Photoshop Products
Introduction
So you’ve just started your own business and want to add that final touch to make your business more professional. If you’re wanting to make a snazzy business card to present to your future clients or customers, but find the pre-made templates that many sites or designers offer to be boring, well look no further! If you have a design in mind, but don’t know how to format the file for printing, then continue reading.
The following tutorial is for Photoshop CS6, but will work with previous versions of Photoshop (granted you know your way around the program a little). If you don’t have Photoshop, you can purchase it at Adobe.com or from Amazon.com from the links to the side. The only downside to this is that Photoshop can be rather expensive; hundreds of dollars for the regular edition, with the student and teacher edition still being around $300. This is if you purchase the newest version, older versions of the program can probably be found on Amazon.com for cheaper.
Of course, you can always download a trial version of the newest edition from Adobe’s website.
Here’s the link for Photoshop CS6: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop
Just know that the trial version will only work for 30 days, after which it will be inactive and require a serial key to be purchased to continue using.
Anyways, after you have legally acquired a copy of Photoshop, continue to the tutorial below. Enjoy and please leave a comment! :)
Tutorial
First click File.
Then select New.
For Name type in a name for your business card. I simply put “Business Card”. Then make sure the dimensions and resolution are as shown. Set the height and width to Inches from the drop-down menu and make sure the resolution is set toPixels/In. For color mode, select CMYK and 8 bit from the drop-down menus. If everything looks correct then click OK.
To the left of the canvas and above the canvas should be rulers. (“Canvas” refers to the white area that is your business card area where text and graphics will go).
If there are no rulers present you can either press Ctrl + R on your keyboard or click View from the main toolbar at the top and click Rulers from the list. You must have rulers on for the next part.
Next click on the ruler at the top and hold down. Then drag down onto the white canvas.
Align the blue line until it is .25 Inches (or 3 notches down if you are in centimeter mode) from the top of the canvas. If you accidentally let go of the blue line, you can click and hold on the line to reposition it. Simply wait for a symbol that looks like <||>. To make vertical blue lines click on the ruler to the left and drag. The blue lines will be referred to as “guidelines” and they represent the area of the canvas in which you can work with, but I’ll get to that later.
*Note: You can right-click on the ruler to bring up a menu where you can select how you want the ruler to measure: ie Inches, centimeters, pixels, etc.
Click and drag the rulers on the top and left until you have guidelines like the picture above. All of the guidelines should be positioned at .25 inches from each edge of the canvas (it doesn’t have to be perfect). The guidelines create a smaller rectangle inside the canvas that denotes the area in which it is “safe” to place text and other important graphics such as logo and any design elements you feel are required to be on your business card. The reason we must use these guidelines is because almost all of the printers that are used to cut business cards do not cut perfectly every time. That means that a small margin from each edge of the card must exist so that the very small amount the blade moves around will still cut outside the area of importance.
Now that you’re done making the guidelines, you can start designing your business card. The above picture shows the icon that must be clicked to create a new layer. If you are unsure if you are clicking the correct icon, simply hover your mouse over the icon and wait for the description to pop up. It should say something like “create a new layer”.
*Note: You can also select Layer from the main menu and then select New and then click Layer from the side menu that appears. Or you can always press Ctrl + Shift + N on your keyboard.
When the new layer is created you will see it on the right side in the layers window. This new layer is where you will create your background. Now, this is not a tutorial on how to design a business card, as all business card designs should be unique. So to speed things up I went ahead and created a simple business card design which you will see in the below picture.
Notice all of the layers on the right. Whenever you select the text tool from the toolbar on the left side of Photoshop, it will automatically create a new layer in the layers window upon entering text onto the canvas. This is very convenient as it makes it very simple to move the texts around the canvas for repositioning and resizing.
When you are done creating your business card design, ensure that all important texts and graphics are inside of the guidelines as shown in the above picture. One thing I should note is that I created a black and blue gradient background for this fake business card design. It is highly recommended that you do not create something like this for your business card as it is a waste of ink (for those printing at home) and it looks unprofessional and too complicated. The only reason I did it for this tutorial is to show that the background SHOULD extend beyond the guidelines. We do this so that if the printer cuts just a little outside the guideline then there is still background there to be shown instead of having a small sliver of white space present, as that would look EXTREMELY unprofessional.
Now that you are done designing the card, it is time to save the file. Click File on the main menu and then select Save As. Designate a location to save the file and then type a name for the file. Ensure that the Format drop-down option is set toPhotoshop (*.PSD, *.PDD) and then click OK. A PSD file is Photoshop’s default file format and allows you to reopen the file in Photoshop with all layers present so that any needed future adjustments can be made.
You will also want to save your design in a file type that places will accept for printing. So repeat the previous step by going to File, Save As but then this time open the drop-down menu that says Format and choose one. The most widely accepted format will most likely be JPEG. So select that format and then clickSave.
*I should also note that I have only had business cards printed at Staples as I found them to be the cheapest for my needs, and there are plenty of Staples in my area. Staples can do printing online or at the store. They accept JPEG, JPG, PNG, and some other file types. If you want a complete list you can call them or try visiting their site.
Anyways, moving on…
After clicking Save another window will pop up named JPEG Options. The only thing that should be changed if needed is the quality. Ensure that the quality is dragged to the maximum of 12 and then click OK.
Conclusion
The above picture is the final JPEG version of my business card.
And that’s it! It’s pretty simple to design a business card in Photoshop. So now that you have a final product, simply go on to Google or whichever search engine and look for a place to get them printed. Some places may need to have the card resized to accommodate for their printer’s cutting area, so keep a PSD file of the design handy in case you have to move things around.
Other Thoughts
For those of you who wish to print your business card from home, check out the amazon links below for different types of business card paper. Thanks again for reading and please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom!
Avery Two-Side Printable Clean Edge Business Cards for Inkjet Printers, Matte, White, Pack of 200 (08871)
Amazon Price: $4.90
List Price: $17.99
List Price: $17.99
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