bailey.sandra•5d agoMost Upvoted

The print shop guy who fixed my file in 30 seconds

I was at a small print shop in Portland last year trying to get 500 business cards done. The guy behind the counter looked at my PDF and just said "your bleeds are 0.1 inch off" without even pulling out a ruler. He showed me the gap on his screen and how it would leave a white sliver along the edge. I had been designing for 3 years and never noticed that little detail. Has anyone else had a printing pro point out something obvious you missed?

2 comments

2 Comments

emmar755d ago

Did you check your color space too? I learned the hard way that RGB files can print way darker than what you see on screen. Always convert to CMYK before sending it off. Bleeds matter a ton too - I usually set mine to 0.125 inches just to be safe after getting burned once.

janahenderson5d ago

Got burned once" - that's the exact phrase that makes me shudder thinking about my first wedding invite disaster. I had the CMYK conversion right but totally forgot about the paper type. Like, the same ink on glossy paper versus uncoated is a whole different ballgame. With uncoated paper, everything looks duller and muddier, so I had to bump up my saturation by like 15% just to get it looking right. Also, don't forget to check your total ink coverage - anything over 300% can end up looking like a black blob instead of a dark color. Learned that one the hard way when my navy blue came out looking like I accidentally spilled ink on it.