GCU Forum - template and actual printed cards

Nicole_133385 Full Member artist Posts: 103	Re: template and actual printed cards Reply #75 - Mar 11^th, 2008, 7:03pm Thanks, Shaun.
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Nicole_133385 Full Member artist Posts: 103	Re: template and actual printed cards Reply #76 - Mar 11^th, 2008, 8:42pm I was dreading to do this (change the image sizes), but one big, huge thanks to you all from GCU - your servers are fast and it goes quick and painless. Thanks a million !!!
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Harry_132595

Senior Member
artist

Posts: 293

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #77 - Mar 13^th, 2008, 8:02am

Quote from Shaun_131054 on Mar 11^th, 2008, 10:38am:

Hi Nicole,

Images larger than 2100x1500 will be scaled down, however if your image doesn't scale proportionately to 2100x1500 it may be stretched, so we highly recommend sizing your images at our recommended dimensions.

The template was designed to be the starting point when you create your images, so that the images you upload meet recommended dimensions and resolution. You can hide the Template Guide layer and use the red border to ensure text and other important detail will be included in the printed image. Just be sure to hide the red border before exporting your image to jpg

You can also paste your 1500x2100 or 2100x1500 pixel (at 300 dpi or ppi) images on to the template to verify that all text and other important detail will be included in the printed image.

There are a couple of problems with what you just said here Shaun ...

First ... Like I explained earlier in the thread, the 1500x2100 template doesn't really work all that well because of the enlarging that goes on during the printing process. Is it close enough? Depends on what you are doing. People will get more accurate results using a 1560x2160 template. Your printer told you the print area is 5.2x7.2 ... it would be better if your template reflected that.

Second ... larger and/or out of proportion images are not "stretched". They are printed to "fill" and then cropped. There is a difference. It's exactly like all those borderless prints folks got for years from 35mm negs ... the edges of the image are simply cut off. Nicole, you are familiar with that issue I'm sure.

Here's what happens in the process ...

You start a 1500x2100 image. It is enlarged to 1560x2184 for printing. The print area is 1560x1260 so for starters 24 pix are just lost in the long dimension. Then the printed image is essentially cropped down to 1500x2100 on the finished face of the card. Some of the image ends up past the fold and the other 3 sides are trimmed off.

And of course there is the slight center offset ... which I agree is tiny but it is there.

As I mentioned before ... this whole thread started with folks talking about borders and printed cards not looking like the previews or as they intended. If you keep recommending the 1500x2100 template, that issue will never go away for those folks who it matters to and new folks coming in will go through the same frustration, particularly if their cards have some sort of border.

Just some thoughts.

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Nicole_133385

Full Member
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Posts: 103

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #78 - Mar 13^th, 2008, 8:39am

Thank you, Harry - am mainly borderless and have some room around most of my pics. They are all 300dpi, so no quality loss either.
I should be, except for two which I'll redo on the safe side.

But thanks again for the explanation. This time I understood what you are saying, before I was just lost with all those numbers Cool

.

And no, I haven't shot film before.....would love to, oh well Wink

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Shaun_131054

GCU Administrator
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Posts: 2596

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #79 - Mar 13^th, 2008, 10:56am

Quote from Harry_132595 on Mar 13^th, 2008, 8:02am:

Quote from Shaun_131054 on Mar 11^th, 2008, 10:38am:

Hi Nicole,

Images larger than 2100x1500 will be scaled down, however if your image doesn't scale proportionately to 2100x1500 it may be stretched, so we highly recommend sizing your images at our recommended dimensions.

The template was designed to be the starting point when you create your images, so that the images you upload meet recommended dimensions and resolution. You can hide the Template Guide layer and use the red border to ensure text and other important detail will be included in the printed image. Just be sure to hide the red border before exporting your image to jpg

You can also paste your 1500x2100 or 2100x1500 pixel (at 300 dpi or ppi) images on to the template to verify that all text and other important detail will be included in the printed image.

There are a couple of problems with what you just said here Shaun ...

First ... Like I explained earlier in the thread, the 1500x2100 template doesn't really work all that well because of the enlarging that goes on during the printing process. Is it close enough? Depends on what you are doing. People will get more accurate results using a 1560x2160 template. Your printer told you the print area is 5.2x7.2 ... it would be better if your template reflected that.

Second ... larger and/or out of proportion images are not "stretched". They are printed to "fill" and then cropped. There is a difference. It's exactly like all those borderless prints folks got for years from 35mm negs ... the edges of the image are simply cut off. Nicole, you are familiar with that issue I'm sure.

Here's what happens in the process ...

You start a 1500x2100 image. It is enlarged to 1560x2184 for printing. The print area is 1560x1260 so for starters 24 pix are just lost in the long dimension. Then the printed image is essentially cropped down to 1500x2100 on the finished face of the card. Some of the image ends up past the fold and the other 3 sides are trimmed off.

And of course there is the slight center offset ... which I agree is tiny but it is there.

As I mentioned before ... this whole thread started with folks talking about borders and printed cards not looking like the previews or as they intended. If you keep recommending the 1500x2100 template, that issue will never go away for those folks who it matters to and new folks coming in will go through the same frustration, particularly if their cards have some sort of border.

Just some thoughts.

Thanks Harry. A 1560x2160 template is in the works. We only recently found out that the print area was 5.2x7.2, so we had been conducting our own tests, and will be changing the site recommendations soon.

If your samples indicate that the images were printed to fill then cropped, I'll take your word for it. We're actually still waiting on a reply from our fulfillment partner on whether images are stretched or printed to fill.

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Harry_132595

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Posts: 293

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #80 - Mar 13^th, 2008, 11:43am

Quote from Shaun_131054 on Mar 13^th, 2008, 10:56am:

Thanks Harry. A 1560x2160 template is in the works. We only recently found out that the print area was 5.2x7.2, so we had been conducting our own tests, and will be changing the site recommendations soon.

If your samples indicate that the images were printed to fill then cropped, I'll take your word for it. We're actually still waiting on a reply from our fulfillment partner on whether images are stretched or printed to fill.

Glad that helped Nicole,

Shaun ... I'll stake my life on it! Grin

Well please don't make me, but it just sounds really confident when you say that!

No question in my mind it is "fill then crop". Seeing how the rectangles fell and running some calcs on the sizes of them on my first test convinced me of that On my 5.2x7.2 test the rectangles came out the exact size they were supposed to be, just off centered a little. And with my little crosshairs I'm certain I've found the center for the 5x7 face as close as it can be.

What can I say ... I AM a little crazy. Shocked

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Shari_132735

Full Member
artist

Posts: 186

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #81 - Mar 13^th, 2008, 1:46pm

Quote from Shaun_131054 on Mar 13^th, 2008, 10:56am:

Quote from Harry_132595 on Mar 13^th, 2008, 8:02am:

Quote from Shaun_131054 on Mar 11^th, 2008, 10:38am:

Hi Nicole,

Images larger than 2100x1500 will be scaled down, however if your image doesn't scale proportionately to 2100x1500 it may be stretched, so we highly recommend sizing your images at our recommended dimensions.

The template was designed to be the starting point when you create your images, so that the images you upload meet recommended dimensions and resolution. You can hide the Template Guide layer and use the red border to ensure text and other important detail will be included in the printed image. Just be sure to hide the red border before exporting your image to jpg

You can also paste your 1500x2100 or 2100x1500 pixel (at 300 dpi or ppi) images on to the template to verify that all text and other important detail will be included in the printed image.

There are a couple of problems with what you just said here Shaun ...

First ... Like I explained earlier in the thread, the 1500x2100 template doesn't really work all that well because of the enlarging that goes on during the printing process. Is it close enough? Depends on what you are doing. People will get more accurate results using a 1560x2160 template. Your printer told you the print area is 5.2x7.2 ... it would be better if your template reflected that.

Second ... larger and/or out of proportion images are not "stretched". They are printed to "fill" and then cropped. There is a difference. It's exactly like all those borderless prints folks got for years from 35mm negs ... the edges of the image are simply cut off. Nicole, you are familiar with that issue I'm sure.

Here's what happens in the process ...

You start a 1500x2100 image. It is enlarged to 1560x2184 for printing. The print area is 1560x1260 so for starters 24 pix are just lost in the long dimension. Then the printed image is essentially cropped down to 1500x2100 on the finished face of the card. Some of the image ends up past the fold and the other 3 sides are trimmed off.

And of course there is the slight center offset ... which I agree is tiny but it is there.

As I mentioned before ... this whole thread started with folks talking about borders and printed cards not looking like the previews or as they intended. If you keep recommending the 1500x2100 template, that issue will never go away for those folks who it matters to and new folks coming in will go through the same frustration, particularly if their cards have some sort of border.

Just some thoughts.

Thanks Harry. A 1560x2160 template is in the works. We only recently found out that the print area was 5.2x7.2, so we had been conducting our own tests, and will be changing the site recommendations soon.

If your samples indicate that the images were printed to fill then cropped, I'll take your word for it. We're actually still waiting on a reply from our fulfillment partner on whether images are stretched or printed to fill.

Shaun,

If you change the site recommendations on how we need to create our images for the cards, are we going to have to revamp ALL of our images to comply? Otherwise our old images won't fit to the new way you are requiring to fit. I've been using the templates you currently had us download with no modifications and they have been working just fine. I don't have a lot of images that I would have to redo (only 49 so far). However, with all this talk of modifications, I'm not making anymore cards until you all decide which end is up. I'd really like to get this business up and rolling, but I don't have time to be redoing images. Or, are you going to make sure the images that are currently uploaded will not have to be modified and reuploaded.

I've had a loss of my main computer, though I've been able to backup all my cards and images, I had an unfortunate loss of some fonts that I had used on cards already created and I'm not able to locate those fonts for me to use on my current system. If I'm going to have to redo cards, it will create havoc in my life that I really don't want right now. I'm sure there are other artists here that have many more cards than I do, that would not want to have to redo ALL their cards.

Please let us know what will be happening. I'm waiting before I do anymore cards. undecided

Shari
www.flowerswithfeelingscentral.com

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Harry_132595

Senior Member
artist

Posts: 293

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #82 - Mar 13^th, 2008, 4:35pm

Hi Shari,

Not trying to speak for Shaun ... but

If you are satisfied with the way your images are printing you don't need to change anything at all. All your images and even future images you create using the same template you are comfortable with now will continue to print just the same as they always have. Nothing is changinge with the printing process itself.

Tweeking the template a little will hopefully just give folks who have had some issues with their results a little more control in the process. That's all.

I'm sorry if things got confusing here. I feel a little bit ... maybe even a lot ... responsible for that. I will freely admit what we have been talking about here are rather small dimensional issues that most folks here don't really care about or are even affected by. Mostly the new template will help people who like to see a nice even border around the edge of their cards get just that.

Harry

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Shaun_131054

GCU Administrator
artist

Posts: 2596

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #83 - Mar 13^th, 2008, 5:33pm

Shari,

Harry's post above is right on. The printing process has not changed. If you're using the current template and are content with the end result, then you don't need to change anything.

I guess you can say that we are trying to fine-tune the process with the new recommendations and template. The new template should give users a much better idea of how their printed cards will look.

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Shari_132735

Full Member
artist

Posts: 186

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #84 - Mar 14^th, 2008, 12:26pm

Quote from Shaun_131054 on Mar 13^th, 2008, 5:33pm:

Shari,

Harry's post above is right on. The printing process has not changed. If you're using the current template and are content with the end result, then you don't need to change anything.

I guess you can say that we are trying to fine-tune the process with the new recommendations and template. The new template should give users a much better idea of how their printed cards will look.

Okay! Thanks Harry and Shaun!

So when will this new template be made available to the artist public to use? Will you make a big announcement?

I've got so many irons in the fire I currently don't know which end is up. If you could send a GIANT NOTIFICATION that a NEW template is available for us artists to use and go to this link to download it and instructions on how to use it, that will make life a little smoother for me and I'm sure everyone else that are busier than I am.

Thanks for all your help! Grin

Shari
www.flowerswithfeelingscentral.com

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Shaun_131054

GCU Administrator
artist

Posts: 2596

Re: template and actual printed cards
Reply #85 - Mar 14^th, 2008, 3:16pm

Quote from Shari_132735 on Mar 14^th, 2008, 12:26pm:

Quote from Shaun_131054 on Mar 13^th, 2008, 5:33pm:

Shari,

Harry's post above is right on. The printing process has not changed. If you're using the current template and are content with the end result, then you don't need to change anything.

I guess you can say that we are trying to fine-tune the process with the new recommendations and template. The new template should give users a much better idea of how their printed cards will look.

Okay! Thanks Harry and Shaun!

So when will this new template be made available to the artist public to use? Will you make a big announcement?

I've got so many irons in the fire I currently don't know which end is up. If you could send a GIANT NOTIFICATION that a NEW template is available for us artists to use and go to this link to download it and instructions on how to use it, that will make life a little smoother for me and I'm sure everyone else that are busier than I am.

Thanks for all your help! Grin

Shari
www.flowerswithfeelingscentral.com

The template will likely be available in the next few weeks. We'll make an announcement in the News and Announcements section of the forum at that time.

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