Business card making program

[mar6]

Hello.

What is the best program to make business cards?

Do i have to use vector programs or photoshop or those different little "business card makeing" programs?

I thought that it is important what kind of file print shop want?

I would use fireforks, but i somehow think that this is not usual way of makeing business cards :td:

help.....

 

[iKettles]

I usually make the images in Photoshop or Flash, and import them into MS Publisher.

 

[deu12000]

I use Photoshop and design them at, at least 300 DPI. The quality is way better than with those business card making programs.

 

[mar6]

But they dont get "pixelerated" when printed out?
I have head that it is much better final result if printed out from vector file?
(cymk "clolor thing" if i remember right)

Photoshop is raster program?
I have used it usually for photo editing...

 

[deu12000]

I haven't had a problem, the minimum is 300 DPI for everything done in Photoshop. If you need an exact or close to exact color match the printers ask you to use CMYK colors (it's an option in Photoshop). I use regular RGB colors and haven't noticed a big color difference. I guess if the colors are way off it won't work with their print process. Now that a lot of companies (especially online) use a digital process for printing I think there is more flexibility in the colors. I'm sure they also have their own process to turn colors CMYK if they are not correct.

I think it also depends on the printing company you use and how familiar they are with different files and file formats. From what I've been told vector based designs are better, but I really don't know how to use Illustrator so I just use Photoshop.

I had a printer tell me they could use .jpeg files and I sent them a .jpg and they told me it wouldn't work. I renamed the file to .jpeg (it worked fine on my computer) and they told me it still didn't work. I told them I could create pretty much any format they could use and for some reason we couldn't get my files to work. I then went to another printer and sent them the same .jpg and it worked fine.

Some formats that seemed preferable for several printers are .tiff, .jpg, .psd, .eps, .pdf. Some printers you mention them a format and they don't know what you're talking about.

I'm still experimenting with different printers because I've recently (in the last few weeks) designed several business cards (for myself) and I'm comparing quality, card stock, etc... Quality and file formats really range greatly from printing companies.

 

[mar6]

Thank You, got very much information

One more question, i looked different business cards that i have and discovered that some have illustrations in back side also...

But if i want to make business card that has illustrations in front and back side, then i must make two files? And printshop somehow makes it like one card?

Or is it allowed to put both sides to one photoshop file?

 

[deu12000]

You send the printer two different files and they take care of the rest. I actually just got two sided cards printed and didn't really like the results because it was full color (on both sides) and it just seemed like there was too much information on the card. I think next time I get two sided cards I will have one full color side and one black and white with only a little bit of information.

 

[mar6]

You send the printer two different files and they take care of the rest. I actually just got two sided cards printed and didn't really like the results because it was full color (on both sides) and it just seemed like there was too much information on the card. I think next time I get two sided cards I will have one full color side and one black and white with only a little bit of information.

Thank You.

But now i got another problem...

I try to make business card(9x5cm) with photoshop, but when i write 300 DPI then card automatically goes much bigger in computer screen...
I then have to zoom out to 50%
Originally it is 72dpi.
Other "things" are same 9x5cm. Could it be that it shows bigger only on computer screen when i write bigger dpi, but if to print, then it is still 9x5cm?
I dont have ink right now to test it.

 

[deu12000]

I make everything at 2" x 3.5", I'm guessing that's the same as in centimeters. If you're working with an original 72 DPI, re-sizing it to 300 isn't going to increase the quality. For you to get good quality you need to have 300 DPI starting and use only images and everything else in the 300+ range. What's happening is you are re-sizing the image by changing the DPI.