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Also, since I live in Korea and he lives in the states, he would like it forwarded to him through email for fast access. My concern is compression caused by some formats, could anyone advise me on the best format to email the logo for his business uses. I want to make sure he gets the cleanest version of the logo for his signs, business cards and teeshirts.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Sheri
I'm not familiar with how Corel is doing its thing these days, so you can probably extract the generic info you need from my explanation.
If you are able, export the data as a generic vectored EPS. This will allow it to be rasterized on output - that is, if one attempts to open it in say, Photoshop, they will be prompted to select a resolution and size.
A web developer will open that file as a 72 DPI RGB image.
A printer will open that file as a 300 DPI CMYK image.
In either case, the rasterization is done as it's opened in the bitmap program. This is what makes vectored art resolution-independent, and generic Encapsulated Postscript a handy means of porting it from application to application.
If your file ls already rasterized you may indeed have a problem. Printing requirements need a higher resolution than web applications, and simply scaling up the image causes interpolation - since the required data is not there, the program mathematically "fills in the blanks." The result is an unsharp image with poor resolution.
As for how to transfer it - if you are able to save the file as a generic eps, it will be fairly small, so you can simply attach it. If you must save high resolution bitmapped images, the higher the resolution the larger the file. Varying levels of jpg compression may affect the quality. In these cases I save it as a tiff and compress the tiff in a zip file. It will still be large, but it will effectively compress the file as well as possible and preserve quality.
I did make his logo 8.5 x 11 inch @ 300 dpi, so I would think it would have some leeway for quality. His signage will be for the side of his truck, stake signs, letterhead, business cards and teeshirts,(He own's a construction business). I am presumming that whoever he takes the logo to will end up doing their own template from my design, but I am trying to make it the cleanest and easiest transfer of design for them to do the work from.
I did look on Corel, and I do have the option of saving as psd, bmp or eps format not to mention other formats also. Would there be any special treatment to the file prior to saving it as one of these file formats, such as combining layers, clearing alpha channels or deleting EXIF information?
Lastly, my next question is whether or not 8.5 x 11 is an adequate size for any signage shop to make the templates from for the above needs?
Again, I appreciate the help and look forward to any further assistance!
Sheri
As for 8.5 X 11 @300 DPI, sorry, it depends. :-D **Most** processes involving signs, T-shirts, and typical silkscreen methods will probably be able to work with that, depending on the final size.
The rule of thumb is that you need twice the resolution for a given halftone dot in printing at the reproduction size.
So to print at 150 lines per inch in lithographic printing at 8.5 X 11, you need 300 DPI. Your logo is fine for an 8.5 X 11 printing project, and is actually over-res for anything smaller, such as letterheads or business cards. This is usually workable - you do not lose image quality in reduction, only in enlargement. There are often some problems with type or fine lines becoming illegible, test it by reducing the file to the smallest size you think you'd need it and see what happens. If it does, you will need to export several versions as you suspected.
To print at 80-100 lines per inch in silkscreen applications, as in **some** sign processes and T-shirts, you need 160-200 DPI. So your 8.5 X 11 logo can print as large as 15.9" X 20.6" - 12.75" X 16.5" at the 300 DPI resolution.
These resolutions are rule of thumb and can be stretched - for example, in a requested 300 DPI application, 280 or even 250 DPI can sometimes suffice without much image decomposition.
In some sign applications they merely use the image for its outlines and will have to reconstruct a vectored version anyway, in which case all is irrelevant.
As you probably already have discovered, your logo is probably around 25 MB at that size. Too bad you can't create a vectored version - not only would the above restrictions go away, the file size would be in the neighborhood of 20-900K. :-)
Thank you once more for this outstanding information. It's great to have someone that knows this stuff and isn't afraid to share it with others, it's greatly appreciated.
Now the trick is for me to apply the knowledge! ;)
Sheri
