← The Olympian CTE Yearbook Design I & II 4th Period 2026–27
Page specs

TheBook

Trim · Bleed · Gutter · DPI · CMYK · Formats

The printer runs one schedule for a thousand schools and won’t fix your bleed. These numbers don’t move.

01The three numbers

300 dpi. CMYK. 0.375 in

These are the printer’s rules, not suggestions. The printer won’t fix your bleed for you, and there’s no second chance.

How this year’s book looks (the modes, the type, the color) lives in the Design Bible. This page is only the numbers.

300 dpi at the size it printsLine art needs 800 dpi. Every camera in our cabinet takes photos about four times bigger than that. The camera is never the problem.
Never RGBUse CMYK or Pantone. Rich black is 50C 40M 40Y 100K, total ink under 300%. Never the Registration swatch.
0.375 in away from the spineThe spine is the fold in the middle. This space is bigger than the bleed and the safe margin added together. Anything here, including faces, disappears into the fold.
  • Trim size
    8.5 × 11 in · standard
  • Bleed
    0.125 in past the trim on any edge your art runs off
  • Safe margin
    Keep anything that can’t get cut at least 0.125 in from the page edge
  • Gutter
    0.375 in on the spine side. Anything here disappears into the fold
  • Color
    CMYK or Pantone. Never RGB. Rich black 50C 40M 40Y 100K, total ink under 300%
  • Images
    300 dpi at the size they print. Line art 800 dpi
  • Type
    TrueType or OpenType only, embedded. At least 12 pt for four-color text
  • File formats
    TIFF, EPS, PDF, JPEG
EATEN BY THE SPINE LEFT PAGE RIGHT PAGE BLEED 0.125 IN TRIM 8.5×11 SAFE 0.125 IN GUTTER 0.375 IN EACH SIDE
Art should run out to the dashed pink line, or white will show at the edge. Keep anything important inside the dotted blue line. Keep everything important away from the yellow.
02How big

How big does the photo need to be?

  • Full page, running off the edges
    2625 × 3375 px
  • Full page
    2550 × 3300 px
  • Half page
    2550 × 1650 px
  • Quarter page
    1275 × 1650 px
  • Eighth page and small ads
    1275 × 825 px

Every camera in our cabinet beats the biggest size here by about four times.The camera is never the problem.

Pixels, DPI, and why your photo printed blurry

A photo’s size is measured in pixels. The A7 III takes 6000 × 4000, and nothing you do later adds more. DPI isn’t part of the photo. It’s an instruction for how big to print it.

sharp
3000 px ÷ 10 in = 300 dpi

The same photo printed small, so the pixels are packed tight.

mush
3000 px ÷ 20 in = 150 dpi

The same photo printed big, so the pixels are spread thin.

Typing 300 into the DPI box does nothing. It can’t add pixels. If Photoshop offers to “resample,” that’s worse: it makes up new pixels by guessing.

The four ways a page gets ruined

Instagram shrinks photos. Screenshots are already tiny. A photo sent by text has been shrunk twice. A logo saved from a website is usually 200 pixels wide. All four happen before anyone opens Photoshop.

03Formats

File formats: what works and what doesn’t

  • RAW · ARW NEF CR2
    What the camera captures, nothing lost. Edit it before it’s usable. Walsworth doesn’t accept it
  • TIFF
    Nothing lost, can be see-through, very big. Print master files
  • PNG
    Nothing lost, can be see-through. Logos, cutouts, anything with a see-through background
  • JPEG
    Loses a little quality, can’t be see-through. Final photos, saved once, at the end
  • HEIC / WebP
    What iPhones and websites give you. Convert before you use them
  • SVG / AI / EPS
    Vector: shapes instead of pixels. Sharp at any size. Logos and type only

JPEG loses a little quality every time you save it. Once is fine. Five times is mush. Edit from the RAW, save as JPEG once at the end.Don’t edit the JPEG.

cutout survives
mascot_cutout.png

PNG can be see-through, so on a colored page the background stays invisible.

white box
mascot_cutout.jpg

JPEG can never be see-through. Twenty minutes cutting out edges, and you still get a white box.

Ads · ask for the logo when they buy the ad

A logo saved from a website prints blurry. Ask for a vector file as soon as they buy: “Can you send the logo as an AI, EPS, SVG, or PDF?” About half say yes right away.

04Dark on dark

Dark on dark disappears in print

A screen gives off light. Ink doesn’t. Dark gray text on dark navy looks fine on screen because the screen lights up both. On paper, they blend and your caption disappears. It will always look fine in Walsworth.It won’t look fine in the book.

Print contrast check ยท will it survive printing?
—
SAMPLE TEXT
The same two colors in grayscale, which is close to what the printer sees:
SAMPLE TEXT
What the number means

L* measures how light a color looks: 0 is black, 100 is white. The difference between your two numbers is what shows up in print. Under 25 might not show. Under 15 won’t. Both dark? You need a bigger gap than you think.

The free version

Check it in grayscale

Turn your spread gray, zoom out to 25%, look from arm’s length. Anything that disappears there disappears in the book. Color hides the problem.Take the color away.

The three rules

The three rules

Never put dark text on a dark part of a photo. Move it, or put a see-through dark box (a scrim) behind it.

White text needs a dark enough background. White on medium gray turns to mush too.

Not sure? Add more contrast than looks right on screen. Printing always loses some.

RGB vs. CMYK, quickly. Screens make color with light, so they show colors ink can’t print. That neon blue will print a little duller. Nobody did anything wrong.Just know it’s coming.

A photo doesn’t get sharper because you need it to.