At Vivid Ads, we always want to send the best possible work to our clients. Thus, we have a dedicated team that does a basic check of your artwork at no additional costs.

Many customers are confused about where and when they can find their digital proofs. If you have been sent a digital proof, it simply means that you need to approve the file before it can be sent to production.

You can find your digital proof:

Via Email After the Manual Check

Digital proofs are sent through email to the customers. The manual check may take a while. We will send you the proof via email once it has been created and checked by our team. You will receive a notification and you can then check the proof. We try to ensure that the proof is sent to you well before the production deadline. Make sure that you check your email, and approve the proof at your earliest to avoid any unnecessary delays in production. This also ensures the timely delivery of your product. Missing the deadline will lead to delays in production and delivery.

Also, read your email carefully as it may also contain warnings about your artwork and suggestions to improve it. You may also receive the actions to be taken to take the process to the next stage.

When you supply us multiple design files we want to know how many times we need to print each design file. For example if you are ordering 10 items and you have chosen to supply number of designs as 3 so we want to know the breakdown of how many times each file is to be printed like

Design File A X 4

Design File B X 3

Design File C X 3

Total 10 units using 3 different design files.

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key) is a colour model commonly followed for full-colour printed material. It allows you to create nearly any colour. The darkness of the colour depends on its percentage. At Vivid Ads, we ask our customers to deliver their files in CMYK colours.

RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. This colour combination leads to very bright colours as the starting point of this colour range is white. A common example of this is a television screen. When a television screen is powered off, it is black in colour. When switched on, light is added to create colours that we see on the screen. RGB is not the recommended format for print colours. Therefore, we require our customers to send us files in the CMYK colour format and not in RGB.

PMS colours are the trademark of Pantone company that has more than 1,100 colours in their range. Each of these colours come with a unique number. These numbers ensures that the colours used anywhere in the world are exactly the same. Pantone colours are preferred for house styles and logos. They are not easy to copy with CMYK colours as they are derived from a total of 15 basic pigments, including white and black. Pantone colours are formed by the mixing of different pigments, hence the unique shades. Vivid Ads does not accept files using Pantone colours.

Is there any way to prevent colour differences in my printing?

It is important to understand the differences between CMYK, PMS and RGB colours if you wish to avoid any colour differences in your printing. At Vivid Ads, we use CMYK colour format for offset and standards digital printing.

Here are some tips you can use to prevent colour differences:

• Provide your files in CMYK colours. You can use PMS colours if you are a professional.
• You should know the CMYK codes of the important colours.
• If you want perfect colours, then consider PMS printing.
• Restrict the use of purple and blue colours for your prints.

Here is what you need to know about creating a new vector file using the following programs:

InDesign and Illustrator

Use Illustrator if you wish to create vector objects such as logos. It allows you to collect text, vector objects and footage and put them together in one file. You can also use InDesign. However, there are more restrictions in InDesign as compared to Illustrator.

Adobe Photoshop

While you can use Photoshop to create new files, we advise against it. Photoshop is an editing software and should mainly be used for editing files.

MS Programs

Creating vector files is not possible with Microsoft Office programs such as Excel, Word, Publisher or PowerPoint. These are text-editing programs and shouldn’t be used to create the layout of printing files.

How to save my document as a PDF using MS Word?

It is not too difficult to save a PDF from MS Word. However, you must be careful about enclosing the fonts. Fonts are not automatically enclosed in MS Word. This will lead to strange symbols and many shifts when the file is printed.

Here is a step by step guide on how to save your document as PDF using MS Word. Please note that your version of MS Word may require some different steps. Run a quick Google search to find out the steps to follow for your version of MS Word. Get in touch with us if you are not able to do it. Our team will happily help you out.

Step 1: Open your Word documents and select ‘Save As’. You will see different options.

Step 2: Select ‘PDF’.

Step 3: Once you select ‘PDF’, you will see different options. Select ‘Options’.

Step 4: A pop-up screen will emerge. Check the box ‘ISP 19005-1 compliant (PDF/A)’.

Step 5: Click ‘OK’ and save the file.

That’s all. You have successfully converted your Word file to a PDF file, including all the fonts. These fonts will no longer shift or change when the file is printed.

Just choosing standard black from the colour pallet of the program you use is not enough to get the black colour well-coated and printed. This usually leads to a very dark grey colour instead of black. One of the most common mistakes people make when creating large black fields is opting for a 100% black CMYK value. This turns the colour grey instead of black.

If you want the best black colour in your print, then consider the following chart:

If using full-colour printing, the full-colour registration is 280%. So, if you are using black in full colour, you must pay attention that the black colour is not 100% cyan, 100% magenta, 100% yellow and 100% black. If you use this ratio, you are essentially getting a 400% mix, which leads to unwanted spots and interfering factors that make your printed material look bad.

Take a look at the image below to get an idea:

If you want the best and richest black colour, you should aim for designer black. Use 100% default black for small lines, texts and small objects. This is because a slight deviation in CMYK pallets is always possible, resulting in blurry text. This is most important when you are printing a large amount of text on the products, for example, newspapers, brochures, etc.

The colours you see on your screen may not look the same when printed. The colours on the screen are usually in the RGB format (screen format), while printing uses CMYK colours. Hence, the range of colours they use is entirely different.

If you submit your file in RGB colours, we automatically convert it to CMYK colours for printing. This leads to some differences in colours. Blues and purples are most commonly affected. In addition, too bright or fluorescent colours may also be affected.

You may notice the colour difference between print and screen because you compare them on different mediums. Similarly, the colours on other papers may also look slightly different.

The colours may also be affected by the different printing methods. Thus, you may notice a difference in colours when the same thing is printed on other products.

The best software to edit them is Adobe Photoshop if you are editing photographs.

Use Adobe Illustrator to edit vector files.

For printing files, we recommend you use Illustrator.

Please make sure the files you provide us are in PDF format.

Using MS Paint, Publisher and Word is not suited for editing. However, if you have used these programs, upload your file, and our team will see what can be done about it.