For Printing at Image Science

Please note if you do not prepare your files correctly per the instructions below, we will contact you and ask you to re-prepare the files correctly.  This will of course cause a significant delay.

Our entire print service pricing is structured around you supplying completely print ready files which are sent directly to the printer.

Please take care to supply us with files suitable for making high quality prints.  This page has notes on preparing your files.  We have another page with notes about actually sending us your files.

We suggest you soft-proof your image on a properly calibrated monitor, using our accurate ICC profiles, before delivering your files to us. This will give you an accurate impression of the final print you will receive.

We print on standard sheet sizes - A4 and A3. For anything larger, we use a 24 inch or 44 inch roll and price on a per-running-inch basis.

Jump to:

• General notes on File Formats and Resolutions
• Preparing files for Sheet Prints (A4 or A3)
• Preparing files for Roll Prints (anything bigger than A3, up to 24 or 44 inches by any length)
• Special Notes on Preparing Black & White Files

General Notes on File Formats and Resolutions

We print your image as it comes. That is, you must size your image correctly in Photoshop, on a canvas of the size print you have requested.

• Please flatten all layers
• Supply us only TIFF, JPG, PSD or PDF files
• Create a canvas that is the appropriate size (A4 or A3 for sheet prints, or 24/44 inches wide by the length you want for roll prints) and lay your image(s) out on that canvas at the size you want
• Stay within the printable areas (see below)!
• Please supply files at 360 PPI if possible (any multiple of 30 from 180 to 720 is acceptable, though).
• The image size must not exceed 30000 pixels in any dimension or we will resample your file down when printing.
• 8 or 16 bit is fine.
• RGB files only! Please do NOT convert to CMYK!
• We respect all ICC profiles, please make sure you send us your files correctly tagged with a colour space - please do NOT convert your files into our print profiles, just send them in Adobe RGB or whatever you use, our system will do the conversion here
• If you send us an untagged file, we will assume the file is in sRGB (i.e. we will 'Assign sRGB' in Photoshop).

Preparing files for Sheet Prints

Please note if you are getting A4/A3 prints done, your image must fit in the printable page area or it will be automatically sized down to fit. If you need A4/A3 full bleed (i.e. to the paper edge), you will need to get roll prints done, and trim to size.

• The printable area for A3+ is 18 by 12 inches - if your image is too large we will resize it to fit.
   
• The printable area for A3 is 15.4 by 11.4 inches - if your image is too large we will resize it to fit.
• The printable area for A4 is by 10.5 by 8 inches - if your image is too large we will resize it to fit.

Preparing files for Roll Prints

If you want prints larger than standard A3, you will need to use our roll printing service. You can choose prints on either 24 inch rolls or 44 inch rolls.

Simply supply us with any document up to 24 or 44 inches (by any length) in size, as per the general notes above, and we'll take care of the rest.

We can print full bleed to the 24 or 44 inches if required.  The image size must not exceed 30000 pixels in any dimension or we will resample your file down when printing.

You can also use our roll printing service to print many smaller images, laid out on to a single page. Create a new document that is 24 or 44 inches by the length you need, and lay out your smaller images on this sheet in any way that works for you, remembering to need white space around each image if required.

Please be aware that absolute perfect alignment at the very edges of the roll is impossible with heavy fine art materials. Slight skewing of the print on the page may occur, and therefore some final trimming of your print may be necessary (it's usually not more than a few millimeters). If in doubt, leave a 1cm gap around the edges of your images on your sheet layouts.

Special Notes On Preparing Black and White Files

If sending us true black and white files, please make this explicit - best of all is to put something in the filename to indicate true black and white files, or to supply those files in a greyscale colour space. This is because we use a special mode to print true black and white files.

While we try and detect this by checking all RGB values are the same in a file, if we are not made explicitly aware that a file is true black and white, then we may inadvertantly print this using a colour mode.  Results will still be very good, but the best black and whites do come from this specialist mode.