You’ve put a fantastic poster together for your film. It looks great on your monitor. It displays well on your laptop, phone and tablet. You print it out, and suddenly everything is all wrong – the colors are muddy, the image is blurry, the type is jagged, the image is cut off at the edges. What happened?
This is an extreme example, but I’ve seen it happen a lot. We work primarily with digital imagery. Even if we shoot film, our work rarely touches the “physical” world after that point – who even makes film prints? Digital advertising buys for 2020 and beyond are projected to surpass print by a large margin ($151 Billion vs. $107 Billion, per eMarketer.com). And in our present moment, when no one is attending festivals or theaters or doing very much in-person interaction, how important is it to understand print graphics?
THE CASE FOR PRINT
Print isn’t going away anytime soon. While ad spending is declining, print as a medium is alive and well – magazines, books, pamphlets, posters, postcards, DVD and BluRay wraparounds, stickers and business cards are all part of the print world. Also, as people have discovered, there are pleasures in physical media that aren’t to be found in digital (like knowing that your copy of your favorite film won’t be yanked, for example). So it makes sense to get familiar with print design and specifically with making sure your graphics are print- and web-ready.
A SUMMARY
The table below briefly summarizes the technical differences between web and print graphics.
Characteristic | Web | Comment | |
---|---|---|---|
Dots Per Inch | 72-300 | 150-300 | This indicates the number of pixels (dots) per inch. Most monitors have a range of 72dpi-~300dpi. Most printers, however, print at anywhere from 600 to 1200 DPI for text, with 150-300 considered acceptable for most graphics (though not all) |
Colorspace | RGB | CMYK | RGB = Red/Green/Blue. The primary colors of light. The light you see from your monitor is some combination of red, green, and blue values. CYMK = Cyan Yellow Magenta blacK. The primary colors of most printers. |
Emphasis | File Size | Image Quality | Web graphics are optimized for fast download and rendering to your browser. Print graphics are designed to be printed at different scales and resolutions without image degradation. |
File Type | JPG or PNG | TIFF, JPG, PSD, PDF | JPGs and PNG files are the standard for viewing photographs or complex images on the web. Printers prefer their graphics in TIFF (no compression) format, but do accept others. |
Let’s tackle each of these. I’m going to try not to get into the weeds too much (there’s a metric ton of books out there on colorspace, print techniques, graphic design, and so on), so I’ll be making some generalizations here.
PPI/DPI AND DIMENSIONS AND FILE SIZE
Dots Per Inch/Pixels Per Inch refers to the density of ink droplets (dots) or pixels per inch on a printed page. So DPI isn’t that important for web design – anything 72dpi or greater will render the same on a screen. What matters for web design are the absolute pixel dimensions of the image – pixel width by pixel height – and the overall file size. As filmmakers we know all about this because we deal with it in frame sizes all the time. The higher the DPI, the more information is stored in the image file and therefore the larger the file. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but if you want your pages to render quickly you usually want to optimize your file size. You can reduce your DPI while keeping the pixel dimensions the same, or run your file through a web optimizer.
You can check the DPI on different screens with a tool like DPI Love, which also has some links to deeper articles on visual acuity, and dispels some myths on whether higher DPI = crisper graphics.
In print, what matters are the print dimensions and the DPI. File size isn’t as important as long as you can upload your files to DropBox. You want to look at the printed dimensions (more on that below) that you’re aiming for, and the DPI.
In general, when putting your concept art and other graphics together, you want to start with files with a high DPI and print size. You can always downsample (from 300dpi to 72dpi) or shrink an image; upsampling will produce artifacts very quickly. I typically do my work in 300DPI TIFF files and then save copies for the web in PNG or JPG at 72dpi and in the pixel dimensions I need.
This leads into the second big difference …
FILE FORMAT:
Web browsers are somewhat limited in the image types it can render: JPG, PNG, GIF (great for memes, not so much for images), and SVG (vector graphics). All of those formats (except for SVG) compress the images in a “lossy” way – throwing out some of the image information. This is similar to how video codecs work, including H.264/MP4, and music streaming formats (AAC and MP3). This makes it possible to send images (which have a crap ton of data) over the web. Software and our brains are able to reconstruct enough of the original image so that the “lossy”-ness isn’t much of an issue, provided that not too much is thrown out.
TIFF files were favored by the print industry because they’re compressed in a “lossless” way (with exceptions) and can store a greater amount of color information (the “bit depth”). So they tend to be absolutely enormous compared to web graphics, but they’re more “malleable” in that when you save a TIFF file you’re not having the software recompress and throw out information.
If you’re working with framegrabs from your film, it’s best to start with TIFF or RAW files if that’s an option in your NLE, or it isn’t, to save the JPG framegrab as a TIFF as soon as possible before you do more editing.
DIMENSIONS AND BLEED
When you’re working with print, you want to look at the printed dimension of what your target is, and also the margins of your print medium. If you’re creating a poster, for example, you have three margins to think about:
The margin – this is the actual margin of the piece. So if you’re creating a 8.5” by 11” poster, the margins are 8.5” x 11.” This is also referred to as the cut line.
The text-safe area – this is where it’s safe to put text so that it’s not accidentally cropped out of the final piece. That’s usually inset from the margin by a safe distance. There’s always a slight degree of uncertainty with print, a chance that something on the very edge of the piece will get cut off. This is familiar to filmmakers because we have the same idea of title-safe boundaries.
The bleed – if you want your piece to be printed all the way out to the margin, so there’s no whitespace at the very edge of the page, you actually have to extend your graphic past the margin into the bleed. This is usually 1/8 of a printed inch all around. So if you’re designing a 8.5” x 11” poster, you’ll actually want the graphics to stretch out to 8.75” x 11.25”.
Most printers will give you a Photoshop or InDesign template that spells out these margins.
Even if you’re just preparing a still from your film to give to a magazine for printing (so you don’t have to worry about bleeds/text safe margins), you want to consider if there’s anything critical on the edge of the frame. It’s not uncommon for magazines to crop photos to fit their needs, so a perfectly-framed two shot could end up being chopped just enough on the left and right to look a bit awkward.
AESTHETICS AND DIMENSIONS
A more subtle difference for filmmakers is that posters, postcards, business cards, etc. all have different aspect ratios than the fairly small number that we’re used to. Posters come in about 3 or 4 “standard” sizes, from 8.5” x 11” (same as a piece of U.S. printer paper) to 27” x 40” (the “standard” movie size, also called a “one-sheet”). They’re all portrait in orientation, as are BluRay wraparound covers (well, sort-of). This means that framegrabs and on-set stills, which are by (usually) landscape in orientation, won’t be able in most cases to fill the space, so you’ll have to “punch in,” or layer different images together. But then postcards are commonly landscape in orientation. And BluRay discs are – circular. Consistency in design is key – you want all your promotional and distribution material to have a uniform “look” in type and graphics (unless a variation is part of the aesthetic).
What I did with Three Trembling Cities is to use the same typeface for all designs (it’s based on Helvetica Narrow, which is used in modern subway station signage). I also used triptychs as my basic image “pattern.” So for the postcard (top left), that meant selecting three of the main characters in something like medium-to-close-up shots, moving in different directions. For the banner that runs in front of the Seeka.tv player (bottom left), I replaced the middle image but featured the same characters. For the portrait poster (right), I used full-size frames from the series, which left me with a lot of empty space that works well with festival laurels. The poster is oversized and includes a bleed. Two of the characters in the poster are the same as those in the postcard and web banner. Since the series is an ensemble drama I felt that it worked fine to have different characters featured in different promotional materials. But if you’ve made a film or show with only two main characters or which is focused on a specific subject, you will have to find a different strategy for creating consistent material.
PREPARING FILES FOR PRINT
When you’re designing web graphics, you do your work in Photoshop, export the results to a JPG or PNG file, and you’re done. If you’re editing a still photo for print, the process is the same. However, if you’re creating a poster, postcard, BluRay cover or other printed matter containing layers of text and graphics, you’ll want to work within the printer’s specifications. Every printer is different and most will give you a Photoshop or InDesign template to work from (with bleeds and margins as above). Some will accept a single “flattened” high-resolution JPG or TIFF file, while others will want you to output to a layered PSD (Photoshop) or PDF file. They’ll also give you instructions on how to prepare type files, and which kind of type files they’ll accept.
There are several print standards for PDFs. Instead of printing to PDF you may have to tweak the following settings:
Font Embedding: will the fonts you use be embedded, and how (the entire font file or just the subset of characters that you’re using in the poster)
Compression: will any images in the file be compressed, how, and by how much
Marks and Bleeds: will crop marks be printed with the image
Colorspace: we’ll talk about that in a minute.
Destination: related to colorspace, this is [sort-of] what kind of paper/cardstock/vinyl the project will be printed on. We’ll talk about that in a minute as well.
Layers: will all the layers in your project be “flattened” out or preserved?
These settings are usually bundled together as PDF Presets, and there are a few that have been around for a while, with really helpful names like PDF/X:-1a:2001, PDF/X:-3:2002, and so on. Printers know what presets they like, and depending on what software you’re using, they will know which one to recommend to you. CutAndPastePrint has a pretty good summary of the different standard presets.
Preview: In addition to a PDF of the file, the printer may request that you send them a JPG or TIFF export of your poster/postcard/sticker/etc. that shows what you’re hoping the final piece will look like. This will give them a sense of whether you misaligned something, or if there’s some type that looks like it’s too close to the margins, or your font isn’t licensed for printing (see below).
Fonts And Font Files: There are a few “movie poster” fonts out there, but some of them are open source (so you can embed them in your PDF files to send to the printer), while others require you to purchase them before you can embed them. When the PDF driver creates your PDF to send to the printer, it checks the license you have for each font that it embeds. If it finds that you didn’t license the font, or the license doesn’t permit embedding, it will not embed the file. Either the PDF driver will substitute a common font (like Arial or Times), or the type will display like a bunch of blocks. The printer will get your PDF but won’t be able to print the poster. That’s why most printers will want a JPG to compare with.
You have two options: purchase the font (the licenses are usually pretty cheap), or render the type layer with the font so that it becomes an uneditable image. The latter option can sometimes introduce “jaggies” or other artifacts that you don’t want, and of course you won’t be able to edit the text anymore. If this is a font you’re going to use in all the marketing materials for your film, it’s usually better to buy the license.
In addition to sending along the PDF of your poster, you’ll also usually want to send along the font files for all the fonts that you’ve used. InDesign (and most other programs) has a Preflight feature that will prepare a folder with all the files you’ll want to send to the printer.
COLORSPACE:
This is both the easiest thing to grasp and the hardest to demonstrate in a web article. Web colorspace is RGB (Red, Green, Blue) – based on the three primary colors of light. This makes sense when you consider that anything coming out of your monitor is composed of photons. RGB colorspace is “additive” – if you take the three colors and blend them together perfectly you’ll create a white image. This is pretty familiar to us as filmmakers, because we use RGB and its various flavors in color correction. Richard Lackey, a filmmaker and colorist, has a pretty good explanation of video colorspaces here.
The default print colorspace in the print world is CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK). This is based on how printed pigments interact with each other. It’s a “subtractive” colorspace - if you blend the four pigments together perfectly, you’ll get darker and darker images.
The two colorspaces don’t mesh together perfectly, so something that looks really vibrant and amazing on a screen will print out muddier and “splotchy” on the page. The best way to illustrate this is the way the perfect black is rendered. In RGB colorspace, if you adjust the color value of a photo to R:0, G:0,B:0 (#000000 in hexidecimal), you’ll get something that’s black as your monitor when it’s off (at least in theory).
If you convert the same photo to CMYK, then adjust the CMYK values down to 0, it’ll look black on screen but it may print dark-dingy grey or not-quite-black. “The best black” is usually C:60, M:40, Y:40, K:100.
The other issue is the “Destination Space” – this is what kind of paper/cardstock your project is going to be printed on. Ink color combines differently on different types of paper, so the CMYK space is slightly different. You don’t have to work all this out in your head, however. If you’re working with a commercial printer, they’ll tell you which one they prefer. The default destination is usually “U.S. Web Coated SWOP (v.2).”
If I’m creating a postcard or poster for a film, or editing publicity stills, I work in RGB first because I’m often trying to create web-ready graphics right away (for my website, to send to film festivals or to send to reviewers, etc.) Then I’ll save a version of my graphics in CMYK colorspace.
PUTTING THIS ALL TOGETHER
So my workflow for promotional graphics is usually something like this:
Grab frames and stills in TIFF
Edit photos in TIFF RGB
Create and edit posters, postcards, banners, flyers in Photoshop (rarely in InDesign) in RGB at 300DPI and save as PSD files
Output to Web as 72DPI or higher RGB JPG files
Output photos for print as 300DPI CMYK TIFF files
Output flyers and other multi-layered material as PDF using standard PDF print preset
Send the PDF along with a JPG or TIF + all my used font files to the printer, usually uploaded to a shared DropBox folder or whatever file transfer system they have
This may seem like a lot to deal with all at once, but the good news is that you’re not alone! Commercial printers have had to deal with folks like us who come from other mediums for a long time now, so they can step you through how to deal with these things. My mother was a still photographer, writer and graphic designer for many years (going all the way back to the days of manual paste-up with waxers and razors), and some of my happiest memories were of going to print shops and seeing the magic of plate making and printing, watching her work get turned into the printed page. Printers are among the friendliest people I’ve met, and most really care about their work and want to help you make your posters look great.