How to add bleed area on full image?

Question

I have added bleed area on an existing image in Illustrator. As usually it is out of my document in red line, but I need to get that red line on my document background.

(My document is A5 size (148*210), bleed size 5mm and it is a PSD file that I opened in Illustrator).

Could anyone help me get the bleed area with the background colour?

Answer 1

Here is what I consider to be the correct way to create a document with a full bleed image:

• Create the image, including the bleed in Photoshop (158 x 220mm in your example, probably 300dpi) and save it in an appropriate format (TIFF is a good choice)
• Create a new, blank document in Illustrator which is the size of the finished job (148 x 210mm in this case)
• Use File > Place to place the image into the document (I would recommend selecting the Link option at the bottom of the file picker window, but that's not essential)
• Position the image so that it is centred on the page, or has a corner at coordinates -5mm / -5mm, same thing
• Save your document as an AI or PDF (and export as something else if needed)

If you follow this process then it should get round any confusion that has arisen from the method that you are currently using.