Christmas Cards...How easy are they to make?

Since I have been having SOOO much fun learning PSP9 and making siggy's, I have had the bright idea of making christmas cards this year.

BUT, I have NO idea how large I would want to make my design, while working and when finished.

I plan on sending the finished design off to snapfish or something like that.

Can someone help me with picking out right pixle size to work with? And what the pixle dimensions should be when finished? I would like to end up with a nice sized card, maybe a 5x7 or 4x6.

And, does anyone have an online printer they like best? I am very open to referals in that department.



Thanks so much!
Kristin

I think 4x7 is a good size. It about the same size as a standard sized post card. The best size to use is 600x800 pixels, or to make it even better double the size and then ask for 4x7 pictures to be printed.

So would I design it at 1200x1600, give them that same resolution and then ask for 4x7 cards to be printed?

Originally Posted by Yarra

So would I design it at 1200x1600, give them that same resolution and then ask for 4x7 cards to be printed?

Click to expand...

I'd design them at 300 DPI, and 1200x1600 so that you will get the best quality for printing.

Thanks so much Hope!

1200 x 1600 would give you a 4 x 5.3 card at 300 dpi and a 5x6.6 at 240 which would cost you more to print as they are unusual sized or would need to be cropped.

Before you decide you should also look into whether the printer can print right to the edges as you may want to make them smaller to fit in their print area

if you want 5x7 cards you would need to use 1500x2100 for 300 dpi

I think I will send the finised project to shutterfly. I used them once a long time ago for one single birthday card, and they did a really good job.

thanks for these sizes. This is the part that overwhelms me and sends me packing up Paintshop. I don't understand how pixles and size and dpi and eveything like that work! so whe it comes time to resize, or open a project I get so frutrated and end up quiting it all together.

This is a tremendous help.


Kristin

Originally Posted by Yarra

I think I will send the finised project to shutterfly. I used them once a long time ago for one single birthday card, and they did a really good job.

thanks for these sizes. This is the part that overwhelms me and sends me packing up Paintshop. I don't understand how pixles and size and dpi and eveything like that work! so whe it comes time to resize, or open a project I get so frutrated and end up quiting it all together.

This is a tremendous help.

Kristin

Click to expand...

Shutterfly really does a great job - I get pictures thru them a lot!

Good luck with your cards!

I'm bad with math. I usually send the size I said in and get 4x5 prints made, and they look fine to me. Of course I never really put anything of importance around the boarders. I've had Shutterfly print them for me, and they came out great. Looked just like a post card.

Yay! I am so excited, now comes the hard part!

What do I design?

Dress the kitties up? or dress up a cute photo of them?

Ideas?