Best Quality Printing

Custom commercial printing shipped across the continental U.S. since 2002. Business cards, packaging, banners, metal prints, and more. → bestqualityprinting.com

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4x6 vs 6x9 postcards: which size for which use

A working guide to choosing between 4x6 and 6x9 postcards — what each size is built for, how postage changes the math, and when the bigger card actually earns its cost.

When you order marketing postcards, the first real decision after “what does it say” is what size to print. The two that dominate commercial postcard printing are 4x6 and 6x9, and they are not interchangeable. They mail at different postage rates, they get read in different contexts, and they suit different kinds of offers. Picking the wrong one either wastes money or weakens the piece.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Pearl business cards: subtle shimmer that fits weddings and luxury events

A working guide to pearl business cards — what the pearlescent finish actually does, when shimmer reads elegant instead of cheap, and which brands it fits best.

Pearl business cards are the quietest way to put shimmer on a card without it looking like a nightclub flyer. The finish isn’t a foil stamp or a glitter coat sitting on top of the artwork — it’s a pearlescent sheen baked into the stock itself, so the whole card catches light with a soft champagne-and-rose glow that shifts as it moves. Held still, the card just looks like elegant cream paper. Tilted toward a window, it lights up.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Square business cards: when the 2.5" format fits your brand (and when it doesn't)

A working guide to square 2.5" x 2.5" business cards — when the non-standard format helps you stand out, when it gets in the way, and how to design for it.

A square business card is the smallest non-standard format you can hand someone without explaining yourself. The 2.5” x 2.5” footprint is close enough to a normal card that nobody asks why it doesn’t fit in a wallet pocket — but different enough from the rectangular 3.5” x 2” default that the recipient notices the shape before they read a single word. That noticing is the whole point, and also the whole risk.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Square business cards: when the 2.5" format fits your brand (and when it doesn't)

A working guide to square 2.5" x 2.5" business cards — when the non-standard format helps you stand out, when it gets in the way, and how to design for it.

A square business card is the smallest non-standard format you can hand someone without explaining yourself. The 2.5” x 2.5” footprint is close enough to a normal card that nobody asks why it doesn’t fit in a wallet pocket — but different enough from the rectangular 3.5” x 2” default that the recipient notices the shape before they read a single word. That noticing is the whole point, and also the whole risk.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Spot UV business cards: subtle accent vs full-coverage pattern

A working guide to spot UV business cards — when a single glossy element does more for your brand than full coverage, and when the pattern approach actually pays off.

Spot UV is the print finish that does the most work for the least money. A matte or soft-touch card with one carefully placed glossy element will feel more expensive than the same card with no spot UV at all — without adding metallic foil, custom dies, or any of the upcharges that come with the other premium finishes. The catch is that “more” almost never means “better” with spot UV. The cards that land usually use the gloss sparingly; the cards that miss usually try to cover everything in it.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Magnet business cards: when fridge and truck use cases earn the upcharge

A working guide to magnet business cards — when they stay on a fridge for years, when they're wasted budget, and how to design one that doesn't curl off the metal in week two.

A magnet business card is one of those formats that either earns its keep ten times over or sits in a drawer next to the rest of the stack. The difference is almost entirely about who the card is going to and what surface they’re going to stick it on. For a plumber, an HVAC contractor, a real-estate agent in a relocation market, or a property manager handing a card to a new tenant, a magnet is the most durable form of advertising you can put in someone’s kitchen. For a B2B consultant or a wedding photographer, it’s a finish in search of a use case.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Raised foil vs foil stamping vs Akuafoil: which metallic finish is right for your card

Three metallic finishes, three very different looks and price points. A working guide to raised foil, traditional foil stamping, and Akuafoil — and how to pick the one that actually fits your design.

Almost every premium business card in circulation uses one of three metallic finishes: raised foil, traditional foil stamping, or Akuafoil. They look similar at first glance — shiny, expensive, hard to ignore — but each one is produced differently, costs differently, and rewards a different kind of design. Picking the wrong one usually means either spending too much on a finish your design doesn’t need, or spending the right amount on a finish that doesn’t actually deliver the look you imagined.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Linen uncoated business cards: the underrated finish that quietly outclasses gloss

Linen uncoated business cards are the most overlooked option in the catalog — textured, matte, writeable, and quietly upscale. Here's when they're the right call.

Walk through any business card ordering flow and you’ll see the same three finishes sold hard at the top: gloss, matte, soft-touch. Linen uncoated almost always sits further down the menu, quietly waiting, often passed over. That’s a shame — for a specific kind of brand, linen uncoated pulls ahead of the popular three without costing more or asking for a redesign.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Plastic business cards: when they actually make sense (and when they don't)

Frosted, white, or clear plastic business cards have a real use case — but they're not for everyone. Here's how to decide if plastic is the right call for your brand.

Plastic business cards are one of those finishes everyone has seen at least once — usually handed over by a salesperson who wanted you to remember them — and most people aren’t sure if they’re impressive or gimmicky. The honest answer is: both, depending on what you’re trying to communicate. Plastic does something no paper card can do, but it also fights against quite a few brand identities. Here’s a working frame for deciding whether to spend the money.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Painted edge business cards: when 32pt thickness is worth the upcharge

A working guide to painted edge business cards — why they exist, how 32pt stock changes the math, what edge colors look right, and when the premium pays off.

A painted edge business card is the easiest way to make someone notice your card without saying anything weird about it. The face of the card looks normal — clean printed artwork on premium uncoated stock — but the side profile shows a saturated band of color that catches the light when the card is held, handed over, or set down on a table.

It’s a finish that depends entirely on thickness. Painted edge on a normal 14pt or 16pt card barely registers; you can’t see the color band from across a desk. The magic shows up at 32pt — two pieces of 16pt stock laminated together with the painted color sealed in the middle layer — and that thickness is also the reason the cards cost more than the standard option. Here’s how to decide whether the upgrade earns its keep for what you’re handing out.

Read the full guide on Best Quality Printing →

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Wholesale metal prints: how photographers and galleries set up reseller pricing

If you sell photography prints — to wedding clients, to gallery walk-ins, through a fine-art e-commerce site, or as a fulfillment service for other photographers — at some point you stop making your own prints and outsource the production. The question becomes who, at what price, and on what terms.

Metal is the substrate that pays the most when you outsource it. The retail price gap between a 16×20 paper-in-frame print and a 16×20 dye-sublimation metal panel is usually $80 to $150, but the production cost difference is much smaller — which means the markup margin you can hold as a reseller is real. Here’s how a wholesale metal print account actually works on our side, and what to ask for when you set one up.

What “wholesale” actually means in this market

There’s no industry-standard pricing tier the way there is in commercial printing. Most metal print producers (us included) use volume-based discounts that kick in at modest monthly thresholds. The deeper you commit, the steeper the discount.

Rough working bands:

0–5 prints/month — retail pricing. You’re a regular customer.

6–20 prints/month — first wholesale tier. Typically 10-15% off retail.

21–50 prints/month — second tier. Typically 20-25% off retail.

50+ prints/month — third tier. Typically 30-35% off retail, plus account-level perks (custom return address, dedicated account contact, faster turnaround SLA).

Every producer draws the lines in slightly different places. The numbers above are typical of mid-range commercial metal print providers — premium specialists charge more at every tier; low-cost overseas producers charge less but have looser quality control. The math you’re balancing is: cost per unit × volume × your retail markup, minus the production reliability premium.

The drop-ship factor — usually more important than the discount

For most working photographers, the drop-ship workflow matters more than the discount percentage. Drop-shipping means you place an order with our system, and the print ships directly to your end client without ever touching your studio. Three things to verify before signing up with any wholesale producer:

1. Can the package ship without a wholesale invoice in the box? Yours should include only a packing slip — no pricing visible to the recipient. We confirm this on every shipment.

2. Can the return address show your studio name instead of the producer’s? Premium wholesale programs let you set a custom return address per shipment or per account. We do this on ongoing reseller accounts (single-shipment custom return addresses cost more to handle and aren’t usually worth the friction).

3. Will the print quality be photographically consistent shipment-to-shipment? This is the silent killer of wholesale relationships. Metal prints made on different press runs, different days, can show subtle color drift if the producer doesn’t manage their workflow tightly. Order 3-5 prints with known reference images before scaling — verify the consistency yourself before you put your reputation on the line.

What gets cheaper, and what doesn’t

Volume discounts apply to the base print cost. They don’t apply to:

Rush production — if you need a print in 3 days instead of 7, the rush charge is the same regardless of tier

Shipping — wholesale doesn’t lower UPS rates; you pay the actual shipping cost

Custom sizes outside the standard range — a non-standard cut still requires manual prepress

That last one is worth knowing because it shapes what you should sell at retail. If you offer 30 sizes including a bunch of custom ones, your wholesale margin is uneven across the catalog. If you standardize on 8-12 sizes that map to our standard cutting templates, you get the cleanest unit economics.

Account-level features worth asking for

Beyond the discount, a few features are negotiable at higher volume:

Color-managed proof workflow — for fine-art editions where exact color match matters, ask whether the producer will run a calibrated proof print (small format, on the same substrate) before producing the final order

Pre-paid credit balance — instead of paying per order, fund an account once and draw down. Saves processing fees and speeds up turnaround on rush jobs

Dedicated account contact — at higher tiers, ask for a specific person who knows your account so you don’t re-explain your color preferences and packaging requirements every time

Volume reporting — monthly statements showing your tier qualification, average lead time, any quality issues. Useful for forecasting and for verifying you’re getting the discount you signed up for

How to actually get started

The cleanest way to set up a wholesale metal print account with us:

Send us a sample order — pick 3-5 of your real reference images, order them at retail at a few different sizes (8×10, 16×20, 20×30 is a good test set). Verify the quality matches what you want to deliver to clients.

Estimate your monthly volume honestly. Most wholesale reseller relationships fail because the photographer overestimated their demand and never hit the tier they signed up for.

Contact us with that volume estimate. We’ll write you into the appropriate pricing tier and set up account-level features (custom return address, drop-ship templates) before your first volume order.

Skip steps 1-2 and you’ll either be paying retail forever (if you under-promise) or scrambling on quality issues at scale (if you over-promise without testing). One sample order saves a lot of friction.

When you’re ready to talk numbers, the /metal-prints landing page has the public retail starting price and our reseller intake form. We’ll respond within one business day.

Originally published at https://bestqualityprinting.com/blog/wholesale-metal-prints-photographer-reseller-pricing — Best Quality Printing.

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What is Akuafoil? A guide to metallic business cards

If you’ve ever held a business card with a metallic logo that also had photographic full-color printing on top of it — usually with the metallic showing through certain elements but not others — you’ve held an Akuafoil card. It’s one of the most distinctive specialty print finishes available, and it’s one of the few ways to get genuinely premium-feeling cards without spending a fortune on traditional foil stamping.

Here’s how it actually works, and how to decide whether your design is a good Akuafoil candidate.

How Akuafoil is made

The process layers four things in this order:

Base card stock — typically a heavy 16pt cover paper

Metallic foil layer — silver foil applied across the entire card surface

Selective masking — areas you want to suppress the metallic effect get an opaque white ink underprint that blocks the foil from showing through

Full-color CMYK ink — your actual artwork printed on top using offset printing

The result: anywhere your design has the white underprint, the card looks like normal paper. Anywhere the white is omitted and replaced with translucent or saturated color, the silver foil shines through and gives that color a metallic shimmer. It’s the only commonly-available process that gives you full-color photography combined with selective metallic accents.

When Akuafoil is the right call

Akuafoil works particularly well when:

Your logo or wordmark has areas that should pop — accent strokes, single letters, decorative borders, frames, or background patterns that you want to read as metallic without the entire card being metallic

You want color metallics — Akuafoil isn’t just silver. By printing different ink colors over the foil, you can create blue-metallic, gold-metallic, copper-metallic, green-metallic effects without separate foiling runs

You need full-bleed photographic imagery alongside metallic accents — traditional foil stamping doesn’t combine well with photography, but Akuafoil layers them on the same press

You’re producing moderate quantities (250-2,500 cards) — Akuafoil is most cost-effective in this range; very small runs have high setup overhead, very large runs lose the cost advantage over traditional foil stamping

When Akuafoil isn’t the right call

Skip Akuafoil if:

Your design is entirely metallic with no full-color elements — a pure silver or gold card, or a card with a single metallic color, is cheaper and crisper using actual foil stamping or raised foil

You need a truly raised tactile element — Akuafoil sits flush with the surface; you can feel it visually but not with your fingertip. For tactile presence, Raised Foil or Spot UV are better choices.

You’re printing single-color professional cards for legal, financial, or executive use where understatement matters — Akuafoil reads as creative/marketing/hospitality, not corporate-traditional

You need accurate metallic color matching to a brand spec — Akuafoil colors are produced by overprinting CMYK on silver, which approximates Pantone metallic colors but won’t match them exactly

How Akuafoil compares to other metallic finishes

A working comparison:

FinishLookTactile?Best forAkuafoilSelective metallic shimmer combined with full-color printNo (flush)Logos with metallic accents + photographic backgroundsRaised FoilSolid metallic foil that sits ON TOP of the surfaceYes (raised)Logos and accent elements; you can feel the foilFoil StampingTraditional metallic foil pressed into the paperSlightly recessedPure metallic designs, premium finance/legal cardsFoil WorxDigital metallic foil, flush with surfaceNo (flush)Short-run metallic accents, faster turnaroundPearlSubtle pearlescent shimmer baked into the stockNoWedding invitations, soft luxury, where metallic should whisper

If your design has metallic and color, Akuafoil. If it’s metallic only, foil stamp or raised foil. If you can’t decide, Akuafoil tends to be the safest “I want a fancy card” answer because it works on more designs.

Production considerations to know upfront

A few things that affect your final result:

Files for Akuafoil need a separate spot color layer indicating where the silver foil should show through. Most vendors (us included) provide a template — build your design on the template’s “metal” layer to mark the foil areas, and the rest as normal CMYK on the artwork layer

Lead time is longer than standard business cards — typically 7–10 business days vs 2–5 for standard. The metallic layer requires extra press passes

Bleed and safe area apply normally — same 0.125” margins as any other print job. Don’t get clever putting metallic accents right at the trim

Quantities under 250 are usually not cost-effective — the setup overhead on Akuafoil makes very small runs expensive per unit. If you only need 100 cards, raised foil is often a better choice

Where Akuafoil sits in our catalog

Akuafoil business cards live in our Majestic Products collection along with the other specialty finishes (Pearl, Silk, Suede, Painted Edge, Raised Foil). The product pages list every available size, paper option, and the full file template for download.

If you’re new to specialty finishes, Akuafoil is the highest-impact starting point — it tends to surprise recipients in a way that ordinary business cards can’t, and the “how did you do that?” reaction is exactly what a memorable card is supposed to produce.

Originally published at https://bestqualityprinting.com/blog/what-is-akuafoil-metallic-business-cards-guide — Best Quality Printing.

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Vinyl banner weights explained: 10oz vs 13oz vs 18oz blockout

When you order a custom vinyl banner online, the first decision after size is weight — usually offered as 10oz, 13oz, or 18oz blockout. The product page rarely explains what those numbers mean for you in practice, which leads to a lot of customers either underspending (and getting a banner that wrinkles after a week of wind) or overspending (paying for blockout vinyl on an indoor banner that didn’t need it).

Here’s the working guide.

What the weights actually measure

The number is the weight of the vinyl in ounces per square yard. So 13oz vinyl weighs about 13 ounces for a 9-square-foot piece — which is meaningful when you’re shipping a 10-foot banner across the country, but more importantly, the weight correlates with thickness, durability, and opacity.

10oz vinyl — the lightest standard weight. Thinner, more translucent, less resistant to tearing. Cheapest per square foot.

13oz vinyl — the workhorse of outdoor banner printing. Most banners you’ve seen at construction sites, retail storefronts, and trade shows are 13oz scrim vinyl. Best balance of cost, durability, and weight.

18oz blockout vinyl — heavy, thick, and crucially, has a black middle layer that prevents light from passing through the banner. This is the only weight that genuinely works for double-sided printing.

When 10oz is fine

10oz is the right answer when:

The banner is indoor only — trade-show booths, retail interiors, classroom or event spaces

The banner will be temporary — a single-event use, like a one-day conference backdrop

You’re hanging it in a low-stress environment — flat against a wall, fully framed, minimal handling

Cost matters more than longevity

10oz wrinkles more easily than heavier weights, and it’s noticeably more translucent, so anything backlit (or with bright light behind it) will show the structure on the other side. Don’t use it outdoors.

When 13oz is the right call (most of the time)

13oz is the default we recommend for almost every outdoor banner:

Storefront banners that will hang for weeks or months

Construction site banners that need to survive wind, rain, and rough handling

Trade show backdrops that travel with you and get hung repeatedly

Yard event signage for outdoor festivals, school events, fundraisers

Any banner you’ll reuse rather than throw away

13oz scrim vinyl has a reinforcing polyester scrim baked into the middle, which means it resists tearing under tension. Grommets hold without ripping out. It takes the weather indefinitely without color shift. Most banners I’ve seen ordered at 10oz “to save money” come back as a reorder at 13oz within six months.

When 18oz blockout is mandatory

18oz blockout is more expensive than 13oz — usually 30-50% more per square foot — and you should only order it when the application demands it. Specifically:

1. Double-sided printing. If you print images on both sides of a banner without a blockout core, light passes through and shows the front design ghosted backwards on the back side. With a black middle layer, the two sides are visually independent. If you’ve ordered “double-sided” on 13oz before and been disappointed, this is why.

2. High-wind installations. Banners on building exteriors above ground level, banners across roads, banners hung between two poles in open areas — anywhere wind will be loading the surface for extended periods. 18oz handles wind better both because of its weight and because the heavier vinyl resists tearing at the grommet points.

3. Long-term outdoor placement. If a banner is going up for a year or more (semi-permanent restaurant signage, gym signage, ongoing campaigns), 18oz lasts noticeably longer in UV before showing fade.

4. Premium installations. Trade-show booths for major brands, executive office signage, anywhere the perception of quality matters as much as the function. 18oz simply feels more substantial.

What about the cheaper grades I see online?

Some vendors offer 8oz vinyl. We don’t print on it. It’s so thin that it tears at the grommets within a few weeks of normal handling, and the perceived savings disappear the first time you have to reorder. If your budget is tight, order a smaller 13oz banner instead of a larger 8oz one — better dollar-per-day-of-life return.

Quick recommendation matrix

Indoor, single event → 10oz

Indoor, long-term → 13oz

Outdoor, single side, anywhere → 13oz

Outdoor, double-sided → 18oz blockout

Premium signage, long-term, exterior → 18oz blockout

High-wind exterior → 18oz blockout

The grommet question

For any weight, our default is brass grommets every 24 inches around the perimeter, with welded hems on all four sides. That’s the spec for most installations. If your install method is different — pole pockets, sewn rope hem, no finishing — change it on the product page before you order. Adjusting after the banner is printed isn’t possible.

When you’re ready, the Signs & Banners collection has live pricing across every weight, plus rush production options for jobs that need to ship in 2-3 business days.

Originally published at https://bestqualityprinting.com/blog/vinyl-banner-weights-explained — Best Quality Printing.

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Standard business card sizes (and when each one makes sense)

The U.S. standard business card is 3.5” × 2”. It’s been that size since the late 1800s, when American calling cards settled into the dimensions of the wallet pocket. Almost every wallet, cardholder, and Rolodex sleeve in the country is built around it. So if your only goal is “this card needs to fit in a wallet without getting bent,” you’re done — order standard.

But the standard isn’t always the best choice. Here’s a working guide to the sizes we actually print, and when each one makes sense.

Standard (3.5” × 2”) — the safe default

This is what 95% of customers order, for good reason. It fits every wallet, every business-card sleeve, every Rolodex. People recognize it instantly. If you have any doubt, this is the right answer.

The downside is that it doesn’t stand out. Everyone has standard cards, so yours will sit in a stack of standards. If you’re handing out cards at a conference where 200 other people are doing the same thing, a non-standard size is one of the cheapest ways to make sure yours is the one that gets remembered.

Square (2.5” × 2.5”) — modern, but won’t fit a wallet

Square cards have been the design industry’s favorite alternative for a decade now. They feel deliberate, more like a small art object than a contact card. Photographers, designers, architects, and hospitality brands lean on them.

The trade: a 2.5” square doesn’t fit in a standard cardholder. It folds the recipient’s habits — they’ll usually put it on a desk or in a pocket rather than file it away with their other cards. That’s good if you want to be remembered, less good if you want to be findable when they need to call you in six months.

Slim (3.5” × 1”) — wallet-friendly and unusual

Slim cards split the difference. They’re the same width as standard, so they still slot into a wallet’s card pocket, but they’re half the height. That visual asymmetry stands out in a stack, and the wider-than-tall format works really well for wordmark logos or single-line value props (“Photographer · NYC · Available for travel”).

The constraint is real estate — a slim card has half the front-side space of a standard, which forces a minimal design. That’s a feature, not a bug, but it means you can’t fit a long bio or a list of services on one side.

European (3.346” × 2.165”) — the international option

European business cards are slightly wider and slightly taller than U.S. standard. If your business is targeting clients in Europe, Asia, or really anywhere outside North America, this is what they expect — and your cards will fit their wallets and cardholders, which yours might not.

Worth ordering when: you do international travel for work, or your client base is heavily non-U.S. Skip otherwise.

Specialty shapes (oval, circle, leaf, fold-over)

Every shape beyond rectangular is a deliberate trade-off: more memorable, less practical. Oval and circle cards photograph beautifully on social and feel “designed” in the hand, but they roll and rattle in a stack. Leaf cards (rounded on both ends) are the same trade with a softer profile. Fold-over cards double the printable real estate and are great for mini-brochures, tickets, or anything that needs more than a single front-and-back of room.

Specialty shapes work best when:

You only hand out cards in person, not through a fishbowl drawing or business-card raffle

You expect the recipient to display the card or photograph it (designers, artists, photographers, food & beverage)

The card itself IS the marketing — the design is meant to provoke a “where did you get these?” reaction

Stock thickness matters as much as size

A 14pt card and a 32pt card at the same dimensions feel like completely different products. The 14pt is a respectable standard; the 32pt has the heft of a small piece of plastic and lands with a satisfying thud. Painted-edge cards add a stripe of color to the exposed paper edge, making the thickness itself a design element.

For most professional uses, 14pt or 16pt is plenty. Step up to 32pt painted edge or akuafoil when the card is the brand impression — luxury services, high-end design firms, anyone whose work depends on signaling craft.

Quick recommendation matrix

General business — standard 3.5” × 2”, 14-16pt, gloss or silk lamination

Designer/photographer/architect — square 2.5” × 2.5”, 16pt, silk lamination

Trade-show / conference handouts — slim 3.5” × 1”, 14pt (memorable in a stack)

International business — European 3.346” × 2.165”

High-touch luxury services — standard size, 32pt painted edge OR akuafoil

When you’re ready, every size and finish above is on our Business Cards page with live pricing — pick a shape, configure the stock, and order in a few clicks.

Originally published at https://bestqualityprinting.com/blog/standard-business-card-sizes-explained — Best Quality Printing.

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Bleed, trim, and safe area: the print file checklist that prevents reprints

If a print job comes back wrong, it’s almost never the press’s fault. Nine times out of ten, the file was wrong before it ever got there — and the symptoms are predictable: a sliver of white edge around a “full-bleed” design, text shaved off near the corner, a logo that looks soft because it was a 72 DPI screenshot.

This is the short version of the file-prep checklist we wish every customer ran through before clicking Upload. Five things. If you do all five, you almost never see a reprint.

1. Add bleed: one-eighth of an inch on every side

Bleed is the extra art that extends past the trim line of your finished piece. When the press cuts a stack of business cards down to size, the blade can drift by a hairline — and if your background color stops exactly at the edge of the card, that drift shows up as a tiny white sliver. The fix: extend any background color, photo, or design that goes to the edge by 0.125” past the trim line on every side.

For a standard 3.5” × 2” business card, that means your file should be 3.75” × 2.25” total — with the design bleeding all the way to those outer edges, knowing that the press will cut at 3.5” × 2”.

2. Keep important content inside the safe area

The opposite problem: if you put your logo, your phone number, or any text right against the trim line, that same hairline drift can shave off a letter. The safe area is 0.125” inside the trim line — anything important should sit there, not at the edge.

Together: bleed extends 0.125” outside the trim, safe area starts 0.125” inside the trim. The 0.25” total margin is your insurance policy against blade drift.

3. Build files in CMYK, not RGB

Your monitor renders in RGB (red, green, blue — additive color, light-based). Print uses CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black — subtractive color, ink-based). They’re different color spaces, and what looks vivid on screen often comes out muddy on paper because RGB has colors CMYK literally can’t reproduce — neon greens, deep electric blues, and phosphorescent oranges in particular.

If you build in CMYK from the start in Illustrator or Photoshop, what you see on screen is closer to what you’ll get on paper. If you build in RGB and convert at the end, expect some color shift.

4. 300 DPI for everything that isn’t outdoor signage

Resolution is independent of file size — it’s about how many ink dots fit per inch when the file is sized for print. The standard for commercial print is 300 DPI at the final printed size. For a 4×6 postcard, that means your image should be 1200×1800 pixels minimum. Anything below 200 DPI starts looking soft; below 150 DPI is unmistakably blurry.

Outdoor signage is the exception — banners and yard signs are viewed from feet or yards away, so 150 DPI at full size is usually plenty. Trying to print at 300 DPI on a 10-foot banner gives you a 36,000-pixel-wide file that crashes design software.

5. Outline your fonts (or embed them)

If you send a press a layered .AI or .PSD file with live text, and the press doesn’t have your exact font installed, the text reflows. Sometimes silently. The result: your beautiful custom-kerned headline now reads in Helvetica because that’s what the press substituted.

Two fixes: in Illustrator, Type → Create Outlines turns every text object into vector shapes (no font dependency). Or, export to PDF/X-1a, which embeds fonts inside the file itself. PDF is the safer default for print delivery — it locks down typography, color management, and image placement in one go.

A 30-second pre-flight sanity check

Before uploading any print file, look at it in your design app and ask yourself:

Is the document size = trim size + 0.25” total (0.125” bleed each side)?

Does any background color or full-bleed image actually extend into that bleed area?

Is all text and any logo inside the safe area (at least 0.125” from the trim line)?

Color mode = CMYK?

Photos and logos = at least 300 DPI at the final printed size?

Fonts outlined or embedded (export as PDF/X-1a if unsure)?

If yes to all six, your file is ready. If no to any, fix it before you upload — once it’s on the press, the reprint is on you.

Most BQP product pages list the exact dieline, bleed, and safe-area dimensions for that specific product right under the Specs tab. When in doubt, look there before exporting your file.

Originally published at https://bestqualityprinting.com/blog/print-file-checklist-bleed-trim-safe-area — Best Quality Printing.

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Metal prints vs canvas vs acrylic: how to choose for photographers

If you sell photography prints — to clients, on your own site, or through galleries — at some point you have to decide how the image actually arrives in the customer’s hands. Paper-in-a-frame is the cheap default, but for the work you’re proudest of, the substrate is part of the experience.

Three substrates dominate that conversation: metal prints, canvas, and acrylic face mounts. Each has a distinct look, and each is right for a different kind of image and a different kind of buyer. Here’s the working frame I use to recommend.

Metal prints (dye-sublimation on aluminum)

Metal prints are made by infusing dye into the surface of a coated aluminum panel using heat — a process called dye sublimation. The image becomes part of the panel rather than sitting on top of it. The result is a print with the depth of a backlit transparency: vivid color, almost no glare from oblique angles, and a luminous quality you can’t get from paper.

Where metal wins

High-contrast, color-saturated images — sports, automotive, landscapes with sky-and-light, portraits with strong rim lighting

Modern interior aesthetics — gallery walls, hotel lobbies, anywhere the print should feel like an architectural element

Durability — metal prints are scratch-resistant, water-resistant, and won’t fade in normal indoor light for decades

No frame needed — most metal prints ship with a float-mount block on the back so they hover off the wall about half an inch

Where metal loses

Soft, painterly images can look almost too sharp on metal — the high contrast amplifies micro-detail you may not want amplified

Anything that looks better with a textured surface (oil-painting style, fine-art black-and-white) feels wrong on a glossy metal panel

Direct sunlight will cause some long-term color shift, like any print

Canvas (gallery-wrap on stretched cotton)

Canvas takes the opposite approach: a textured cotton or poly-cotton blend stretched over a wooden frame, with the image printed on the surface using pigment inks. The texture absorbs light and softens detail, and the wraparound edge makes the print read as a finished object — no frame required.

Where canvas wins

Painterly, soft-light, fine-art images — landscapes shot at golden hour, environmental portraits, anything with painterly post-processing

Black-and-white work where you want a tactile, fine-art presentation

Large sizes with large viewing distances — canvas hides resolution loss better than smooth surfaces

Warm interior aesthetics — homes, restaurants, hospitality settings that aren’t strictly modern

Where canvas loses

Detail-rich images lose micro-contrast to the texture — sports, automotive, and architectural work tend to feel softer than they should

Color saturation is noticeably lower than metal or acrylic; canvas is matte, period

Long-term durability is good but not great — moisture and direct sun affect canvas faster than metal

Acrylic face mounts (photo print under glossy acrylic)

Acrylic mounts are a paper photographic print laminated face-up to a sheet of clear cast acrylic, usually 1/8” or 1/4” thick. The acrylic acts as both a protective lens and a depth-enhancing optical element — light bends through it before reaching the print, giving the image an almost three-dimensional pop.

Where acrylic wins

Editorial fashion, fine-art portraits, gallery exhibitions — anything where the print needs to feel like an object, not just an image

Black backgrounds — acrylic on a deep-black image looks like a window into the scene

High-resolution, technically perfect captures — acrylic shows every pixel of detail, which is great if your file is sharp and a problem if it isn’t

Where acrylic loses

Cost — acrylic mounts run 2-3× the price of metal at comparable size

Glare — the surface is reflective, so installation light placement matters

Weight — a large acrylic is significantly heavier than a metal at the same dimensions, which affects shipping and hanging hardware

Durability against scratching — acrylic is scratchier than metal; surface scuffs over time

A working recommendation framework

Run through these questions in order:

Is the image high-contrast and color-saturated? → Metal first, acrylic if budget allows.

Is the image soft, painterly, or fine-art? → Canvas. Metal will fight the image.

Is the buyer a professional gallery or commercial client expecting an “exhibition-quality” object? → Acrylic.

Is the buyer a price-sensitive consumer ordering a wall print? → Metal. Best price-to-impact ratio of the three.

Is the print going outdoors or in a humid environment (bathroom, pool house)? → Metal, no question — the only one of the three rated for that environment.

For most photographers selling to most clients, metal is the default winner: best impact for the price, broadest range of images that work on it, longest expected lifespan in real-world conditions, and the float-mount means clients don’t have to budget for a frame on top of the print cost.

We print metal prints in custom sizes from 5×7 up to 30×45, with bulk discounts for photographer reseller programs and gallery orders. See live pricing on the aluminum dye-sublimation product page, or send us your sizing for a custom quote on anything larger.

Originally published at https://bestqualityprinting.com/blog/metal-prints-vs-canvas-vs-acrylic — Best Quality Printing.

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Best paper stocks for postcards mailed via USPS EDDM

USPS Every Door Direct Mail (EDDM) is one of the cheapest forms of direct marketing left — you skip mailing lists entirely and send a postcard to every household on a route, at saturation postage rates around 20¢ per piece. The catch: the postcard itself has to meet specific size and weight requirements, and the paper stock you choose dramatically affects both the mailing cost and how the piece looks when it arrives.

Most mistakes I see on EDDM jobs come down to picking the wrong paper. Here’s the working guide.

The size requirements first (because they affect stock choice)

EDDM Retail (the version most small businesses use) requires the postcard to be:

At least 6.125” × 4.25” (the minimum that qualifies as “flats”)

At most 12” × 15” (the maximum size USPS will deliver as flats)

At least 0.007 inches thick (about 70lb cover stock minimum)

In practice, three sizes dominate EDDM:

6.5” × 9” — the most popular EDDM size. Big enough to make an impression, small enough to be cheap to print

6.5” × 11” — taller format, gives you more vertical real estate for headlines and offers

6.5” × 12” — maximum standard size; reads almost like a small flyer

Anything smaller than 6.125” × 4.25” gets billed at the higher first-class postcard rate, which kills the whole economics. Don’t go smaller.

The three paper-stock decisions

For EDDM postcards, three things actually matter: weight, coating, and finish.

Weight: 14pt is the right answer almost always

Postcard paper weights are typically offered in three tiers:

14pt (~ 100lb cover) — the standard. Substantial in the hand, takes printing well, survives mail handling without bending

16pt — slightly heavier and more rigid. Looks slightly more premium. Costs slightly more

100lb gloss text — much thinner. Cheaper but feels disposable, more likely to bend in the mailbox

For EDDM, 14pt is the right answer for almost every campaign. 16pt is fine if budget allows, but the perceived difference vs 14pt is small. 100lb gloss text saves you money and signals “junk mail” — the recipient is more likely to throw it away without reading.

The minimum USPS thickness requirement (0.007”) corresponds to about 70lb cover, which is thinner than 100lb gloss text. So technically you could go even thinner, but you’d be sending postcards that arrive bent and visibly disposable. Skip it.

Coating: gloss vs matte vs uncoated

This is where most personal preference shows up:

Gloss UV-coated — shiny finish, makes color pop, fingerprints show. Most common EDDM finish because it photographs well in the mailbox-vs-recipient moment

Matte / silk laminated — softer, less shiny, easier to write on with a pen, looks more upscale. Costs slightly more

Uncoated — no finish at all; paper-textured. Reads as “personal letter” rather than “marketing piece,” which can be a deliberate choice for industries where mass marketing feels wrong (real estate, financial services, anything trying to look like a hand-written note)

Default recommendation: Gloss UV-coated for retail/restaurant/general consumer offers. Matte for higher-end services, real estate, and B2B. Uncoated only when the design is deliberately understated and “anti-marketing.”

One side or both?

For EDDM, the back side is the address side — USPS requires it to follow specific layout rules, including the indicia, return address, and at least 5” × 7” of clear space for the postal sticker. So you don’t have full creative control of the back. That said, the half of the back NOT used for postal markings is prime advertising real estate. Almost every successful EDDM campaign uses both sides.

Order the two-sided print version unless you really only have a single-sided message.

File setup gotchas specific to EDDM

A few things that catch EDDM customers off guard:

Address-side requirements — the bottom-right portion of the back must include the indicia (postage marking), the return address, and a clear zone for USPS to stamp. Use our EDDM template to lay this out correctly — eyeballing it will get the shipment rejected at the post office

Bleed is still 0.125” — same rules as any other print piece, even though EDDM-specific layouts can feel like they should be different

Large text near the trim — some EDDM templates push text closer to the address-side edges than other postcards. Stay inside the safe area regardless of template

Color saturation differs at distance — EDDM postcards are read from arm’s length when someone pulls the mail. Designs that look great on a screen at 100% can look muddy at viewing distance. Boost contrast and increase headline size beyond what feels “right” on screen

The math of an EDDM campaign

Quick back-of-envelope cost for a small business mailing 5,000 households:

Postage at EDDM Retail rate — roughly $1,000 (about 20¢ per piece)

Postcards at 14pt gloss UV, 6.5” × 9”, 5,000 quantity — about $400-500

Total — around $1,400-1,500 for a saturation mailing to 5,000 homes

That’s roughly 30¢ per impression. Compare that to digital ad costs — a 30¢ CPM in digital marketing buys you 1,000 impressions, but they’re 1-second ad-blocked banner views from anonymous users. The 30¢ per impression EDDM is a physical card in a hand. Different qualitative thing entirely.

Where to start

Our Postcards collection has every EDDM-compatible size with live pricing, plus the dieline templates that include the EDDM address-side layout pre-built. Pick a size, download the template, lay your art down, and submit.

If your campaign is time-sensitive, rush production (ships in 2-3 business days instead of 4-5) is available on every postcard product. The bottleneck is usually USPS taking 1-3 weeks to actually deliver after you drop the piece — so plan your campaign timing around that, not just our turnaround.

Originally published at https://bestqualityprinting.com/blog/best-paper-stocks-eddm-postcards — Best Quality Printing.