Color & Image preparation

Ideally, your images should have a resolution of 300 PPI (pixels per inch).

This is sometimes referred to as 'dots per inch' or DPI. This is the industry standard for high-quality printing and is what our presses are optimized for.

It's not uncommon to have images in your book below 300 PPI, due to the available source material — old family photos, digital images from an era of lower-resolution devices, etc.

Most images will reproduce fairly well at 200 PPI or above. Below that, some pixelation or fuzziness may be visible.

Depending on the content of your book, low-resolution images may not pose a problem.

If the purpose of the image is more about conveying history or information, a crystal clear and sharp print may not be necessary.

If you are concerned about how your images will look in print, we recommend getting a hard proof with your order.

You will get a printed (unbound) copy of your proof, and you can review the print quality and decide if any images need to be replaced or edited.

We don't recommend using higher-resolution images in your layout, such as 400 PPI or 600 PPI. This will simply make your PDF files large and unwieldy for uploading, and do not increase the sharpness of the printed result.

Regardless of what color space you are working in, we recommend saving your images with color profiles, and embedding color profiles when exporting your book layout to PDF.

Embedded profiles allow our press software to translate the colors in your images to their closest equivalent in the press color space, with no guesswork or assumptions.

Before printing, all components of your book will be converted to our press CMYK color space. However, you do not need to convert to CMYK before submitting files to us, unless you prefer that workflow

For color images and black & white images formatted in color, we suggest using the Adobe RGB 1998 color profile.

If you are comfortable converting your images to CMYK, please use GRACoL 2006.

For grayscale images, we recommend Gray Gamma 2.2.

Large solid color fill areas are a tough thing to print evenly and consistently with digital presses.

You may see some slight mottling or banding in the print, and the colors may vary slightly between proof and production.

If you order a hard proof, you will see how the fills look when printed and can decide if edits are necessary.

Black fills should always be a rich black, and we suggest CMYK 80, 80, 80, 100 for a true black fill.

Light gray fills as well as full page pastels and similar colors are unlikely to print with perfect consistency across a full page.

Grayscale (K-only) fills are not recommended.

We recommend saving your images in TIFF, PSD, or JPEG format.

Resolution should ideally be 300 PPI, and image depth should be 8-bit.

For RGB images, we suggest using the Adobe RDB 1998 color profile.

For CMYK images, we suggest the GRACoL 2006 color profile.

If your book contains black and white photography, your image files can be formatted in either Grayscale or Color (RGB, CMYK). There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and the choice depends on personal preference, image type, and cost.

Grayscale image files will print in K only, which means only black dots will be used to render the image. This assures a completely neutral image. However, it also means that the fine detail, smoothness, and print density gained from using all four colors on the press (CMYK) will be lost. Therefore grayscale images have a lower potential print resolution than color prints.

Color black and white images will make use of all four colors on the press. The advantages are that a rich black can be obtained, greater print resolution will be achieved, and thus the print will show smoother transitions and fine detail. The disadvantage is that four-color (CMYK) prints cannot be truly neutral. As Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow will be in the print, those colors will inevitably shift the color of the print away from neutral gray.

Black and white images printed with color files are sensitive to minute shifts in color density. Humidity and temperature changes which occur throughout the day are enough to visibly alter the appearance of this type of print. Even a 1% shift in Magenta density on the press can be seen in some 'black and white' images. This type of density shift is not apparent with standard color images. These tiny changes are within the tolerances of a printing press and outside of the control of the press operator. It is important to understand and accept this fact in advance of your order such that you can have realistic expectations with regard to print neutrality.

Most of our customers choose to supply their black and white photos as RGB color images. If you go this route, we recommend embedding the Adobe RGB 1998 color profile in your images. If you decide to go with grayscale files, we suggest the Gray Gamma 2.2 profile.

Graphic elements such as shapes, lines/strokes, solid fills, vector logos, decorative flourishes, and similar should be in CMYK color format if possible.

RGB will also work, but our presses print in CMYK, and setting your graphics in CMYK will allow greater control of color and density. Pantone colors are recognized by the press and rendered in the closest CMYK match.

Black body text should be rendered as K-only rather than a CMYK rich black, as using a rich black will often increase the price per book.

However, light to medium gray text will likely need to be a four color gray in order to print sharply.