There is nothing worse than poorly designed artwork or images when you really need to make an impact.

Our talented graphic designer can help you create something amazing that truly brings your vision to life. Whether you require an original artwork or alterations and adjustments made to existing images, Link Media is only too happy to be of service. Feel free to contact us for a quote.

 

Artwork Specs

We want to give you exactly what you want, but for us to be able to do that you need to give us your files how we want. There is heaps of information on our website detailing how files should be submitted but if that's all a bit confusing please feel free to give us a call and someone will be more than happy to walk you through the process.

Basic Specs

  • CMYK
  • 3mm Bleed. Preferably with crop marks
  • 300 dpi Full resolution PDF or JPG
  • All fonts should be embedded or outlined

Payment Details

Payment is on delivery unless you are approved for a 30 day credit account. Your invoice will have Direct Deposit account details (preferred), or you can pay with a company cheque or cash.

We also accept Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

Detailed Artwork Guidelines

We ask our clients to adhere to the following specifications for reliability and compatibility with our workflow. Failure to do so may result in delayed delivery and/or additional charges.

ALL FILES Must be supplied in CMYK, have 3mm bleed and preferably with crop marks, each side as a sepaRate file (or page in a pdf), and named as per our specifications.

Please ensure artwork is set to the correct size.

Accepted software formats (Mac & PC)

  • Adobe InDesign - Include all linked images and convert fonts to outlines
  • Adobe Photoshop - CMYK Colour mode all images at 300dpi and full size plus bleed.
  • Adobe Illustrator - PDF or EPS files. In CMYK colour with all images embedded and text converted to outlines
  • QuarkXPress - Include all linked images and convert fonts to outlines.

CMYK Printing

  • All files Must be supplied CMYK -No RGB Files
  • 3mm bleed and preferably crop marks included
  • 2 sided artwork must send sides as separate Files, or pages in a pdf.
  • No Lab / Swap colour or ICC Colour Profiles are to be used.
  • Please ensure colour management is off when saving files.
  • Spot Colour or Pantone colours to be converted to CMYK

Spot Colour or Pantone Printing

  • Ensure your artwork specifies the specific pantone colour names in your swatch/colour pallet. PLUS remove Process CMYK colours if your not using them.
  • Ensure the colour only appears once in your swatches (no duplications).
  • If you are submitting multiple documents printed with the same spot colours, the naming of those colours must be IDENTICAL between the files.
  • Scans / Colour Images / Rasterised Files must be supplied at 300dpi (to size) at the least
  • Images that are linked in other files must not be scaled to greater than 100%
  • All linked files must be either EPS or Tiff format.
  • Do not use LZW compression.

PDF Settings

We encourage the use of PDF files whenever possible. When supplied correctly they greatly speed up file handling and processing time at our end enabling us to provide you with a quality print job faster.

PDF's should be Press Ready with all fonts embedded. We have provided a Centrum Distiller Job Options package to make this easier for you. Included in our package are Acrobat Distiller and Indesign PDF Export settings that will ensure your PDF's are created using the correct settings for printing at Centrum. You can download our settings package from our download section or by clicking here.

Paper sizes

It is useful to understand a little about standard paper sizes so that you can keep wastage with your print jobs to a minimum.

A Series + a few of our own.
A Series is used for most types of general printing i.e. Stationary, publications, brochures and flyers etc. The most common sizes are A4 for stationary and documents, A5 for books and A6 for postcards. Below illustrates the relationship between the different A sizes. You'll see that all the sizes are in proportion to one another, with A0 being twice the size of A1, which in turn is twice the size of A2 and so on.

  • BC or Pass 55 x 90mm
  • A4 297 x 210 mm
  • A7 74 x105mm
  • A3 297 x 420 mm
  • A6 105 x 148mm
  • A2 594 x 420 mm
  • A5 148 x210 mm
  • A1 594 x 840 mm
  • DL 99 x 210 mm
  • 1 Sheet Poster 700 x 1000 mm
  • DDL 198 x 210 mm
  • 2 Sheet Poster 1000x 1400mm
  • CD 148 x 148 mm
  • Pole poster 345 x 1000 mm

Naming Files / File Names

File names must contain specific information about the job and be set to the following formula.

A) Name of Job B) Size C) Quantity D) Side (front/back)

E.g. CRUISEBAR_A6x5000_front.pdf

Bleeds

When you do not want a white border on your printing and you want the image to extend beyond the edge of the page it is required for you to supply 3mm external bleed off the edge so that when the page is trimmed on a mechanical cutter, small variations in the trim will not result in a white line down the edge of the page.. In addition to this it is also recommended you set up your file with 3mm internal bleed or type area - we recommend you keep all important information at least 3mm in from the trim.

Resolution

  • DPI stands for (dots per inch). If you have a picture/scan within your layout/graphic program, remember that the resolution (DPI) must be correct. For a good quality image to print properly, the DPI (AT THE PRINTED SIZE) needs to be at least 300dpi.
  • CMYK and greyscale raster images (pixel-based/scans) should be no less than 300dpi.
  • Vector/linework/curves should be 800dpi minimum (usually set in preferences).

RGB Images

There are some small differences. Scanners and digital cameras create images using combinations of just three colours: Red, Green and Blue (called "RGB"). These are the colours that computers use to display images on your screen. But printing presses print full colour pictures using a different set of colours: Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow and Black (called "CMYK"). So at some stage your RGB file must be translated to CMYK in order to print it on a printing press. This is easily done using an image editing program like PhotoShop or Corel PhotoPaint.

You will have more control over the appearance of your printed piece if you convert all of the images from RGB to CMYK before sending them to us. When we receive RGB images, we do a standard-value conversion to CMYK, which may not be perfectly to your liking. We want you to be happy, so please, take the time to prepare your file properly. We cannot be responsible for sub-par results if you furnish low-res images or RGB images.

They are said to be "out of the CMYK colour gamut". What happens is that the translator just gets as close as possible to the appearance of the original and that's as good as it can be. It's something that everyone in the industry puts up with. So it's best to select any colours you use for fonts or other design elements in your layout using CMYK definitions instead of RGB.

Rich Black

When you want an area of solid black within the document, 100% black (K) is not enough; use Rich Black, which contains a CMYK mix of 220% as represented by C:40% \ M:40% \ Y:40% \ K:100%. Do not use higher values for C, M and Y; it will create an oily appearance instead of the saturated black you want.

Gradients

Gradients are commonly used in printing and in most instances work fine. However, when a gradient is used it is crucial that it should be created in Adobe Photoshop, which has proven to give good results. Other programs produce gradients of less than 10%, which our RIPs will interpret as 0%. This results in banding or striping, which frequently makes customers unhappy.

Vectors

Vector drawings are defined mathematically. They are Resolution-Independent, so they can be scaled to any size with absolutely no loss of quality. Bitmaps are defined by their pixels, so they cannot be scaled to larger output size without loss of resolution.

Vector/linework/curves should be 800dpi minimum (usually set in preferences).

When sending digital files to us where the original has been designed in a vector-based program such as Adobe Illustrator, you must create outlines. Outlines convert your fonts into a mathematical format. Outlining eliminates the need to send fonts along with your files while still achieving a nice crisp typeface.

When you create an EPS from Adobe Illustrator, you must include a transparent object which represents the overall dimensions of the product. For example, with a business card, a box that is 90x65mm which surrounds the objects on your artboard. Without this surrounding box, Illustrator will shrink the size of the resulting image.

One file for each product ordered please! We cannot accept files that have been laid out with multiple files/images in one side of a document. Please provide one file for the front and one file for the back for two-sided orders.

Scanning

You should scan your images using a resolution of 300dpi at the final dimensions you intend to use them so that your colours will look smooth, and hard objects will look sharp. In other words don't scan at 300dpi and then enlarge the picture by 200% in your layout program! This is another reason why you should not use images that are lifted from websites; they are probably only 72dpi in resolution and will look very blurry if printed on a printing press. See our Resolution page for more information on resolution.

Digital Camera Images

If you are using pictures from your digital camera they will work just fine if they are jpgs; the quality of jpg images from digital cameras seems to be much better than jpgs that are used on the web. You must do the maths to make sure that it is high enough in pixel resolution though. For instance, if your camera puts out a typical image of 1280 x 960 pixels at 72dpi you get about 45cm x 33cm of photograph (at 72dpi); this is the same amount of detail as an image which is 10cm x 8cm at 300dpi so it's safe to reduce or enlarge that image in Publisher up to about 10cm x 8cm in dimension.

Diecutting

If you really want your job to stand out in a crowd, ask about die-cutting. A "die" is a thin piece of metal bent into a particular shape that when pressed into a sheet of paper, it will cut whatever shape it is. We can create a die in just about any shape you would want.

When creating the files for a Die-cut order, remember to leave an extra 15mm of space around the file. This is called "GRIPPER SPACE." The die-cut machine needs this space to grab onto when cutting. In the gripper space you can't have anything you want printed in this area because it has a chance of being cut off. Make this area (gripper space) outside of the usable area of the file

Do you have a design job that’s not listed here?
No problem, just give our friendly design
team a call to get a quote.