Large Poster Design - Help Needed

aoife161

Hi All
I'm by no means an expert when it comes to graphic design, but I got roped into making a big poster for a friend of mine. Their work needs it done. I'm confident I can make something that looks good, but I haven't a clue about the ins and outs of things when it comes to size, DPI or what printers require.

Basically its a 60 inches in length by 40 inches. So its BIG.
Anyway normally if I'm doing anything for print, I'll set it to 300 DPI. But when I create a document this size in Photoshop @ 300DPI its MASSIVE! Like 60MB or something.

So what should i do? Create it using illustrator and forget about Photoshop? That way I can send off a PDF, which I think can be blown up and will still keep its integrity.

OR....and I way off here !! If so please give me your advice.

Thanks a lot.

p

What is on the poster? If it's mainly text & shapes use Illustrator if you know it.

You could always make it 200dpi if you're concerned about file-size, but quality will suffer.

Print quality things are big, if your computer can handle it, there's no reason to lower the quality.

flanree

You'd be surprised how low a resolution large format printers will print. I have seen 10% of actual size at 300 dpi blown up to a large format poster (and it looked pretty good!). You can always save it as a max res jpeg at actual size, 300 dpi which will be good enough quality but dramatically reduce the file size. Be sure to change it to CMYK colour before going to print, if it looks dull converted from RGB adjust the brightness / contrast to give it a lift.

aoife161

Hey thanks guys.
I decided to go the Illustrator route, (although I know I should really be using InDesign. Its something I'll have to look into).
As there was mainly text and just a background, which if it loses a little of its crispness won't suffer as its kind of abstract anyway).

So....now I need more help. :-)

What should I be doing my my .AI file before sending to the client? (who in turn is sending it straight on to their printers).

I've converted all my text to outlines. Is there anything else I should know before I send this bad boy off?

Thanks!

flanree

Make sure document colour mode is CMYK in illustrator.
Save As a pdf file, when the drop down menu appears select "Press Quality".
Make sure the text is not too close to the edge to allow bleed for cutting. If there is at least a 10mm gap from the outside of the text to the edge of the page you should be ok.

Grunya

Also if you have background image make sure it stretches to the bleed edge (check if you allowed enough for bleed). And check overprint preview to make sure no colour is set to overprint mode, otherwise it won't be printed. Convert all to CMYK. Good luck.

aoife161

Thanks Guys. Checked all of the above - thanks for that.
The document is in CMYK, and the text is no where near the edge, so I should be good for that. As for the background image stretching to the bleed edge...i don't know how this is done. I'll google it now and see what comes up.
But its going in a display case, so the outer inch or so won't be seen (and I've allowed for this) so I think I'll be alright.

EvolutionNights

Don't save your artwork using the Press setting for PDF.
This will reduce the DPI set for printing in newspapers.
Save it with the PDFx setting. This is the universal print standard.

miss.kitty

You can also untick preserve editing capabilities and it will dramatically reduce the file size, then compress it and send it in an email.

If you want to stretch your image to the bleed area: set your ruler guides about 8mm outside your document and stretch your image or back ground. If it's an image make sure you take the bottom right or left corner and hold the shift key down while you expand it, this keeps the same dimensions and doesnt distort the image in anyay