Business Cards in Photoshop

[Esk247]

I'm trying to print business cards in Photoshop. Not for professional use but to test some designs out before I order something.

However, i'm hitting a snag. I design the single business card in photoshop, that's fine, but when it comes to printing I end up with 1 small microsized speck of a printout in the middle of an A4 page.

So then I copied the image across to a full A4 page and copied,pasted it to 2 rows of 4 cards..ta da..then I printed again, still micro size..or even worse..pixelated!

When i print the single design out its also pixelated or too small.

I've tried illustrator but now its saying 'Can't print image' so god knows whats going on with that.

Do i need to download a PSD template and then stick my business card image in the slots?

 

[dedwardp]

What resolution was it designed to?

 

[Esk247]

did one at 72px per inch then another at 100px per inch. Both ended up the same size when printed.

The document says its business card size, whenever i go to print it out, i end up with a tiny little thing in the middle of the page.

It's happening with everything i print out. I can fill out a full online file in photoshop, print it, and out it comes as a tiny little sticker sized thing. :|

I've tried following some online tutorials but they just tell me about making the design, i've done that, the printing 8 cards to a sheet is the bit i'm having a problem with.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

For a start it needs to be 300dpi at the absolute minimum. 72dpi is a web resolution and not good enough for print, 100dpi naturally isn't much better.

When in photoshop click on the magnifying tool and at the top select 'Print Size', this should give a better representation of the size the card will print out at.

You shouldn't really be using photoshop for business cards in the first place as you will end up with rastered images. You said you have illustrator, I would recommend sticking with that for printed work.

 

[Esk247]

Well it's not for professional print. Its just so i can print a few out, see what they look like and check that they'll fit with what i want to do then i'm going to send the images off in CMYK 300dpi. I just didn't know it would make that much difference to the image size when printing.

I'll give it another go at 300dpi and see what we get.

Do i have to design it again in illustrator or can i just drag the psd file across and edit the file?

 

[LicensedToTrade]

I just didn't know it would make that much difference to the image size when printing.

Most desktop printers will print within a fixed dpi range near 300 so if the source file is only 72dpi the printer can either stretch it to fit the 300dpi range in which case the image becomes blurry and pixelated or you will get a sharper image that is much smaller than you expected.

[quote[
]Do i have to design it again in illustrator or can i just drag the psd file across and edit the file?[/quote]


It depends what elements have been used to create the image. If you have used vector elements and text then you copy them across. If you have rasterised layer elements then it won't solve the problem and you will notice that the image becomes smaller on the illustrator artboard.

If you have the time i'd recommend starting from scratch in illy. You can download business card layout templates so you have the right size.

 

[Alex@Iansprint]

Ensure your canvas size is 85mm x 55mm, pretty much a standard business card size with a resolution of 300dpi.

I can't quite remember, but I am sure I have confused canvas size and image size before in Photoshop.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Ensure your canvas size is 85mm x 55mm, pretty much a standard business card size with a resolution of 300dpi.

I can't quite remember, but I am sure I have confused canvas size and image size before in Photoshop.

Yes standard british size is 85x55, international sizes can be found on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_card

The canvas size just relates to your working area, so if you increase or decrease this, the scale of the image won't change but you will either end up creating a blank border around it by enlarging the canvas or cropping the image by reducing the canvas.

The 'image size' relates purely to the scale.

 

[Eagle]

...then i'm going to send the images off in CMYK 300dpi.

You'll likely have to redesign them. Upscaling from 72dpi to 300 will produce poor results.

 

[Colin_M]

I know i'm a bit late into this conversation but the easiest way would be to open an a4 in ai. Click file>place and choose the psd then print from ai. Try and avoid printing from ps, resolutions always end up being a bit of a bugger. There is no harm in doing the "design" in ps but place it into illustrator before adding the text. When providing the file to your printer, outline the text to avoid font issues and supply the linked psd file of the design.

Depending on the print process your design doesn't have to be as much as 300dpi. When sending to the printer, who will likely be a litho printer, then 300dpi is preferable but your home printer needs no more than 75dpi for test prints. Your screen will be running at roughly 72dpi and so in general with inkjet based printers, if it looks ok on screen at full size, that is how it'll print.

 

[Esk247]

We were able to send a business card design to a printer a few months ago in .psd format, but that was a single card in 300dpi. It's when i go to put it in A4 mode and spread out 8 on a page that we have a problem.

I'm going to give the other methods a go later today. It's taken this long to get flippin ink cartridges they were stuck in the post until yesterday.

 

[nr-ts]

Hi Esk247, head over to Solopress and download an Illustrator template for and you'll be good to go...

http://www.solopress.com/free-templates.html