Art Portfolio Project: Adobe Photoshop & Adobe Illustrator Technical Research

 In this post, I will be researching about the technical details about the Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator settings. This include like, album size, the best dpi/ppi, type of colour format that I should use and what file should I export with in Adobe Photoshop. With Adobe Illustrator, I am researching how I can trace my typography and what kind of files should I save it to use it in Adobe Photoshop as a logo. 

Jaden Urban vinyl collection
Source: Medium

Adobe Photoshop

For starting, I need to look into the dimension of the album/vinyl cover that would be perfect for printing. According to Vinyl Flat (2022), there are three common size of vinyl cover that are 12 inches for Long Play, 10 inches and 7 inches for Extended Play. Typically the cover dimension goes up to12.375 inches to make sure that the disc is easily removable. Since I am making an album cover that will be hang on the wall, and there is no disc, I will stick with 12 inches.  Also the ratio must be 1:1. I decided to go with 12 inches so it should be 12×12 inches. After that, to ensure that my quality is the top-notch, Mihai (2020) recommend to set the dpi to at least 300. She also recommend to set the bleed the edges of the cover of 5 mm so if I am printing, there will be no design error of design that cut off. This is the example:

Source: Mixonic Guidelines Book

Next there are two options for the colour format which is RGB and CMYK. 

RGB

RGB is basically stand for Red, Green and Blue and it is the best for digital images. Vista Print (2022) suggest to use RGB when making web and app design, branding, social media and visual content. The file format to use are JPEG, PSD, PNG or GIF.

CMYK

CMYK is stand for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key/Black. This colour format is the way to go for printed materials. Vista Print (2022) stated that "A printing machine creates images by combining CMYK colors to varying degrees with physical ink. This is known as subtractive mixing. All colors start as blank white, and each layer of ink reduces the initial brightness to create the preferred color. When all colors are mixed together, they create pure black". Use CMYK when making a branding like business card or stickers, advertising like billboards and poster, merchandise like shirt and essential printed materials like product packaging or restaurant menu. The files that should be use are PDF, AI or EPS.

Since I am going to print my album cover for this project, I will be using CMYK colour format. 

Adobe Illustrator

Since I am going to trace my band typography logo, I need to make a research how to import it after I finish trace it. I watch from a YouTube videos called The Computer Preceptor, he recommend to save Adobe Illustrator file to PSD file to use it in Adobe Photoshop. Because of that, I am doing a little experiment to ensure that it is working.

I open Adobe Illustrator and make a simple icon of a impression that opening its mouth. After finish making that, I click on File > Export. Then a new windows will pop up. 

I name the file mouth and the Save as type, I set it to Photoshop (PSD). Now my simple icon is saved as a Photoshop file. After that I try to open the file in Photoshop and try to see how is it. Is it editable and resizable?

I tried to open it in Photoshop and it is working with a transparent background which is great. Then I copy the icon to a canvas to see if it resizable. It is resizable and can be edit. 

After making this research, I can finally move to editing the actual album with no technical problems. This research has improve the comprehension of the format that I should be aware and be careful before move on to edit the actual products. As a Graphic Designer, this is very crucial knowledge so I do not make any simple mistake.

References

Mihai, M. (2020). Vinyl Cover Design - A Practical Guide | RPM Records. [online] Rpmrecords. Available at: https://www.rpmrecords.dk/blog/vinyl-cover-design-a-practical-guide/ [Accessed 15 May 2024].

Vinyl Flat. (2022). Types of Vinyl Records: Sizes, Dimensions and Materials. [online] Available at: https://www.vinylflat.com/record-sizes-dimensions.

Vistaprint Ideas and Advice US. (2022). RGB vs CMYK: What’s the Difference? | VistaPrint US. [online] Available at: https://www.vistaprint.com/hub/correct-file-formats-rgb-and-cmyk [Accessed 15 May 2024].