High Quality Custom Printing for Catholic Organizations
and Catholic Owned or Managed Entities
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The purpose of this section is to help you create the best artwork possible for your print jobs. You are not alone! We will make sure your products are correctly set up and look exactly the way you want them to before they are printed. We decided to frequently state this policy throughout our website so that you know that we care as much about your printed products as you do. We are here to help you build the Kingdom of God. It is our great joy and pleasure to help in this endeavor.
Artwork Basics
Here are a few things to keep in mind as you create your artwork.
1. Please be sure to download the appropriate template for the product you are ordering and use it in your design. This can help you to make certain that your design will fit properly within the confines of the chosen media size. You can access the product templates here:
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2. More doesn't always mean better when it comes to artwork. People have a tendency to fill up all available space when creating artwork. This is not an issue as long as it doesn't obscure your main message.
3. Know your pixels and vectors. Most designs will be composed of both pixel and vector images. See below for a further explanation.
Vectors:
Vectors are lines. So, vectorized images are basically images composed of lines. Text is usually always created in vector format. There are no pixels in vector art. So, vector art is completely scalable to a larger size with no distortion. They can be created in different formats such as ai, cdr, eps, or svg. A vectorized circle, for example, is simply a round continuous line with color in the middle. The same circle in a pixelated format may contain thousands of individual pixels.
Pixels:
You have probably seen images that are somewhat distorted, particularly around the edges. They have a "pixelated" or "stair-steppy" look to them. What you are seeing are the pixels that make up the image. In general, images tend to be made up of thousands of pixels. They can be created in different formats such as jpeg, png and bmp. An image is created with a set number of pixels and cannot be changed. So, when the image is enlarged to a greater size, the pixels simply become larger. More of them are not created. Therefore, they are easier to see, leading to a pixelated look. The way to prevent this is by using higher quality images. High quality images were created that way from the beginning. They simply have more pixels in a given space. A photo taken at a high quality level contains more pixels than one taken at a low quality level, and can therefore, be scaled up to a greater size with little or no noticeable pixelation.
What to Do:
Many designs may require both pixelated and vectorized artwork. The first thing to do is to create the design at the same scale it will be printed. If it looks good on your screen with little to no observable pixelation, it will probably look OK when printed. So, if you are designing an 8.5 x 11 brochure, create your design the same size. The next thing you can do is to ensure that you are using high quality images in your design. The more pixels the better. A general rule of thumb is use or create pixelated images at 300 PPI (pixels per inch). Most images taken from the internet are low quality and may not be adequate for printing.