creating a high res pdf

[emmaa17937769]

Hi I'm self taught on in design, my sister has just started her own company and asked me to create the branding for her. I've created a simple text based logo on indesign with a curved box around and wanted to make her a high res pdf and jpg etc for her to use. They need a version to have no white background. I have done pdf presets and high quality print but its still a small file and pixilates when it gets larger. I spoke to adobe chat and they said it was high res just a small size (even though the file size is small) so I sent it over but now they are trying to use it on vistaprint for a business card and its coming up with a message saying the file is low res and should use a different file.

What am i doing wrong? They need the business cards for monday arg!

[BobLevine]

Where are you seeing this pixelization?

[emmaa17937769]

when i zoom in ?

[BobLevine]

Zoom into what? Where? What application? Acrobat? Photoshop?

[emmaa17937769]

ignore that sorry it's not pixelated in indesign or the pdf just jpg. says file size is 510KB

[BobLevine]

Raster formats will always pixelate when you zoom in. And FWIW, JPG is an awful format for anything with text in it and it does not support transparency. Use PNG instead.

[SJRiegel]

emmaa17937769  wrote

ignore that sorry it's not pixelated in indesign or the pdf just jpg.

Vistaprint accepts PDF files; that seems to be what they recommend, in fact. Send them the PDF, and there should be no pixelating if the file is all text with no placed images.

[Derek Cross]

Illustrator is usually the best application for logos, but if you're going to do it in Photoshop, I suggest you produce a large version first of the logo (which means starting again!), say 3000 pixels wide on the longest edge and in RGB color mode and then from that produce other versions by using Save As.

Create a large format one for use on posters (PSD*, PDF or JPG), and a medium for brochures and adverts (PNG or JPG)  and one for emails (use PNG), and a black and white version (greyscale) PNG or JPG for where colour may not be  available, such as a newspaper advertisement.

*PSD the native Photoshop format for use by other professional designers, as it won't be able to be used by people without Photoshop.

[emmaa17937769]

thank you! that makes sense. if i was making a logo for brochure/advert business card what size should it be roughly?

[Derek Cross]

Say you want to produce a brochure and have the logo printed on it at 1½" wide, with a resolution of 300PPI – so 1.5 x 300 = 450. Make your logo, in this example, 450px wide. These are not exact measurements as you can have the resolution a bit larger or smaller. Learn to look at the Effective PPI (resolution) of an image in InDesign's Links Panel.

If you're Placing the logo into an InDesign document for your brochure, keep the format as a PSD.