Newman Thomson

To ensure that your finished product is of the highest possible quality, it is preferred that you supply "print ready" artwork in PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format).

The majority of artwork design applications allow you to save your artwork files as PDFs. Alternatively there are a number of applications or software tools which allow you to convert artwork files to PDF. Newman Thomson recommends using Adobe Acrobat which is the industry standard for working with and creating PDFs directly from artwork design software. Free PDF creator software is also available however these are not as reliable as Adobe Acrobat or built-in PDF creators and can cause text and image problems.

The most important requirements for creating ‘print ready’ acceptable artwork have been listed below. Please read these comments carefully and ensure that your artwork fulfils these criteria before sending it to us. If you have any questions or queries please do get in touch and one of our studio team will be more than happy to help.

COLOURS must be in 4 colour CMYK setting. Commercial printing uses the four colours Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black to make up the full spectrum of colour. The colours seen on a computer display are comprised of RGB (Red, Green & Blue) which can differ significantly from the CMYK equivalent. If artwork is supplied in RGB setting we will convert it to CMYK before printing however the resulting colours may differ from the anticipated colours.

FONTS must be embedded in the PDF artwork file. Fonts which are not embedded will be substituted and may differ to those used in the original artwork. PDF creators will usually embed fonts however not all PDF software does so please check before sending the artwork PDFs.

IMAGE RESOLUTION for commercially acceptable print quality needs to be at a minimum of 300dpi. Resolution on computer displays and the web are typically at only 72dpi which will result in the printed product appearing pixelated and blurred. Please check that the resolution of images throughout the PDF are at a minimum of 300dpi.

BLEED is the printed artwork that extends beyond the intended edge of the finished product. Bleed is necessary to ensure that once trimmed, the image on the page extends to the very edge as small variations in paper size and finishing can result in a fine blank line at the sides of the page.  If an image or background colour is intended to reach to the edge of a page, the artwork must be extended 3mm beyond the intended trim marks.

If you have any questions or queries about how to set up your artwork please do get in touch. Alternatively we can offer to ‘tidy up’ the artwork and prepare it to a ‘print ready’ standard for a small surcharge (please see below).

By ensuring that your artwork is prepared and ‘print ready’ as described above you can be confident that the finished product will be of  a highly professional quality.

Artwork can be transferred to us by FTP, Email, Disc or Insite:

Insite: This is our preferred method of artwork transfer. It is the fastest and most secure. If you do not already have a username and password please request one using the contact form. Alternatively, please email ross@newmanthomson.co.uk with 'Insite Log-in Details' as the subject heading or call on 01444 480709.

FTP: Please log in to ftp://www.newmanthomson.co.uk using the username 'NTFTP' and the Password 'JUBILEE'. Create a folder with the name of the artwork or job as the title. Further FTP details can be found in the 'downloads' section of the website.

Email: We can receive artwork files up to 12MB in size via email (ross@newmanthomson.co.uk). Please check that your email server is capable of sending artwork files of this size. Alternatively please use 'YouSendIt' or a similar site to transfer files to us.

Disc: We can receive artwork on DVD or CD, however please make sure these are sent as registered post.

If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact us.

Newman Thomson works extensively with Print Mangement, Print Buyers and Trade Print Brokers. If you are an industry professional looking for a bespoke price, contract rates or to learn more about Newman Thomson and how we can reduce your print costs and provide you with professional print services please do contact Ross on 01444 480709, by email on ross@newmanthomson.co.uk or by using the contact form.

We're always looking for new opportunities and contracts so if you believe we could work together please don't hesitate to get in touch.

If you already have your artwork designed but simply need a professional print designer to tidy up the artwork and make it print-ready, get it touch and one of our team will give you a very competitive quote.

Having a professional designer check that the artwork is perfectly prepared for printing, make any necessary amends and ensure colour, images, content and text are suitably set-up prevents the risk of a finished product that isn't as you'd hoped and makes a great difference to the overall result.

Unless the artwork has been prepared by a professional designer Newman Thomson strongly recommends that all our clients have one of our team check over the artwork. It's quick, cheap and gives you absolute peace of mind.

In certain instances Newman Thomson can offer a 30 day credit account to print buyers who are trading on behalf of a Limited or Established company. The credit account is subject to completion of a credit account application form (link) and approval by our independent credit insurers.

Please note that completion of a credit application form does not guarantee a credit account, it is the decision of a 3rd party insurer and not that of Newman Thomson Ltd or it's employees.

Credit account applications can take up to 7 working days to be processed. We cannot release a job unless we have an insured credit limit covering the value of the job or we have received payment in full upfront.

If you would like to open a credit account please download and complete a credit account application form from our downloads page.