Including illustrations or photos in your book is one of the best ways to entice your audience and elevate your finished product. Proper preparation is essential for achieving crisp, clean images, however.
At Gasch Printing, we make the process simple with clear guides, helpful templates, and a prepress team dedicated to catching issues before they become problems.
Why Proper Image Preparation Matters
It’s one of the biggest misconceptions among novice authors and designers: what looks sharp and vibrant on a backlit screen rarely translates the same way on paper. Differences in color mode, resolution, and formatting can affect your print outcome. Preparing your illustrations and photos for the best print quality helps to:
- Maintain high image clarity.
- Prevent pixelation or blurring.
- Ensure accurate color reproduction.
- Protect your layout during trimming and binding.
With Gasch’s templates, onboarding guides, and prepress review, you won’t be doing this alone — but a strong starting file makes the entire process smoother.
Following these best practices can help to ensure your artwork looks its very best on the printed page.
- Use High-Resolution Images (300–600 DPI)
Gasch’s print standards call for:
- 300 dpi for photos and illustrations.
- 600 dpi for line art (drawings, diagrams, vector-style images).
This resolution must be achieved at the final print size. Enlarging a low-resolution image will not improve its quality. Images pulled from the web (typically 72 dpi) are almost always too low-resolution for book-quality printing.
- Use CMYK Color Mode for Accurate Print Results
Most screens display color in RGB, but printing relies on CMYK inks.
To ensure the most predictable color output:
- Convert your artwork to CMYK before creating your final PDF.
- Avoid neon or extremely bright RGB tones, which do not translate cleanly in CMYK.
Gasch can convert RGB images during prepress, but some color variation may occur, especially in oversaturated or highly vibrant art. Converting images yourself gives you more control.
- Follow Gasch Printing’s Templates & Guides Closely
Gasch provides detailed templates for both interior pages and covers:
These templates include:
- Correct trim size
- Built-in bleed
- Safe margins
- Proper interior spacing
Building your layout inside these templates ensures that your artwork falls exactly where it should — preventing trimming errors or layout shifts.
You can also review Gasch’s onboarding guides here.
- Set Up Proper Bleed & Safe Areas
Printed books are trimmed to size after printing, which means image placement must account for slight mechanical variation.
Gasch Printing’s requirements include:
- Bleed: Add 0.125″ on all sides if artwork or photos extend to the edge.
- Safe Zone: Keep important content (text, faces, titles, logos) at least 0.25″ inside the trim line.
Following these measurements ensures nothing essential gets cut off and prevents unwanted white edges on full-bleed images.
- Embed Fonts and Include All Linked Graphics
If your illustrations contain text, or if you have placed linked images (rather than embedded them), make sure:
- All fonts are embedded or converted to outlines.
- All graphics are included in the final packaged file or PDF.
- No links are missing.
- No placeholder low-res previews are left in place.
A self-contained file ensures accurate reproduction on our press systems.
- Export a Print-Ready PDF
When your layout is complete, export your book using a Press Quality preset to preserve:
- High-resolution images.
- Embedded fonts.
- CMYK color data.
- Bleeds and trim marks.
Our “Print Ready PDF” guide expands on these requirements in detail.
Before You Submit: A Quick Image-Prep Checklist
Make sure your file includes:
- Photos/illustrations at 300 dpi (line art at 600 dpi).
- Images converted to CMYK.
- A 0.125″ bleed on all sides (if applicable).
- A 0.25″ safe margin inside trim.
- All fonts embedded or outlined.
- All images embedded (no missing links).
Then export as a print-ready PDF.
With these items covered, your manuscript is in excellent shape—and excellent hands. Our prepress team will take it from there.
Gasch Makes It Easy
You don’t need to be a technical expert to prepare professional images. With Gasch on your side:
- Templates remove the guesswork.
- Onboarding guides walk you step-by-step.
- Prepress staff reviews every submission.
- Clear communication ensures you always know what to expect.
You bring your creative vision. We’ll deliver digital book printing expertise. Reach out to our team today to learn more.