How to Make Your Own Printable Poster
If you're a professional graphic designer or enthusiast who likes to create your own poster designs and art, one way to disseminate your work to the masses is to offer or sell printable posters. A printable poster is an image file that you can display online or email to someone for quick printing on a home printer (see "Resources" for an example).
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Things You'll Need
- Image editing program
- Online picture editing utility
- Scanner and corresponding software (optional)
- Website
Instructions
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Create your poster design in an image editing program like Adobe Photoshop, ImageReady or Gimp (free---see "Resources" for link). These programs allow you to create a series of layers and draw complex curves, lines and paths to make up your poster. You can then combine each layer into one image. Assure that you save the file as a high resolution (300 dpi or greater) JPEG file in RGB color mode.
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Use on online picture editing utility (see "Resources" for an example) as an alternative to create a simple printable poster. Here you can open a digital picture then add elements (such as clip art, other photos, and text) on top of that main picture. Again, assure that your file is 300 dpi or higher in RGB mode.
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Scan your artwork into your computer as another alternative if you like to draw your poster designs by hand. Scanner software varies but are usually similar to picture editing utilities as described in the last step---just assure that you scan the artwork in at a resolution of 300 dpi or higher in RGB mode.
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Create a "cutout" outline around the printable poster as a guideline for the person who wants to print by adding dashed lines around the edges (called "stroking" the edges of the image in some graphic design programs). Leave about a half inch of white space around the borders of the image.
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Size the final poster image at about 800 pixels wide by 1000 pixels tall. This should fit comfortably in a web browser while giving the user a nice-sized poster. Leave the resolution at 300 dpi so that the user gets the best print quality possible.
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Upload the file to your web server and deliver the link to your customers. You can also create a separate web page for the printable poster (place the JPEG file link inside of HTML <img> tags) with written instructions for how the user can print and cut out the poster along the guidelines.
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Tips & Warnings
Save the poster in a variety of sizes to meet the customer's needs if you plan to sell copies of the printable poster. The exact sizes are your choice, but a small (about eight by 10 inches), medium (11 by 17 inches), large (18 by 24 or 16 by 20 inches) and extra-large (24 by 36 inches) option will suffice.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Poster image by Reto Durrer from Fotolia.com
