How to Prepare your Files for ACEO Printing
We have created this page to help you prepare your image files for our ACEO print service. With a few tips, you can make sure your art cards are of the highest quality and you don't get any surprises when you receive your cards. These tips assume you already have a drawing/paint program (ie Photoshop) and have basic knowledge of the tools within the program.
Let's start off with the obvious. The final size of every card we print is 2.5" x 3.5". However, your image must be slightly larger than this size, because we trim 1/8 inch from all sides of the image to get a clean cut card.
As you can see from the graphic to the right, the artwork you send us should be 2.75 x 3.75 inches. After we trim the sides of the image, you will end up with the final card size of 2.5 x 3.5 inches. Assuming you have a 300 DPI image, the original artwork file should be 788 x 1088 pixels and it will be cropped/printed to about 750 x 1050 pixels.
One important thing about preparing your images is that they should be sent to us to fit on the 2.5 x 3.5 inch card. If you give us an image that is longer or taller then this aspect ratio (5:7), then a portion of the image will be cropped to fit within the final card size. Our automated cropping happens from the center of the image, so for best results, it's best to submit a file to us that is already in the 2.5" x 3.5" aspect ratio.
There are two ways you can create a file that is the proper size of the final card. 1) The first is to simply crop your image to the correct size. 2) The second way is to create a new file at the exact size, copy & paste your artwork within the document and then adjust your image placement/size to what you want to see on the final card. We will now give some instructions on each method using Adobe Photoshop, but other image editing programs can also be used.
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Method 1 - Cropping Your Artwork
There are two ways to crop your artwork to the final size of the card. One is using the crop tool. The other is to use the marquee tool to get your selection, and then crop that area.
 Using the crop tool...
- Open your artwork in your paint/drawing software.
- Select the crop tool.
- In the crop options boxes, input 788 for the width and 1088 for the height. (This will force the crop tool to the exact size of the final card.)
- Click and drag a box around your artwork, trying to fit as much of the image in the crop area as possible.
- Double-click within the crop area to finalize your crop, the image will be cropped and resized to the final card size.
- Save your file as a JPG file with a 10+ quality (95%+)
 Using the marquee/selection tool...
- Open your artwork in your paint/drawing software.
- Select 'Fixed Aspect Ratio' from the 'Style' option.
- Enter the width of 253 and height of 350 in the marquee options. (This will force the marquee tool to the exact size of the final card.)
- Drag a box/marquee around your artwork, trying to fit as much of the image in the marquee area as possible.
- Select IMAGE...CROP from the image menu at the top of your screen.
- Save your file as a JPG file with a 10+ quality (95%+)
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| Method 2 - Creating a New File
- Open up your artwork file.
- Select the entire image (SELECT...ALL) or CTRL+A.
- Copy (EDIT...COPY or CTRL+C) the image into memory.
- Create a new file (FILE...NEW) and enter 788 for the width and 1088 for the height.
- Now paste (EDIT...PASTE or CTRL+V) your image into the new blank document.
- Using the transform/scale tool, resize your image to fit within the size of the document.
- Flatten your image and then save your file as a JPG file with a 10+ quality (95%+)
To help you with this process, we have created two Photoshop templates you can use to prepare your artwork correctly. One file is for landscape/horizontal images. The other is for portrait/vertical images. Click on either template to download it.
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Things to Avoid
Here is a quick list of things you should avoid when preparing your artwork:
- Avoid graphical borders around your image. Due to shifting in the cutting process, it's hard to make a border around your artwork look perfectly centered and even.
- Avoid text within 1/2 inch of the edges of the card. Many times text will be cut in half if it's not placed in the center of the card.
- Avoid low-resolution images. Your artwork files should be at least 300 DPI for best results.
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