem Heggie. The typeface comes from Pioneer HQ. they wont listen to a little guy like me. If i changed it and they seen it in the ad's I'd get in some sh!t

NeVeR

Gordon wrote: »

Feel the love

A client asked me to layout something for flyers and the printers needed CMYK, 300dpi JPG. (150mm2 ish). Jpg? are printers defaulting to hires jpgs now as opposed to Illustrator/Quark files?

Ya i had this a while back. I made a calendar and they asked for a JPG.

heggie

not good printers! tbh though, it's not really the printers job to check your artwork (although a lot do and probably lose business because of it!) 300 dpi is fine for images, not for text tho.

NeVeR

What should text be ?

heggie

vectors! but failing that 1200 dpi (one hell of a big jpeg)

edit: if you have to use photoshop, make sure you export as an eps to keep the type vectors (and don't rasterise the layer) - zoom into the pdf to see if there is any pixelation on the type, if not then it's a vector

NeVeR

at 1200DPI the file would be 370MB before i add anything to it lol..

heggie

yeah so vector txt is yer only man

Gordon

That's good as the flyer is fairly heavy on large and small text. Luckily it's easy to makeup in illustrator.

I remember years ago when I didn't understand the difference between vectors and rasters I worked in a dept. whos job it wasn't to make artwork but of course were always asked to put together a logo/design from a companys website. Complicated story so I won't go deep into that.

One particular time the artwork was requested and we had to make it up. Send the 72dpi image to China for printing. After a days wait (dangers of working with Chinas time difference) we found that they needed an illustrator file. So we found a copy of Illustrator and worked out how to import the image into an .ai file. Sent it off to China. The next day we get a message complaining about the resolution and rasterisation etc!

Poor printers

NeVeR

Right guys this morning i'm going to attempt using Indesign to make 1 of the layouts.

I'll post what i get,

Thanks.

egan007

Hi Sorry to Hijack your thread but we seem to have a collection of experts.

For a small business that does Web and Print Graphics which of
Illustrator,Quark,InDesign

Would one you recommend.

I currently use Photoshop CS3 and find it great so I'd like something with similar behaviour.
What about the Xpress versions of these where available?

NeVeR

egan007 wrote: »

Hi Sorry to Hijack your thread but we seem to have a collection of experts.

For a small business that does Web and Print Graphics which of
Illustrator,Quark,InDesign

Would one you recommend.

I currently use Photoshop CS3 and find it great so I'd like something with similar behaviour.
What about the Xpress versions of these where available?

With Photoshop for your web work get Indesign for your Print work, It's an adobe product so it's easier to get to grips with, I'm starting to use it and it a nice program.

NeVeR

Right Guys,

heres my attempt on the sonos as with Indesign

http://www.davidstokes.com/work/indesign_sonos2.pdf

heres the old Photoshop one

http://www.davidstokes.com/work/sonos_low_res.pdf now this is low res. I dont think the Indesign one is low res.

Let me know what you think.

NeVeR

Heres another one i've done in Indesign
http://www.davidstokes.com/work/pioneer_man_chest_indesign1.pdf