Alphabet Soup Illustrator - Third Session

These are the notes that I made from the third and last Illustrator Induction. In this session we learnt how to save a document for either screen or print.

Preparing For Print

When setting up a document for print it is important to first check 4 things:

• Document/Artboard Size - for this brief that is A1 (594mm x 841mm)
• Resolution - print 300ppi, screen 72ppi
• Colour Mode - print CMYK, screen RGB

If a colour is not in the CMYK printing colours it is called 'out of gamut'. The way to see whether a colour right to use in Illustrator, you can check by looking on the 'Colour Picker'. If the top box at the right of the pallet has a triangle warning above it then it isn't the right one.

• File Formats - certain file formats are suitable to save when the image is intended for print and others for screen.

The file formats that are saved for print are called 'lossless' because they are uncompressed. File formats that are saved for screen are called 'lossy' because they are compressed.

File Formats

The file formats that are used for screen are

• .jpeg
• .png
• .gif

The file formats that are used for print are

• .Ai - Illustrator file
• .Psd - Photoshop file
• .Ind - InDesign file

These 3 are software specific formats. They are good to use when working on something, but not when sending off to the printers because

  - someone else could edit it.

  - someone else could steal it.

  - the printers may not have the right software to open it.

• .tiff
• .ps
• .pdf - portable document format
• .eps - encapsulated postscript file

The bottom 2 formats are the 2 main industry file formats used when sending them off to commercial printing.