How to Successfully Print Online

Have you gotten lost in the land of online printing? You aren’t sure what they mean when they talk about resolution, or bleed, or trim size, or CMYK. All you wanted to do was get some business cards printed cheap, and now you’ve spent hours trying to decipher all this printing-speak. Well, no fear! The folks at youthedesigner.com partnered with UPrinting.com to bring you this handy checklist, along with some helpful facts about all the terms!

A few key points:

• This list is brought to you by Uprinting.com. This list is specific to their requirements. So, for instance, the size section talks about needing an extra .25 inches added to your artwork. But some printers require an extra .125 inches or an extra .5 inches.
• No matter where you are printing, your files will need to be at least 300dpi for good quality printing. That means that photo you stole off someone’s website isn’t going to print so well on your brochure! (screen resolution is only 72dpi, and you shouldn’t be stealing anyway!)
• My favorite point (and this is just good practice for ANYONE… ANYWHERE… for ANY reason). Right now, pull out your smartphone or digital camera. Check your resolution settings. Are you taking photos at the highest resolution possible? Because, really, there is no good reason you should have that set at the lowest setting. You never know when you might be interested in printing that photo.

Courtesy of: YouTheDesigner