Bitmap – An image made up of dots or bits of information. Bitmaps and jpegs will lose resolution when enlarged and gain resolution when reduced, proportional to the amount of change in the size of the image.
Bleed or bleeds – An image or art element is said to bleed when it extends to the edge of the finished printed piece. A printed piece is said to have bleeds when it contains images or art elements which extend to the edge of the finished printed piece. Since most printing devices cannot print all the way to the edge of the sheet, an OVERSIZE IMAGE is printed on an oversize sheet and then trimmed to the finished size. Care must be taken in placing the artwork elements on the oversize image so they will be in the proper position when the extra IMAGE bleed area is trimmed off. For example, a 6 x 4 postcard which bleeds is printed as a 6.25 x 4.25 image and then 1/8″ (.125″) is trimmed off every edge, yielding the 6 x 4 finished card with bleeds.
Camera ready – Physical original ready to be scanned for printing.
Gripper – The strip along one edge of the sheet which cannot be printed because it is reserved for the press to grip (hold) it, while passing it through the press.
Pagination – Arranging pages of a book in the correct order for printing in order to render the desired page order when the job is printed, collated, bound and trimmed.
Print ready – Electronic file ready to be sent directly to a digital printing device.
Resolution – Measured in dpi (dots per inch), resolution is the gauge of the amount of detail in bitmap or jpeg image.
Vector Image – An image made up of vectors or instructions on how an image should display or print. Vector images can be enlarged without loss of resolution.
Void Area – The area on the margins of a sheet which cannot be printed by a laser printer/copier, usually 1/8” to 3/16”.