For those of you doing DIY paper stuff, are you printing them at home on your ink jet printer, or are you having someone else do the printing? Who are you using and what type of printing are you having done? What's the typical price ranges of having them printed?
I printed my own on a laser printer and while the quality was good the ink didn't set into the paper as well as I had hoped and they are smudgeable (yes, I made up that word). I would bring them somewhere to have the professionally printed in hindsight. By the time I noticed my problem I was too far into it to stop.
I ended up printing mine on my home inkjet printer.
However, I wanted to print them at Kinkos or Staples but that did not work out. I had designed mine in Publisher and Kinkos had problems reading it. Staples printed them off for me & cut them for a wonderful price tag of $25! But the fonts were not correct & the back of my RSVP did not print off correctly(their printer wasn't reading it correctly). With all of these problems, I ended up printing them at home.
Tips when using a printing company:
Make sure to design in an easy to use software.
Check the font! Make sure the printing company has it.
Do NOT design very image heavy invites.
Make sure they print off an example before they print the entire batch!
Tips when printing at home:
Make sure everything is aligned correctly! This can take time & lots of patience!
Check & compare pricing on paper.
It will take alot of ink!
Can be more expensive. Buying the paper, ink, cutting, etc. can add up!
I would definately recommend designing your own & having them printed at a printing company!
We printed ours at home and I wouldn't have done it any other way! It was a pain at times, but I'm so super picky that I knew I wouldn't be happy if I didn't do it myself.
My dad's a freelance graphic artist who worked out of our home while I was growing up and being homeschooled. I use to go with him to the printer for midnight proofing sessions, one of the unique funs of being homeschooled. The printer used to HATE him because he would send it back a dozen times until it aligned to the PIXEL (yep! He would get out the magnifying loop!)! I knew I'd be the same way and probably get kicked out of Kinkos.
Depending on your printer you could go through a lot of ink. I have one of the HP photo printers that has 6 ink cartradges plus a large black one and it wasn't bad at all because I was able to replace only the ones I was using up. And since you've probably got a color scheme you're working with you'll probably use up more of some of the colors than the others.
I used a lot of different paper depending on what I wanted and ended up using a lot of photo paper because the colors came out a lot brighter on it then on card stock. I'd recommend doing some experimenting with your home printer and maybe taking a sample to kinkos to see how it looks before you get too far into it.
One of the big things that kept me sane was figuring out what my margins for my printer were and then working with them instead of against them! Don't design something that goes an 1/8 of an inch from the bottom of the page if your printer requires a 1/2 an inch margin on the bottom. That'll make you want to pull your hair out! Let me know if you have any other specific questions.
iheartperiwinkle, printers should be able to open a photoshop file depending on the version you have vs. the version they have. If they have problems though, just do a "save as" and save it as a jpg file. Anyone should be able to open that! Good luck!
My sister has a silk screen company so she printed/ is printing my stuff for me. If she couldn't do it, I was going to just print them on my ink jet printer. Her company is Nightingale Printing Press, but I'm not sure of her pricing.
we designed our invites in Adobe Illustrator. Typically printing companies prefer an eps file ( NOT photoshop - though they may have suggestions for converting it )
If you're going to take a document from your home computer to a print shop and you don't know the exact software they have, probably the safest thing to do is to save as or print to a pdf. Reading a pdf shouldn't be a problem for anyone.
You'll keep better image quality on a pdf than a jpeg, it's more geared towards printing, and some programs (like InDesign) don't rasterize fonts before they save as a pdf, so you'll get cleaner lines.
That's how all my printed materials will be saved down before I bring them in to work (probably on a weekend) where I'm lucky enough to use one of our laser printers.
If you go to a place like kinkos, they prefer converting your files to a PDF. its good because they can't change the file unless they convert it to a design program.
If you plan on taking it to someone, converting to pdf is the way too go.
not .jpg.....JPG's reduce the quality of the pixels cause they shrink the image. PDF (adobe acrobat reader) is available pretty much on every computer and for FREE download at the Adobe website. It's good for carrying stuff around.
inkjet vs. laser.....any inkjet will smudge your prints sometimes if you touch them (sweaty hands) or at contact with water. Laser printers are supposed to prevent all that but they have to be truly LASER and not laser-like.
For those of you doing DIY paper stuff, are you printing them at home on your ink jet printer, or are you having someone else do the printing? Who are you using and what type of printing are you having done? What's the typical price ranges of having them printed?
posted by iheartperiwinkle 52 posts 2 months agoI printed my own on a laser printer and while the quality was good the ink didn't set into the paper as well as I had hoped and they are smudgeable (yes, I made up that word). I would bring them somewhere to have the professionally printed in hindsight. By the time I noticed my problem I was too far into it to stop.
good luck.
posted by MsB 212 posts 2 months agoI ended up printing mine on my home inkjet printer.
However, I wanted to print them at Kinkos or Staples but that did not work out. I had designed mine in Publisher and Kinkos had problems reading it. Staples printed them off for me & cut them for a wonderful price tag of $25! But the fonts were not correct & the back of my RSVP did not print off correctly(their printer wasn't reading it correctly). With all of these problems, I ended up printing them at home.
Tips when using a printing company:
Tips when printing at home:
I would definately recommend designing your own & having them printed at a printing company!
posted by misssnowflake 23 posts 2 months agoI designed mine in Adobe photoshop. Anyone know if that's a common program. I guess I'll just need to call around.
THANKS HIVE!
posted by iheartperiwinkle 52 posts 2 months agoWe printed ours at home and I wouldn't have done it any other way! It was a pain at times, but I'm so super picky that I knew I wouldn't be happy if I didn't do it myself.
My dad's a freelance graphic artist who worked out of our home while I was growing up and being homeschooled. I use to go with him to the printer for midnight proofing sessions, one of the unique funs of being homeschooled. The printer used to HATE him because he would send it back a dozen times until it aligned to the PIXEL (yep! He would get out the magnifying loop!)! I knew I'd be the same way and probably get kicked out of Kinkos.
Depending on your printer you could go through a lot of ink. I have one of the HP photo printers that has 6 ink cartradges plus a large black one and it wasn't bad at all because I was able to replace only the ones I was using up. And since you've probably got a color scheme you're working with you'll probably use up more of some of the colors than the others.
I used a lot of different paper depending on what I wanted and ended up using a lot of photo paper because the colors came out a lot brighter on it then on card stock. I'd recommend doing some experimenting with your home printer and maybe taking a sample to kinkos to see how it looks before you get too far into it.
One of the big things that kept me sane was figuring out what my margins for my printer were and then working with them instead of against them! Don't design something that goes an 1/8 of an inch from the bottom of the page if your printer requires a 1/2 an inch margin on the bottom. That'll make you want to pull your hair out! Let me know if you have any other specific questions.
Sorry this was so long!!! Good luck!
posted by bonniebelle101 291 posts 2 months agoiheartperiwinkle, printers should be able to open a photoshop file depending on the version you have vs. the version they have. If they have problems though, just do a "save as" and save it as a jpg file. Anyone should be able to open that! Good luck!
posted by bonniebelle101 291 posts 2 months agoMy sister has a silk screen company so she printed/ is printing my stuff for me. If she couldn't do it, I was going to just print them on my ink jet printer. Her company is Nightingale Printing Press, but I'm not sure of her pricing.
posted by jessica41809 16 posts 2 months agoWe had our invites letterpressed from Mercurio Brothers Letterpress. We designed the invites ourselves and sent Mercurio the files.
http://www.mercuriobrothers.com/
The invitations came out beautifully! We were so happy with the results and I would highly recommend Mercurio. A Fantastic company!
http://mercuriobrothers.com/letterpress_samples_
posted by shanaG 5 posts 2 months agoalso: ihearperiwinkle
we designed our invites in Adobe Illustrator. Typically printing companies prefer an eps file ( NOT photoshop - though they may have suggestions for converting it )
posted by shanaG 5 posts 2 months agoIf you're going to take a document from your home computer to a print shop and you don't know the exact software they have, probably the safest thing to do is to save as or print to a pdf. Reading a pdf shouldn't be a problem for anyone.
You'll keep better image quality on a pdf than a jpeg, it's more geared towards printing, and some programs (like InDesign) don't rasterize fonts before they save as a pdf, so you'll get cleaner lines.
That's how all my printed materials will be saved down before I bring them in to work (probably on a weekend) where I'm lucky enough to use one of our laser printers.
posted by MissSauce 65 posts 2 months agoIf you go to a place like kinkos, they prefer converting your files to a PDF. its good because they can't change the file unless they convert it to a design program.
If you plan on taking it to someone, converting to pdf is the way too go.
GL!
posted by joods 5 posts 2 months ago.PDF files are the way to go!
not .jpg.....JPG's reduce the quality of the pixels cause they shrink the image. PDF (adobe acrobat reader) is available pretty much on every computer and for FREE download at the Adobe website. It's good for carrying stuff around.
inkjet vs. laser.....any inkjet will smudge your prints sometimes if you touch them (sweaty hands) or at contact with water. Laser printers are supposed to prevent all that but they have to be truly LASER and not laser-like.
posted by V 232 posts 2 months agoYou can also create margins and crop marks for your stuff so that at printing and cutting time you have enought space for all your info.
Good luck.
posted by V 232 posts 2 months agoFYI, Adobe photoshop WILL let you save them as PDF.
posted by V 232 posts 2 months agoI have an inkjet printer... and bought highly finished paper (has a metallic sheen)... I just printed a sample up last week and it smudged!