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Business card in Photoshop?
- Thread starter waloshin
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I suppose it would be ok at that resolution but not the best. The text might not be as crisp as you'd like. Do you mean a spot color printed business card at a traditional printer or through some kind of online printing place that's usually high-end inkjet printing? I get mine printed at moo.com and they turn out really nice. Considering how tiny text usually is on a business card, it would really be better to design in Illustrator or Pages instead of a raster program. If it's a high-end printer and spot colors, you would have to use either Illustrator, InDesign or QuarkXPress. An online printing service can take a jpg, png or preferably a pdf from a vector program.
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I will get these printed at a local shop. I am planning to that the text raised ink.
I have decided to redo the business card in InDesign. I am not sure I will see a difference or not, but here is a comparison.
Zoomed in a lot Indesign (Indesign on Left with Photoshop on Right).
Indesign is using vectors while Photoshop is using pixels.
Zoomed in a lot Indesign (Indesign on Left with Photoshop on Right).
Indesign is using vectors while Photoshop is using pixels.
both indesign and photoshop can handle vectors..... But indesign is the right choice.
Illustrator
You will be fine using both Photoshop and InDesign, I normally use Illustrator just because it's primarily a vector-based editor however I have used Photoshop on several occasions and it turned out absolutely fine!
You will be fine using both Photoshop and InDesign, I normally use Illustrator just because it's primarily a vector-based editor however I have used Photoshop on several occasions and it turned out absolutely fine!
Indesign is the correct way to go. Just output a PDF for the print shop you are planing to use. That is all they should need from you, unless you are using some obscure font.
If they know what they are doing with thermography printing (raised printing), then there should be no difference. There is really only one way it can be printed and you are either going to do it right or totally wrong. Vista Print has been around for some time now and should be very capable of doing a good job.
Honesty Photoshop is simply the wrong tool for the job. Will it work? Possibly... but you are better off with Illustrator which will remove any concern about quality based on the file.
The next question would be what type of business card are you planning on getting printed? spot uv, embossed, etc.
Of course... Photoshop will still produce pretty fair results if you know what you're doing.
That's the (major) difference between vector based output (InDesign, Illutrator,etc.) and rasterized/bitmap output (Photoshop). So the short answer is yes.
Although, please note that if you do your design in Photoshop first (inlcuding your text), importing it in InDesign (or Illutrator) won't turn it into a vector image. Only the text and shapes made in InDesign will be outputed as vector. The (background) image - if you use one - will still be outputed as bitmap.
You should export your final design as a PDF or a EPS file if you want to keep it vectorized as much as possible or as a TIFF, PNG or, worst case scenario, maximum quality jpeg format if you don't mind to have your output rasterized.
I tried Vista Print and didn't like the quality. For one, the cards are a touch smaller than normal and if you buy too few, the inkjet printing is a little dotty (lower res). I just bought cards from Moo.com and they are great. The card stock even on their standard cards is nice and thick and the printing is crisp, clear and good color. Plus, you can have multiple second sides which is cool if you want to showcase your products or portfolio. They even take a lot of pride in how they package everything up so it's a quality product all around. I had to use customer service because I bought a business card case that didn't quite fit the standard size cards (Moo sells standard, mini and what they call "Moo size" which are UK sized) Their rep explained that the case I picked was for the slightly smaller Moo size so that's why I couldn't quite flip the lid shut. Too bad because the case was really nice despite being plastic. I paid $10.99 plus shipping for the case but because their website has a bug where it recommends the wrong size case, he voluntarily gave me $20 credit to buy a different one, which I did and upgraded to the metal and leather one. So, excellent customer service, too. I'm using the first case for my hotel/store loyalty cards, lol.
The only reason I would use a "real" local printer is if I wanted spot colors or a certain special effect like a foil, special card shape, special cutouts that need a custom die made, unique card stock or raised ink. Any of those are going to be pretty expensive. Moo actually offers a few predefined raised textures you can add to a card. None of them fit what I wanted to portray but they are interesting.
As long as you didn't insert a non-vector image from somewhere else, yes.
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Okay, I have to agree Vista and Moo will provide a lesser quality, but for the most people that should be more than sufficient. I have been in the printing industry for 39 years and would not recommend my own company just due to price. Yes we can provide top quality B/C card at proper size (2" x 3 1/2 ") and weight (80 or 100 LB. cover) but it is going to cost you 10 times or more the price of Vista or Moo. This is due to the equipment we do it on and the quality we produce. We are an extremely high end printer. And it shows in our finished product. We are a 40" sheet fed shop with a high end digital print in pre-press. In the 8 years I have been there, we may have printed a dozen B/C's because of cost. We have nothing smaller than a 40" press unless you want digital and even our digital's are very high end.
And specialty B/C's, well I will not even go there. The cost it astronomical for really good work. Also the more colours, if it is 2 sided. There are so many things to factor in. A lot of people do not realize this when they order cards. This is why Vista and Moo are good alternative. The have preset templates or pre-printed b/c blanks. Sometimes they will wait till they have several of the same cards ordered before the print them, which makes it cost effective and why they can provide them cheaper. They also user lesser quality digital printers that they lease, I believe, but do not quote me on. Like I say, there are many things to factor in and maybe I should have explained myself better.
As for designing the B/C, I would build it in Illustrator and import it into Indesign, then export a PDF for pre-press. I have done it many times at the request of my pre-press and use specific Elite-TF-PDFX4.joboptions, which are specific Export Settings provided by my pre-press for my final PDF. Yes I have worked for Mid sized print companies that can easily provide a single b/c with great quality, but it will still be pricey and why I would still recommend Vista or Moo. Thermography or raised printing is a specialized printing and you can either do it or not. In a local shop it will be a lot more expensive due to the process required to achieved the end result.
My only quibble with your other post was that I don't think Vista Print quality is very good, period, and wouldn't recommend them unless you are going after REALLY cheap cards. I had used them to try to find something cheaper than the PSPrint cards I thought were nice. But VistaPrint cards were visibly inferior to PSPrint so I never used them again. This last go round, I decided to go with MOO and find their quality the best I've gotten from online printers. Frankly, other than the specialty things I mentioned, I don't think "real" printing is better than Moo. I worked several years at a printing service bureau back in the '90s making films and proofs for high end printing so when I first needed cards, I made my own spot color negatives and took them to a local printer. The cards were nice quality and had the spot colors I specified but digital printing has gotten so good I will never go back to printing business cards that expensive and tedious way.
Regarding what you said about Illustrator and InDesign, if the OP is going online for printing they just need to use Illustrator OR InDesign, not both. Embedding Illustrator in InDesign would be an unnecessary step. First, they should download the BC template all the sites provide as a guide for laying out content in the text safe and bleed areas for their printing process. Only one card needs to be laid out and you upload a pdf for each side (one pdf for the main side and one or more pdfs for the other side). Make sure all colors are converted to CMYK, create outlines on all text to make sure there are no font issues (I don't trust font embedding) and create a pdf right from Illustrator OR InDesign.
I am going by what I have seen and heard from friends who have used Vista Print. Can only assume it is hit & miss then, so would agree with you 100% to not recommend them.
Thank you for the knowledge on how the print sites work with there designs and programs. Very much appreciated, never knew that. Been a good day now because I learned something.
I did get a chuckle about your working in the 90's in printing and no offense is intended. Even I remember sometimes back when I started in 1975 and chuckle. I will tell you that "real" printing has come a long way since the 90's. I have not seen a negative in close to 15 years. They really only use them now for making dielines in our shop for when we need to send something out for diecutting. I am sure there are older shops still using them. We go direct to plate now and some shops go direct to press. This is why I chuckled. In 75 they had to develop the plates for the presses by hand. The person who did it always had permanent red hands as the lacquer dye for the plates was red. And negatives could only be made so big, so they had to piece them together for larger images.
Yeah, I have lots of memories of having the overnight shift pumping out films, proofs and whatever the paper things were called for single color printing (I've had some wine and breaking my "don't post while drinking" rule.) Lino something. When MST3K was still on tv, I got assigned to create the films to silkscreen t-shirts of Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy to be sold in Musicland stores. They sent me postcard images of each and the text that would go on the shirt and I used the still to create a two spot color image to create positive films for silkscreening. The Best Brains people were awesome and when they would send me stuff, they would attach candy to the package, lol. In the end, they sent me a Crow t-shirt and a set of pins for each of the characters and I have them to this day. In the 3 years I was there, I saw all sorts of poorly-prepared documents that I had to fix for them to separate properly and that was great preparation for later in graphics life. I had horizontal white worn marks on the thighs of all my pants from leaning against the counter while making proofs. One day, one of the owners was yelling at me because he thought I wasn't making perfectly aligned, dust-free CMYK proofs fast enough for a big client and I said I can only go as fast as the machine will laminate. He said if I didn't like it I could leave and I wish I had bailed then for drama but I waited until the next day to turn in my resignation letter that said the day I intended to leave a week later. They scheduled a going away party for the day AFTER I said I was done and I didn't show up because I was done having meetings on my day off, lol. They aren't in business anymore, btw 
P.S Looks like you might still be able to buy them here http://www.mst3ktemple.com/stuff-bbi-tshirt.html Guess someone else did the other ones. I did Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy. Or it's an ancient history website no one ever deleted. Recently, I got nostalgic and made myself a bootleg Gizmonics Institute logo shirt via CafePress
Our shop used to make positives for printing sports team Zubaz shirts and I learned how to do trapping on a Scitex computer. Remember any of that?
P.S Looks like you might still be able to buy them here http://www.mst3ktemple.com/stuff-bbi-tshirt.html Guess someone else did the other ones. I did Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy. Or it's an ancient history website no one ever deleted. Recently, I got nostalgic and made myself a bootleg Gizmonics Institute logo shirt via CafePress
Our shop used to make positives for printing sports team Zubaz shirts and I learned how to do trapping on a Scitex computer. Remember any of that?
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