Easiprint Artwork Supply Guide

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The Easiprint Guide to Supplying Print Ready Artwork

• The basics of supplying artwork files • Artwork for Digital Metallic Foil Printing • Artwork for Digital Spot Gloss Overprints • Digital Die Cutting Guidelines

Let’s Make Your Print Look Great

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The Basics Great looking print starts with great looking, print ready artwork.

There are some basic rules to follow when creating artwork to ensure there are no nasty surprises when your job is delivered. ● PDF files will always give the best results. Either convert text to curves or include the fonts used with your order. ● If using images in your print, make sure they are 300dpi. Anything less than this may look pixilated when printed. Images downloaded from the web are usually low resolution and will not print well. ● Please supply artwork with a 3mm bleed and crop marks. We also recommend leaving a 3mm ‘safe zone’ inside the trimmed area. ● Avoid using thin lines or borders around the edge of your design.

When printing your orders, there are often very small shifts in position on each page, which is unavoidable. When we trim the sheets, this movement may cause thin borders to become uneven, spoiling the finished look. ● When supplying artwork for booklets, please supply in sequential order with one page per page in your PDF. Our systems are set up to create the printers pairs automatically.

As our name suggests, we are here to make your print buying easy. So if the above guidance makes no sense, do not worry! Just send us the files you have and we will happily help!!

- extend background images and colour by 3mm to allow us to trim without leaving white edges.

- keep all important bits out of this 2mm zone to avoid them being cut into when trimmed.

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- used when trimming your print by our guillotine

- imaginary line to show where your print will be trimmed to.

Most creative software packages will allow you to export PDF files with these options selected. They may be called Printers Marks, or Crop Marks, or Bleed.

Publisher for example has these tick boxes in the Print Options box of the PDF Export option.

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Digital Metallic Foil Overprinting Digital Metallic Foil Printing is a quick and cost effective alternative to traditional hot foil stamping. These special finishes can be applied to products printed on 250gsm stocks and above without the expense of metal plates. The process used is a four part process: 1. We print the full colour part of the design first on SRA3 sheets.

2. We then add a luxurious soft touch velvet lamination layer to seal the colour print.

3. The sheets are then put back through our press to overprint in 100% black where the foil elements will be.

4. The sheets are put through our foiling machine where metallic foil is applied to the areas printed black in Step 3 above.

Because foil print is always printed separately to everything else, there is an unavoidable risk of some micro movement of the print from one sheet to the next. Therefore, when creating your design, make sure you allow for this small movement by not creating foil elements which must line up perfectly with other print. Typical shift between sheets is less than 0.5mm, so is not usually noticeable, but on some designs this may cause a problem.

It’s also best to only foil areas with a solid print, as the foil needs solid black print to stick to. Avoid greyscales and very thin lines.

When supplying artwork files, we need the artwork to be supplied as two separate pages per side.

Page one should be the colour print elements of the design without any of the foil parts. Page two should then be the elements you want foiled, but set in 100% black only.

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Digital Metallic Foil Overprinting

- PDF file supplied with all the colour parts of the design.

- PDF file supplied with the foiled elements separately in 100% black.

Thank You

Colour print with Thank You overprinted in foil

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Digital Spot Gloss Overprinting Digital Spot Gloss Overprinting is a way of creating stunning contrast effects with both text and images. A matt finish is applied to the sheet, with specific elements highlighted in high gloss. It can create amazing effects by applying it to text or logos, and can make photographs really stand out.

The effect is very similar to Spot UV Varnish, but is different in the way it is produced and does have some limitations. Our Digital Spot Gloss involves printing the non gloss print first, then adding a matt lamination to seal the print. The areas to be Spot Gloss are then overprinted by our digital press before running back through the laminator to apply the clear gloss film which only adheres to the areas of overprinted toner. Because the gloss only adheres to toner areas, this does mean areas of white or light print will not gloss well.

When supplying artwork for our Digital Spot Gloss Overprint, we require two pages per side in the file. The first page should contain all the Non Spot Gloss print and the second page the glossy bits.

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Hi

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Digital Spot Gloss Overprinting In this example, the artwork shown would produce a black printed card with the letters Hi and the photo highlighted in high gloss:

Things to bear in mind when designing for Digital Spot Gloss Overprint: ● Amazing effects can be achieved by overprinting a coloured background with text, patterns or logos in the same colour. As in the example above, by printing the word Hi in black over black, it creates a high gloss effect with real impact. ● It is possible to apply the Digital Spot Gloss to any colour, so photos can be Spot Gloss finished. However, areas in a photo which are really light may not gloss solidly. ● If creating a design with a spot gloss photo or logo on a dark background, you must leave a white area on your non glossed artwork page or the overprinted photo will not show due to the dark background behind. For example, printing yellow over a black background will not show as yellow, so you must leave a white background. Also remember the micro movements between sheets may leave a white edge on some small elements. ● Some designs may just not be possible using Digital Spot Gloss - if in doubt, just ask us.

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Digital Die & Kiss Cutting

Artwork for digital cutting should be supplied with the cut pattern on a separate page or PDF file. The following colour code should be used where possible, as our software is programmed to recognise these colours automatically.

Die Cuts

Magenta

Kiss Cuts

Red

Crease Cyan

Perforate Yellow

ACME PRODUCTS

Our Digital Die Cutter is a twin head, fully automated, suction fed SRA3 cutter, which uses QR code technology and optical registration for perfectly positioned cuts on each and every sheet. It offers die cutting (full depth cuts), kiss cutting (surface layer cut for stickers), creasing and perforating all in one machine, making it great for kiss cut labels, shaped flyers and even small packaging boxes.

Set with all printed elements, bleed and crop marks.

Set with cut lines in magenta and crease lines in cyan.