What is the difference between bleed and trim

Bleed is cut off when the publication is trimmed to the final size. Its sole purpose is to make sure your design or image reaches the very edge without leaving any unsightly white edges. Bleed is commonly. Above is an example of a postcard Trillion designed for Twelve Letter Company.

This example shows how we send the file for printing. It has a safe area shown by the magenta rule , trim shown by the black crop marks and blue rule , and bleed shown by the red rule , which will be trimmed. We hope this article helps explain these important dimensions. The marketing professionals at Ironmark are here to provide some clarity about the intricacies involved in creating an ideal, expedited commercial printing experience.

The first step involved in bringing your creative intentions to life is ensuring that you send in print-ready files, containing all the necessary print marks. Bleed — A bleed refers to the image beyond the final trim that will be cut off after the material has been printed and cut down. Bleeds are an important part of the printing process because even the smallest amount of misregistration or knife draw could leave finished work with white edges.

Crop marks — Crop marks refer to the tick marks positioned on the corners of your file that indicate final trim. Because we print on oversized paper with bleeds, these tick marks help to guide us when we are trimming the print job down to the final size.

Here are the two main reasons that commercial printers prefer PDF:. Regardless of the software, the process of converting your file into a PDF is pretty much the same. Next, name your file, save it as a PDF, and you're ready to go. Here are step-by-step instructions on how to include print marks on your files, using various software programs.

Anything such as text, logos, or important parts of a photo should not extend past this line. These guides should help things go more smoothly, but if there are any issues with your design such as a missing bleed or text that might cut off, someone from our art department will personally notify you.

That wraps it up for this week. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Skip to content. Let's look at an example of a 10x10 album. Note : The example below covers the most common scenario, where there is no trimming on the inside page edges.

Ask your print lab whether the album you are printing is trimmed on the inside pages near the center of the album. Some photographers may assume that more of the image is preserved in the version that uses "Bleed" terminology, and that in the "Trim" version you lose more of the image. In other words, in the above example, a photographer may assume that in the "Trim" example right side of the graphic more of the groomsman should be cut off in the printed album.

However, this assumption is false.