How to make print ready design in illustrator & photoshop?

[natasha]

how to make print ready design in illustrator & Photoshop, I am good at design but when it comes to ready design for printing, then i become afraid, please please please , can anyone suggest any guide, book, tutorial any thing regarding making job ready for print??

[phoenix]

Firstly, contact whoever is printing the job and get their list of their preferred specs for supplying files. Supplying native files if they want a press-ready PDF will just create grief on both sides.

For a few juniors I created a checklist that was stuck to their computer, highlighting things to double-check, eg:
- page size
- bleed
- fonts all there
- overset text
- spot colours to CMYK (unless it was a spot job of course)
- spellcheck
- and so on

Some of these items might be trickier using Illustrator and Photoshop, rather than InDesign. Your checklist will need to highlight correct colour space and resolution as well. I also 'clean up' files by removing unnecessary colour swatches, checking there's no empty boxes and so on.

One big thing I try and impart to other designers is to build correctly as you go - eg convert those pics straight up, set your page with bleed straight away, if using ID then have your PreFlight function checked so you can see any overset text issues as you go, etc. One, it instills good habits - two, it saves you time when running your post-approval checks later - three, if someone else has to step in and work on your files before sending it out, then they don't have to guess what's ready or not.

Here's some tutes I found (via Google)
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/tutorials ... int-ready/