PARACHUTING'S NEWSMAGAZINE

More on Ad Preparation

An Important Supplement to Skydiving's Rate Card

Advertisements are more effective if they appear in print exactly as their creators hoped they would. If ads are to look their best, they must be provided to Skydiving in formats that are compatible with the way the magazine is produced and printed. Art formats and specifications that work for one magazine might not work as well for Skydiving.

Here are Skydiving's requirements. (If your ads are being prepared by someone else, you might print these requirements and give them to that person.)

The magazine's rate card has other important information, so be sure to read it, too. Click here for a PDF version.

Quick Notes:

If you read nothing else:

1. Send PDF files. Convert EPS, AI, CDR, PSD, CPT, etc., to PDF before sending them to Skydiving. Hi-res TIFs or JPGs are acceptable, too, but their quality is sometimes inferior to PDF.

Please do not compress PDF files -- they are already quite compressed.

2. Use only CMYK colors. Never use RGB or Pantone colors for any object in an ad file.

3. For ads smaller than a full page, do not put crop lines, registration marks, etc. outside the ad itself.

See below for more information on these topics.

Ad Sizes

Skydiving has a wide range of standard ad sizes, and those sizes are listed on its rate card.

If an ad doesn't conform to a standard size, then Skydiving will do its best to make it work. This might mean resizing the border, or slightly enlarging or reducing the ad, if possible.

Paper and Printing

Skydiving is printed by a heat-set press on 40-lb. coated stock.

Knowledgeable designers will also avoid creating ads that include small white type on a dark background. Small type should be one color -- black, usually -- on a blank background, or, at the most, on a one-color background. Otherwise, the copy will be very difficult to read.

What to Send Skydiving

Skydiving prefers digital ad files, provided the file is one of a few formats. See below for important information on submitting digital files.

We can also use both negative and positive film, camera-ready mechanicals, Veloxes and laser-printer output, but the ad's appearance often suffers if those media aren't prepared correctly.

Screens

Don't worry about the screen size if you send digital files; our RIP does the screening.

But if you supply film: Halftones for Skydiving should have an output screen frequency of 85 to 100 lines per inch. Coarser and finer screens (up to 120 lpi) are acceptable, although image quality will be compromised.

Laser-printer output that contains photographs or screen tints (grey shading) must be screened at 85 lpi. This creates halftones with a recognizable pattern of squarish dots that is visible under low magnification.

By default, laser printers create halftones and tints using methods that don't reproduce well when offset printed. Laser output that looks great to the eye often looks terrible when it's reproduced on a printing press.

Ad with Photographs

Again, photographs typically aren't an issue with digital files, and ads supplied as composite film will of course include any photographs as part of the final film.

But if an advertiser supplies camera-ready art, then most likely he'll want Skydiving to create the halftone of a photograph. In that case, the actual photograph must be supplied with the rest of the ad material. The photograph may be color or B&W, but it should be a print rather than a transparency (slide). Skydiving can use 35 mm slides or 35 mm color negatives if prints are unavailable or inconvenient. The print should be sharp and clear, and it should be about the same size as it will appear in the ad. It need not be cropped correctly. It should be free of marks and tape.

Inkjet "photographs" should be avoided, because even good ones often reproduce poorly. Photographs (and complete ads) may also be provided as digital files; see below for details.

Scanning

For tips on scanning photographs, click here.

Proofs

Provide a positive proof with all ads. For black-and-white ads, this may simply be laser output or a contact print. But for color ads, supply a Color Key or, if that's unavailable, a Matchprint, Chromalin or similar industry-standard proof. Or, provide nothing and take your chances.

Without a proof Skydiving's printer has no way of knowing how the printed ad should look. The appearance of the final ad may be quite different than the original.

Inkjet output, printed samples and other "proofs" of color ads are better than nothing, but they aren't as useful as a Color Key or other real proof.

Colors

Skydiving is printed by the standard four-color process. The four colors are cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK). All other colors are created by combining percentages of these four.

Green, for instance, is a combination of yellow and cyan.

Designers must be sure digital files contain only CMYK. This means any RGB or Pantone (PMS) objects must be converted to CMYK prior to saving the file for Skydiving.

The four-color process reproduces some colors better than others, and it can't match certain colors. Professional designers will take these considerations into account. Also, colors often look different on a computer screen than they do on a printed page.

There are also unavoidable color variations from one press run to the next.

Black elements or areas of an ad should consist only of black ink (K). Adding other colors (C, M or Y) in an effort to create a "better" black often creates problems.

Digital Material

Like many magazines, Skydiving is produced mostly on desktop computers using off-the-shelf hardware and software. It has limited ability to accept ads as digital files.

Submitting and accepting digital ads isn't yet as easy as it should be. Problems can arise because of software incompatibilities, flaws in the digital file itself, proofing, and difficulties with delivering the file to Skydiving.

Tips for Preparing & Submitting Digital Files

When creating an ad that will be submitted to Skydiving as a digital file:

1. Size the image so that the page size of the electronic document matches the size of the ad. (We can change the size if necessary, but it's usually best to start with the correct size.)

2. Convert all text to paths (or curves) in the version of the file sent to Skydiving. This isn't necessary with PDF files (if fonts are imbedded in the document), but it is for EPS.

3. Scan images as close to the final size as possible and at an appropriate resolution. The best resolution is usually less than the ultimate capability of the scanner. For Skydiving, photographs scanned at their final size should be scanned at 300 dpi. Line art should be scanned 600 dpi. For color images, 32-bit color is fine, or 8-bit for greyscale images.

4. Rotate, mirror and flip images and graphics in the program used to create them rather than in the page layout program.

5. Define all colors according the CMYK model, not RGB or CMY or Pantone. Very important!

6. Save graphics as uncompressed TIFF or EPS files before importing them into the layout program.

7. For color ads, print test separations on a laser printer and inspect them carefully to insure they contain no extra plates or spot colors.

8. Some sort of proof is necessary, even if it's just a fax sent to 386-736-9786. Without a proof, Skydiving has no way of determining how the ad should look; fonts in particular can be a problem.

9. Pick the best file format possible, which is generally PDF. See below.

10. For ads that are less than a full page in size, do not add crop marks, registration marks, etc. Likewise, do not put any text outside the outside border of the ad.

11. If the same ad is submitted in different formats (for example, PDF and TIF), tell Skydiving which format is preferred. Do not imbed such information in the file itself.

File Formats

The file format we like above all others is PDF -- the Adobe-created format that has quickly become popular. PDF can accurately handle very complex images, and the resulting files are relatively compact and therefore easy to email. Many programs today can create PDF files, usually by interfacing with Distiller, a utility in Adobe Acrobat. See below for important information on PDF files.

If PDF files aren't possible for you, then here are other options. In order of preference:

1. EPS files. These usually work. Be sure all fonts are converted to curves (paths).

2. TIF or JPG files. High-resolution -- 400 to 600 dpi -- bit-mapped files usually work well (avoid GIF and BMP). Bit-mapped images aren't as crisp as vector images, however.

3. Application files. Skydiving has several popular graphics programs including Adobe PhotoShop (8.0) and Illustrator (8.0) and Corel Draw (8.0.) and PhotoPaint (8.0), all on the IBM PC. These programs can sometimes import files created by other applications, such as Adobe PageMaker and Quark -- but not always. Thus, send application files only after contacting us with your plans.

Hints:

- If you send EPS or PS files, their fonts must be converted to curves (paths); Skydiving can't use stand-alone font files; don't send any.

- Flatten images (e.g. Adobe Illustrator) in the version of the file that's sent to Skydiving.

Files that Skydiving can't handle in-house will be sent to a service bureau if time permits. Although such shops can handle a wider variety of files, turnaround typically takes a week. Typical conversion or repair costs usually run about $100 and will be borne by the advertiser.

Word processing files (e.g. DOC), as well as those created by programs such as Microsoft Publisher, are usually impossible to image correctly, especially if they contain graphics or separated colors. Skydiving will try, but advertisers should have an alternative in mind if the effort fails. It's best to provide the completed ad as PDF, TIF or EPS files.

Adobe PDF Files

Skydiving prefers PDF files, the format created by Adobe for its Acrobat software. They are quite compact and relatively easy to output to film.

But PDF files aren't as "portable" as Adobe would like the market to believe; font problems are legion. Sometimes PDF files aren't easily opened or manipulated.

In spite of these shortcomings, properly prepared PDF files are much preferred over EPS files and native application files, those produced by applications such as PhotoShop and Quark (such as PSD, AI, CDR, VP, PUB, etc.).

Skydiving has Acrobat 6.0. If you use a later version, save your file in the format of version 2.0 or 1.0.

Some programs can create PDF files themselves, others need Adobe Acrobat Distiller or a similar utility. After creating a PDF file, it should be opened with Acrobat Reader to insure it really is a PDF file and it conforms to Adobe's standards. (Some programs can create and open PDF files, but those particular files aren't 100% compatible with the Acrobat standard, and Skydiving can't open them.)

Important Tips for PDF files:

• When creating a PDF file, be sure to embed the entire set of ALL fonts; this option is not the default and must be specified.

• Be sure also to set the correct resolution. Select the "Press Optimized" option when Distiller is configured.

• All color elements must have a CYMK "color space" or use a CYMK "color model." If your file uses the RGB model (which is the default for many graphics programs), Skydiving is likely to have trouble separating it correctly.

• Finally, don't use PDF Writer to create the PDF files you submit to Skydiving; use Distiller, which is much more capable.

Enfocus' PitStop is a handy program for preflighting (and lightly editing) PDF files. It's a plug-in for Acrobat.

After creating a PDF file, preflighting it with PitStop will help identify errors or complications that are likely to create problems when the file is converted to film. Enfocus' Web site is www.enfocus.com; the program may be downloaded and used for free for a limited trial period, the last time we checked.

Proofs

Skydiving needs some sort of proof of the digital ads it received. Without a proof, we have no idea if the ad we're about to print has been imported and rendered accurately by our software. The "proof" oftentimes can be as simple as a faxed version of the ad, or a low-res TIF file.

Better proofs -- MatchPrints or Color Keys, for instance -- are essential for four-color ads. Without a good proof, the printed ad is likely to look quite a bit different than what the artist had in mind.

How to Send Digital Files

Files smaller than about 5 Mb my be emailed to sandy@skydivingmagazine.com. If your files are larger, or if you encounter problems emailing them, then send them via FTP; see www.skydivingmagazine.com/ftp-site.htm.

Files may be supplied on disks -- IBM floppies, CD-ROM or, as a last resort, 100 Mb Zip disks.

If you compress your files -- not necessary with PDF files -- use the popular PKZIP utility for IBM PCs. Avoid compressing files unless absolutely necessary.

Skydiving can read Apple Macintosh disks (floppies, CD-ROM and Zip), but it can't open or use any Mac-specific files. We can't un-archive SIT or SEA files.

The integrity of files supplied on a floppy or CD-ROM should be checked before the disk is shipped. Skydiving occasionally receives files that can't be copied or loaded because of a problem with the disk itself or because the file was corrupted when the disk was created.

Skydiving's shipping address is 1725 Lexington Avenue, DeLand, FL USA 32724.
Its offices are closed on weekends.

Questions?

Advertisers or artists with questions about preparing an ad for Skydiving should contact the magazine before getting too far into the ad's design and production. Early communication will reduce headaches, missed deadlines and extra expenses. It will also help make the advertiser and reader happy with the final result.

For More Help

We're eager to work with advertisers and their artists to make ad production as painless as possible. Please contact us with your questions and comments.

Another option is to hire an artist who's familiar with the sport and modern ad-production methods. Click here for a list of ones we recommend.

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