Happy me. I just completed my first job using Photoshop. I designed a bookmark for a client whose book is coming out soon, and the printer wanted a 1/8" bleed on all sides, to allow for slight trimming errors. In essence, a bleed is when you extend the margins of the bookmark beyond the trim area. That way, if the paper twists just a little, as often happens when cutting through a thick stack, you don't end up with a weird, cockeyed white border on one side.
This may not sound like a big deal, but it's pretty standard in the printing industry to require a minimum 1/8" bleed. And it is harder to do than you think. You can't just enlarge a bookmark and then tell them to trim it down, because enlarging it brings the text too close to the trim line and letters may be cut off.
So I'm a happy camper today. Not only did I come up with a spiffy bookmark, I also came up with a great (IMHO) book blurb. If I could figure out how to isolate the bookmark as a JPEG, I'd post it here, but I can't figure out how to do that. Do you collect bookmarks? Do you use them? Or do you turn down a page, like I do?
