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Help me fix this! (PS/printing/monogram)
So I designed a monogram for a friend in PS (slowly learning how, I know it isn't the best program, but it works and it's all I have). I sent it to her at 300 PPI and it printed out like this:
Apparently her friend is printing it for her and her description was "...the date at the bottom of the monogram
does not come out clearly. The monogram comes out looking more like a
stamp with slightly rough edges, than smooth lines".
My understanding is that this is just a quality/resolution problem. Any suggestions for what a 'good' resolution is? And also, I sent it as a PNG, is there a better file type? I know that JPEG won't let the background be transparent and that TIFF might be good, but that made the file ginormous (so big I couldn't email it unless the PPI was 480, which made it then look blurry. It's fine if the file is big and I just give it to her on a jump drive or something, I just have no idea what I should expect for this kind of thing. Thanks!
Re: Help me fix this! (PS/printing/monogram)
You need to send it as a PDF or, if you can't send a PDF, a high res GIF. And don't bother changing the DPI. Going higher than 300 is pointless. I would probably guess that part of it is also that it's Photoshop, which is really meant for photo editing and not with text. You'd want a vector based program (like Illustrator) to do a lot of text with.
ETA: I read too fast, sorry. I would say if you're going to stick with it, try and get Illustrator.
JPEG isn't what you want because, according to my graphic design teacher in college, it degrades when you open it up. GIF allows it to be transparent too, though it doesn't matter when printing if you leave background white because white = paper. Obviously, if it goes on the computer screen on a colored background, that's when transparency gets important.
TTC Baby #2 - BFP on 12/14/11 @ 10DPO - CP confirmed 12/18/11
BFP #2 on 1/13/12
thanks - yeah, I only have PS right now (and this isn't a job or anything, just something on the side I did for fun, so I'm not sure if I want to invest in this yet). So I tried those options...
PDF: made parts of the monogram go away (no idea why... there were a lot of options for how to save it, so I don't know what to choose)
GIF: completely disappeared
lol this is ridiculous. So yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing. When I made ours for our wedding, I just did everything in Ppt and then resized it by hand, now that I'm trying to do this for someone else I wanted it to be a simple file (obviously) and now I'm lost. Thanks for helping
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What size is the finished product going to be? That will make a difference in how you need to save it as well.
From Photoshop I would recommend saving it as an EPS or TIFF. But, I would make sure that you have it set to a size that is easily scaled to your finished product.
hm, this is a good point. She told me she wants to put in on the program, so I imagine it isn't that big, I'll double check what I have it at though. thanks!
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How exactly are you saving? File -> Save as? Are you saving it as a high-quality print when you do the file -> save as for PDF?
For GIF, you should be doing file -> Save for Web.
TTC Baby #2 - BFP on 12/14/11 @ 10DPO - CP confirmed 12/18/11
BFP #2 on 1/13/12
Another consideration - did you stretch the text on your own vs. increasing the point size. That could contribute to the poor quality with some fonts.
I agree, you would not need anything greater than 300dpi to achieve a good output.
Ok, one more thing. Sounds like someone else entirely is printing this and maybe you don't know what they are using to open the file? So perhaps you would want to find out the program size so you could save the file with that in mind. Maybe their program is stretching it.
Sure a JPEG deteriorates over time but I"m sure that is not the case here so no need to use a TIFF file.
Yes, doing the File -> Save As, not sure about the "high-quality print" part... I'll look at that again. I definitely didn't do what you said for GIF, so I could try that too.
I changed the point size, so I don't think that's the problem. Thanks for the other ideas though, I'll look into that.
thanks again everyone for all the help!
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Hi-
I agree with the PP's and want to add make sure you have the "anto-alias" on. Not sure what version of PS you have (I have Elements" but if you search for it within the program it may help with the pixelation.
HTH
oh great, thanks! I'll look into that too.
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