Full Graphics and Color Support
WJPC would like to work with you to make design file co-creation. Design your own cards with our WJPC design team, you will learn about the file formats, color models, and resolutions we support.
We support PDF, PSD, AI, JPG, TIF, and other file formats. Please make sure that the images in your files are in CMYK format and in the 400~600 DPI range, too low or too high is not conducive to print. You can download our custom art templates for quick design!
File format
There are very many design programs on the market to help you get started designing your projects. You can use different types of them to create, but the most common and easiest to use are Photoshop and Illustrator.
If you don’t know them at all, learning them at first may make you feel timid, but don’t worry, there are official and detailed courses for each of these programs, and we will follow up with appropriate demo videos based on our products, so we believe that you’ll soon You can become an expert!
Die lines
We use sheet-fed printers for production, which means that your multiple cards, multiple boxes, or multi-page booklets may all be printed on the same sheet of paper and then cut later. To ensure that your design will go all the way to the edge of each card or box without cutting out anything important, we often use 3 different die lines to set up the file.
You can see 3 different colors of marking lines in the pictures below, each line is about 3mm (0.12″) apart from each other. Among them:
- The innermost green line is the Safety line. All important content such as your characters, logos, text, etc. should be inside this line to account for slight trimming differences.
- The middle red line is the Trim line. This is the final size of your card or box after cutting.
- The outermost blue line is the Bleed line. The artwork must extend to the Bleed line to ensure that the edges of your project do not show any white border.
To prevent setting errors, please download our template files directly from “Art Templates“, or ask us for more information.
Special finish file
For files with special finishes, such as foil stamping, spot UV, embossing and debossing, separate design layers or files are required. This is to prevent inaccurate registration caused by the stretching of the paper during the different processes. In addition, attention needs to be paid to:
- Try to design the finishing layers to overlay the printed image.
- The foil image should be 0.1-0.15 mm larger than the printed image.
- The minimum width of the lines in the foil image is 0.2 mm and the minimum line spacing is 0.4 mm.
- Embossing and debossing lines on the box have a minimum width of 0.3 mm and a minimum line spacing of 0.4 mm.
Color setting
RGB vs CMYK
We know that the image displayed on the screen is generally in an RGB color model. In printing, however, we use CMYK – an additive color process that uses ink or toner.
We recommend that you convert the file to CMYK and confirm the color effect before submitting it to us. Otherwise, you may find that the printed color or image, and what you see on the screen, are not 100% identical.
This is a question that often comes up when we communicate with our customers. First of all, RGB has a far larger color gamut than CMYK, so the colors look more vibrant than CMYK. If you don’t know the effect of CMYK beforehand, there is no way for us to print the color you want.
Secondly, each screen has more or less color differences due to different configurations. The colors you see in front of your screen may well be different from what we see on our screen.
Furthermore, the color of the print will be affected by very many factors, including the printing equipment, printing environment, drying environment, temperature and humidity, paper, ink, storage conditions, etc. No printer in the world can guarantee that their colors are 100% identical to the file color, but what we can promise is that we will do our utmost to minimize color differences to a level that is acceptable to you.
Rich Black vs Standard Black
Due to the features of the ink, the black color in black and white printing is completely different from it in CMYK printing. The black printed with black ink only (100% K) is what we call standard black, while the black printed with a mixture of all four CMYK inks is what we call rich black.
- Why use rich black?
Rich black uses more kinds of ink, so the resulting color will be deeper and more saturated than the standard black that uses only black ink. When you look at the two separately, you may not feel the difference; once you compare them together, or print them on paper, you will see that the difference is actually significant.
Some of our customers feel that the black is “not dark enough” or that there is a “color difference” during their printing, most likely because they are not using rich black, or they are using standard black for one part and rich black for another. Therefore, if your design contains a large number of blacks, be sure to check the value of each color in all blacks.
- Why use standard black?
In CMYK printing, we need to use four plates of CMYK for printing, and a slight bias in registration between them may cause a slight color shading around the text, which we call ghosting. This most often occurs with small text and fine lines that use a rich black.
So if you have small text sizes, or designs with finer line art, we recommend you use standard black for them. At this point the section only needs a printing plate to print, there will be no ghosting problems.
White ink file
White ink is mainly used here as a base color. Ordinary materials such as white cardboard, white paper, art paper, woodfree paper is not required to lay additional white ink as a base color. But when it comes to color paper, laser paper or other special materials, it is needed.
Applying white ink first and then do color printing can let the printed color more vivid and thicken the ink layer of printing at the same time, thus making the printing effect more three-dimensional.
Besides, it can improve the degree of light reflection, and because the affinity between white ink and plastic is better than other color ink, it can reduce the phenomenon of color loss. If your design faces the above situation, you will need to create an additional graphic file of white ink to tell us the areas that need to be printed in white.
Resolution
In the RGB color model, the resolution is in PPI (pixels per inch). However, in the CMYK, the resolution is in dpi (dots per inch). Sometimes we will not be able to properly handle files consisting of many complex vector graphics, so we recommend that you submit your prints at a resolution of 300~600 dpi. Within this range, we are able to control the actual print results to ensure that your project is perfectly sharp.
Attention: Please set the resolution at the beginning, not after the design is finished. For example, if you adjust from 100dpi to 300dpi, this is called an “upsample”. Although it looks bigger in pixels, it doesn’t actually increase your resolution, so it will still be very blurry when printed out.
Confidential Disclosure Agreement
As we emphasize, we do not modify or steal your any work without your permission throughout the design and production process. In general, we will only quote or display a portion of your print images or parameters for only promotional purposes. If you still have concerns, we support the signing of a separate Confidential Disclosure Agreement with our clients to protect their copyright:
- We shall not disclose that the other party is a client of our company;
- We shall not use all information about the other party’s work in any publication, promotional material or advertisement, including, but not limited to, any references in social media, print, photographic or video material;
- We shall use no less than reasonable care to prevent the unauthorized use, dissemination or publication of any confidential information.
Ready to start?
We aspire to be the best card company in the world, and we never sacrifice quality for any custom order.
Let us make your custom playing card or tabletop game card designs come to life. You can customize just about anything.
If you’re ready to learn more, then deal us in and we’ll be more than happy to help you with your custom order.
