Posters can be a fantastic way to organize your storefront or add some extra style to your product line-up. Artists and art stores especially can gain immense benefits from printing posters. But googling ‘poster printing near me’ isn’t always going to guarantee you get a quality print. Even if it’s from a qualified and proven printing company, there are some factors on your end that can ruin an otherwise perfect poster. Before you send your files off to be printed, make sure everything is in order to ensure a quality poster print.
File Format
You can’t just throw a quick design in Paint and expect a quality poster print from it. The specifics of your image’s file need to be properly set. If they aren’t, then your post can come out disfigured and discolored. If you want to make sure you get quality posters from your printing company, double-check these file settings before sending your image over.
Color Spectrum
Computer screens use the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color spectrum to show images. Every color you see on a screen is filtered through a combination of those three colors. However, printing machines use four colors of ink cartridges to make an image. Because they use the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) color spectrum, you need to format your image with that setting before sending it to the printer.
If you send a file that still has the RGB settings, your poster is likely to come out discolored. The different spectrums allow both the computer and the printer to create vivid colors if the settings are correct. Your image might look a little strange on your screen once you swap the color spectrums around, so make sure you readjust the settings to get everything looking perfect.
Image Size
The image you see on your computer screen is going to be blown up when printed on the poster. If you’ve ever zoomed in on an icon or picture before and found it blurry, you’ll know why image size is so important. Computer screens condense images to properly display them at sizes as small as 75 DPI (dots per inch). But as soon as you try to print that file on a larger scale, such as for a poster, the image becomes distorted. To avoid this happening in your posters, always make sure your image’s size is set to at least 300 DPI. The larger the file size, the more crisp and clear your poster is going to look.
Bleed and Margin
When you create an image for online use, what you see is what you get. But with printing machines, there’s always a small margin of error you need to account for. When creating your image, make sure you leave enough room for the bleed. You can often find a guide on your printer’s website showing you how much room to leave on each side. You can still have parts of your image outside of the bleed, but make sure everything important is within the boundaries so that nothing necessary is cut off.
Choosing the Right Printer
Now that your file is perfectly formatted for printing, you need to make sure you find the right printer for the job. Choosing the wrong printer could end in disaster, even if your files are in order. Your printer’s reputation and location can help you determine if they’re the right company for your poster printing job.
Printer Reputation
Most businesses won’t last long without quality services and products. The longer a printing company has been around, the more likely they are to perform a stellar printing job. You can also check a company’s online reviews to check its reputation. Many reviews include pictures of the completed prints, allowing you to see the quality of each product for yourself.
Products Offered
When looking for companies to print for you, also pay attention to the products they offer. Many printers have a wide range of materials they work with, and you want to ensure that posters are among them. Additionally, check to see what kind of options a printer gives you for posters, such as the paper it’s printed on or special effects like lamination. The more options available, the more you can customize your poster to print out exactly as you want it to.
Printer Location
Shipping and delivery are the last steps before your posters are ready for display or sale. However, they’re also the most common source of damage to printed materials. Your printer’s location can have a major effect on the shipping process.
First, being in a centrally-located area like downtown Los Angeles means your printer has more shipping options available to them. With more choices, they can offer expedited shipping or extra-protective shipping for your products. A central, urban location also ensures that deliveries can make it out on time, with fewer road hazards to worry about.
A printer’s location also dictates the types of deliveries they receive and the packing materials they can buy. A city setting allows your printer greater access to protective wrappings, such as quality rolled tubes for poster delivery. With the right location, you can even arrange to pick up a poster printed near you, further reducing the chance of damage in transit.
Poster Printing Near Los Angeles
At Guru Printers, we’re dedicated to providing high-quality printing services to all of our customers. We’ve been providing quality poster printing near Los Angeles for over a decade, and each year of experience helps us create better products for your business. Whether you’re looking to spice up your storefront, sell your artwork, or display new designs, we can print quality posters for you. To begin your order, you can browse our available poster printing services online or give us a call at (213) 320-4865 if you have any questions.
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