Spot Colours
Most company logos and stationery have an assigned PANTONE color to them. This is to ensure a proper ink colour match on an offset press. However it is not always possible to match pantone colours using CMYK printers.

IF COLOURS ARE CRITICAL PLEASE SEND A COLOUR PROOF ALONG WITH ANY COLOUR MATCHES YOU REQUIRE THERE WILL BE AN ADDITIONAL COST.

While we use almost all major commercial software packages, we ask that where colour separations are required, the software application must support separations. For our printing presses, we request that pantone colours be used for all applications where colour separations are required.

White is not an ink colour - we cannot print white. Typically where white is visible it is the colour of the paper stock that is showing through an inked surface.

File Formats
By far the easiest format to print from and avoid conflicts is PDF. PDF-Press or Print Optimized is the best setting. Page size must be set to the trim size plus 3mm bleed all around if necessary. Images & graphics must be in CMYK format. You can convert almost any document using a number of online PDF converters. Click here to convert your file to PDF.

Adobe PhotoShop CS3 or earlier: Preferred settings are: CMYK, 300dpi at full size. Image size must be set to the trim size plus 3mm bleed all around if necessary.

Adobe Illustrator CS3 or earlier: Include all images used. Convert fonts to outlines to avoid font conflict. Page size must be set to the trim size of your job. Bleeds should extend 3mm beyond the page area.

InDesign CS3 or earlier: Include all fonts and images used. Convert fonts to outlines if possible to avoid font conflict.

Corel Draw 14 or earlier: Include all images used, text should be converted to curves. Bleeds should extend 3mm beyond the page area.

Quark Xpress 5.0 or earlier: Include all fonts and images used. Page size must be set to the trim size of your job. Bleeds should extend 3mm beyond the page area.

MS Office documents, including: Word, Powerpoint, Excel and Publisher. While we can open and print from these formats there is often a conflict with the fonts used or the version of the document supplied. To get around this, simply convert the document to a PDF.

Resolution
Making sure your files or images are in the correct Image Resolution (referred to sometimes as DPI or PPI) is crucial for non-pixelated images, and great looking prints. A rule for print is an image resolution of 300 DPI, the minimum would be 150 DPI. Other resolutions can be printed, but will suffer quality loss.

Pictures off the internet: Some customers provide us with images that have been downloaded from the internet, which are generally low resolution images intended for screen viewing, not printing. These will always print out blurry, jagged and poor. Avoid using them if at all possible.

Bleed, Trim & Live Area
Not many printers are able to print to the edge of a sheet. Bleed is the term for printing that goes over the trimmed border of the paper, letting colour run right up to the outer edge. All layout packages allow you set up for bleed. When we get your file we print it then trim it to the required size. Any image outside the trim area is cut off, leaving colour running right up to the freshly cut edge. For cutting purposes, bleeds must extend 5mm (or 1/8") beyond intended trim. Margins: Inset borders must be at least 5mm inside the trim edge.

Package Your File / send PDF proof
Make sure that you provide detailed instructions if your print job is something outside of the ordinary. It is our practice to consider digital art as production ready. Additional charges will be incurred for imposing, bleed correction, typesetting and design.

TIFF - (Tagged Image File Format) is a high resolution loss-less file format that is ideal for saving images for print.

DPI - Dots per inch (DPI) is a measure of spatial printing or video dot density, in particular the number of individual dots that can be placed within the span of one linear inch (2.54 cm). The DPI value tends to correlate with image resolution, but is related only indirectly.

PPI - Pixels per inch or pixel density is a measurement of the resolution of devices in various contexts; typically computer displays, image scanners or digital camera image sensors.

Image Resolution - describes the detail an image holds. The term applies equally to digital images, film images, and other types of images. Higher resolution means more image detail.

EPS - Encapsulated PostScript is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions intended to make EPS files usable as a graphics file format. In other words, EPS files are more-or-less self-contained, reasonably predictable PostScript documents that describe an image or drawing, that can be placed within another PostScript document.

Process Color - referred to as process color or four color, is a subtractive color model, used in color printing, also used to describe the printing process itself. CMYK refers to the four inks used in most color printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and key black.

PANTONE Color - The PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM is the definitive international reference for selecting, specifying, matching and controlling ink colors.

Email proofs: (soft proofs) are available upon request, however, screen colours do not represent printed colours and therefore cannot be used for colour proofing purposes.

Supplying us with correct, ready to print artwork is your responsibility. Please check your artwork carefully before submitting it to us. Print Three cannot accept responsibility for print errors or late deliveries where artwork has been supplied incorrectly.