Large Scale Print Design Workflow

[ishfaque.b]

I have to make a 12m by 3m billboard.

Below is my workflow: (correct me if i am wrong)

The photo I have to put on the billboard: (Did not change anything yet, do I need to?)

Then I think i will make resolution 300 ppi.

Then I will save the as a PSD file.

Then I will make Illustrator artboard 120cm by 30cm (10%) with bleed.

I will then link the PSD to the artboard, then add other vectors etc...

Then to send for print, i export the whole artboard as PDF.

THEN I SEND TO PRINTER! That's it. Have I got this whole thing wrong or what?

[Mike Witherell]

Many people work at 25% scale. What does the artwork look like? Is it suitable for converting to vector art?

[ishfaque.b]

It has the above picture at 300ppi and the rest is text and vectors.

What about my workflow, is it ok? What do you suggest?

[BobLevine]

It sounds good to me but you really need to talk to the printer about what they need.

[ishfaque.b]

It has lot of details

[BobLevine]

A billboard that size could probably be done with an image resolution of 15-25 ppi.

Please note this is the InDesign forum, not Illustrator.

[ishfaque.b]

What do you mean 15-25 ppi. Do i input those at the resolution box in Ps?

Is my workflow ok?

Sorry, will post in app section in the future

[MW Design · Accepted solution]

I have targeted 36 dpi effective resolution for billboards in the past, though I often go higher depending upon the images I require.

Your 2000 px wide image will hit 36 dpi effective resolution at about 1/8 of the artboard size. This may be fine for the image and design, I dunno.

The below is a screen shot from the spreadsheet I use for large format work. You can probably figure out what it is reporting for image sizes to hit the target effective resolution for the min/max dpi it calculates. And sorry, I still haven't gotten around to making a switch for metric versus the inches I use. But it's close enough of a conversion for this purpose.

[rama_ai]

We are gathering inputs on large canvas, please add your workflows that will benefit from large canvas to the following post

Workflows that need large canvas / artboard

-Rama

Illustrator team