Tutorial: Setting up your Photoshop files properly

It is important to make sure your file being submitted is set up properly to avoid any unforeseen delays and extra costs incurred. Remember for any job to be printed to have your files set up with a bleed and the proper resolution. We require at least 300 dpi (fyi: dpi = dots per inch) for any print job. Here's how to check your files in Photoshop:

1. Our flyer is a quarter page (4.25" x 5.5") so canvas size is currently set up at 4.5" x 5.75" to account for the bleed. An extra .25" inch is added to both the length and width of the file to make this bleed as you'll notice. This is correct, and our file is set up for CMYK which is also correct. Now we will check the image size for resolution.

2. Select Image from the menu bar, then select Image Size. See the image below.



3. A Image Size dialogue window appears, see below. There are three aspects here to take notice to insure your file is set up correctly. The first two aspect is the width and height of the document size. Below we see that as we noted above it is set up correctly for our quarter page size plus the extra size for the bleed.

Now the third and most important aspect is looking at the resolution. Below we see it is set up 300 pixels / inch (or dpi). This is correct. Anything higher in resolution is accepted, however anything less than 300 dpi will not guarantee a professional looking product and might look bitmapped, grainy, or generally just low-resolution.

4. Your file's size is set up correctly.

5. If possible, save your Photoshop file as a Photoshop EPS. The settings to enter for your Photoshop EPS when prompted will be:

Preview: Tiff (8 bits/pixel)

Encoding: JPEG (maximum quality)

Leave the other boxes as they are.

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