when building your first ad, be it for you local phonebook or newpaper there are a few things you'll want to know
Information & Hints
DPI Vs. Pixels
Size: DPI= Dots per inch, Pixels are those dots. say your making a 3"x4" ad at 300 dpi, that is equivelant to 900x1200 pixels
once you have this formula down you can make you ads using nearly any program, Paint Programs Generally use Pixels
where DTP (Desk Top Publishing) software uses DPI
Color: RGB, CMYK, GRAYSCALE & B&W
RGB = Red, Green and Blue (used in TV’s and Monitors)
CMYK = Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & Black (used by Professional Printers, Color Laser and Inkjet)
Greyscale = shades of black, often 256 shades or less
B&W = Black and White, 2 colors
** RGB/CMYK, RGB uses light to make the colors on your screen, CMYK uses dark or ink to make the colors on paper this is why what you see on your monitor
rarely matches what is printed
Bleeds: Wiki
Bleed is a printing term that refers to printing that goes beyond the edge of the sheet after trimming. The bleed is the part on the side of a document that gives the
printer a small amount of
space to account for movement of the paper, and design inconsistencies. Bleed ensures that no unprinted edges occur in the final trimmed document.
Bleeds in the USA generally are 1/8 of an inch from where the cut is to be made. Bleeds in the UK and Europe generally are 2 to 5mm from where the cut is to be
made.
This can vary from print company to print company. Some printers ask for specific sizes; most of these companies place the specific demands on their website.
File Formats: Wiki
Image file formats are standardized means of organizing and storing digital images. Image files are composed of either pixels, vector (geometric) data, or a
combination of the two.
Whatever the format, the files are rasterized to pixels when displayed on most graphic displays.
Compression:
There are two types of image file compression algorithms: lossless and lossy.
Lossless compression algorithms reduce file size without losing image quality, though they are not compressed into as small a file as a lossy compression file.
When image quality is valued above file size, lossless algorithms are typically chosen.
Lossy compression algorithms take advantage of the inherent limitations of the human eye and discard invisible information.
Most lossy compression algorithms allow for variable quality levels (compression) and as these levels are increased, file size is reduced.
At the highest compression levels, image deterioration becomes noticeable as "compression artifacting".
Jpeg or .jpg is the most common and widely accepted, it using Lossy Compression
Tiff or .tif widely used in DTP, is Lossless and correctly hold the DPI information
PNG or .png this is another nice format to use
PDF or .pdf this is a Portable Document Format
Often when sending a .jpg image as a ad, even though you made the file at correct size (DPI/Pixel) it will show up as 72dpi, its a simple matter for Publishers to
changes this, they tend to however return your image with a request to correct the DPI, your best option is to re-save the image as a .tif and return it to them.
what happens is the .jpg compression routine sets everything to 72 dpi for better compression here is an example: we made a 4x5 image at 300 dpi (1200x1500
pixels) when saved as .jpg it shows as a 16.66x20.83 inch image
way huge and Low resolution, being low res is not really true as the image is over size all a Publisher has to do is size it, take about 2 seconds, why they won’t? I
have no idea.
**Making ads in word format (.doc) or any other format that is proprietary to a specific platform or program is not recommended and will only cause problems,
unless you are handing in printed material. most publication accept e-mailed files in specific formats, check with them before sending anything.
#1 HINT: making Black Backgrounds with white text is not eye catching nor appealing, mostly considered a waste of ink, best to use gradients or patterns
Depends on whether or not you just making your own ads, there is alot to learn, hear we will concentrate on you making your own ad’s
additional information can be found by Googling it
Graphic Arts
