Expert: Glen Demers - 1/6/2009

Question
Hi, Glen. As an AllExperts volunteer myself, I appreciate your time.
I'm using PhotoShop elements 2.0. I have an image that I want printed for business cards, but FedExKinko's tells me I need to add a 1/8 inch margin completely around the existing image for cutting purposes (leaving the business card the same size). I have the image in both .psd and .jpg formats. Not being a regular photoshop user, I tried for 30 minutes and gave up....so I'm asking the expert.
How do I do this?
Thanks in advance.

Peter

Answer
Hi Peter,

1. If you need the extra 1/8th inch for bleed you have to increase the canvas size by 1/4 inch - 3.75 x 2.25 for a standard business card. Then you can clone the background image out to fill the bleed area.
If your background image is on a separate layer than the type, you can select all on that layer and transform it by itself to fill the card.

2. If you need an eighth inch white margin on a standard business card then the easiest way is to bring guides in 1/8 inch all the way around, 4 guides and enlarge the image to position them accurately.
Make sure the background color is at the default setting of white and with the marquee selection tool drag a box to fit to the guides.
Invert the selection and hit Control(PC) or Command(Mac) delete to fill the margin with white.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Adobe Certified Expert, Photoshop 7
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more Photoshop tips please visit our help pages <a href="http://www.bestprintingonline.com/photoshop.htm">here</a>