Design
& Order your Prayer Card in:
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Can I design my own file?
With
the plethora of do-it-yourself software
packages on the market today, it is not surprising that many
people would like to design their own file and have us print it.
And because of the promises of these software package to create
"professional-looking images", many customers are disappointed
when we say their file is not printable on our presses. To save
you from such disappointment, please read the following to see
if your file will work in a commercial printing process, and if
it won't, how we can use your file anyway.
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What kind of printing does DPI do?
DPI
offers low cost, professionally designed and printed prayer cards
for those in ministry. By “professionally designed”,
we do not simply mean a “professional-looking design”.
There are many software packages
out there, including MS Office, which claim (and do) create professional-looking
designs. However, though this software makes nice looking files,
a commercial printing press generally cannot print them.
With the exception
of photo cards (which are developed as photos), DPI uses a commercial
printing process for our cards (a “four color press”).
This means that we need a professionally rendered file in order
to print. This requires a precise bleed, an adequate gutter, the
correct color space, and the exact resolution which will
cover the card in 300dpi or 350dpi depending on the type of card.
If you want to design your own card, you must understand what
all of the above things mean and be able to do them exactly. In
most cases, unless you are professionally trained as a designer
and/or are using professional design software, it will be difficult
to create a file usable in a commercial printing context.
If you think you can create a full design and would like our specs
and/or template for a particular type of card, contact
us, and we would be happy to provide them for you.
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Some Examples of Professional Design Software:
There are a few types
professional design software, and many kinds of “professional-looking”
software that are inadequate in a commercial context. Here are
some examples:
| Professional
Software
When designed correctly, we can print files from:
- Adobe
Photoshop
- Adobe
Illustrator
- QuarkXpress
- Macromedia
Freehand
There are
a very few others, though most will require more specifications
than we can easily give. |
Nice,
but Non-Professional Software
These packages cannot create a file for use on a commercial
printer:
- All Microsoft
Office software (Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, etc.)
- PicUSA
- Kodak
EASYSHARE, or other “Photo Sharing” software
- Word Perfect
- MS Paint
There are
plenty more |
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What can I do with this file I have designed?
If you have created
a file with your own computer but don’t think it will be
printable, don’t despair!! You
have several very good options! Probably the best thing to do
is to give it to one of our designers and let them use it as a
“mockup”. This means that they will create a professional
design based on the one you made at home. Your card will still
have many if not most of your personal touches, and the
final product will be a professionally made card! You could also
hire a designer to do this for you, though that could be a good
deal more expensive. Finally, if you really want the design you
created printed as is, you could also take it to your neighborhood
copy shop (Kinkos, Copy Cop, etc.) and print it there on their
laser printers. The quality will not be as good as a full commercial
press, and it may ultimately be more expensive than what we can
give you, but it would be your design as is. |
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