I sent an email to ask a few questions to a printing shop about some gaming cards I want to print but I'm not sure I understood the answers they gave me.
When I asked them, according to their printing settings, which color profile I should use to be compliant, they told me not to use any color profile. How can I be sure the colors in my files will be properly interpreted by their printer then? It seems like a hit or miss thing to me. It becomes even more confusing when they say I can send files in either RGB or CMYK mode, "it doesn't matter" (note that they want a file in PDF format).
I also asked which image resolution I should send them and they said "we can print up to 800 dpi". This confuses me as I was asking the output format they want, assuming they would downsample it to 300 dpi. And they seem to tell me that their printing input format is anything between 300 and 800. I thought 300 was all there was when printing. So, which resolution is the best to send them objectively then to get the most out of my files, considering I scanned the illustrations at 2400 dpi ? 300 or 600 or 800 or anything in between? Does it really not matter?
I could ask them of course but I figure I could make more sense of it all here. They seem to be responsive but not very keen to explanations (which is understandable). FYI, it's MakePlaying Cards.com, which has a relatively good reputation, so I believe it's just me not getting it.
- nothing to do with them this time: is there a point to use a IT8 target to calibrate and profile a budget scanner (Epson perfection V39) or is it worthless for that product range? it's a decent scanner but certainly not high end. My iMac screen is calibrated but the scanner default color settings seem off. I played with the VueScan settings and it's better but still approximative. On the other hand, I don''t want to buy and wait for an IT8 target that would end up being useless with the hardware I own.
Thanks for your help.