Popular questions about Graphic Design - Start Here

Question

I often find it hard to find back the old answers that fit the most popular "duplicate".

What do you think of creating a Meta that would be updated (when needed) and would contain all the links to the most popular questions/answers we use as duplicate?

This could be a featured Meta so we could all have a quick access to it. That would make it easier to close-as-duplicate sometimes.

I'd make it simple and as a list. There could be more than one answer for each question.

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Resolution for large formats printing:

What resolution should a large format artwork for print be?

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How to formulate critique question (e.g. Need feedback on a design project? Read this!)

Guidelines for critique questions

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How to convert a Pantone to CMYK:

What is the difference between CMYK and RGB? Are there other color spaces I should know?

Pantone color conversions

Mismatched CMYK Values

How do Pantone coated and uncoated colors relate?

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What is bleed?

What is page bleed and how can I avoid issues with it ?

How can I determine how much bleed to use?

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How to prepare my files print-ready?

How to prepare a design for CMYK printing?

crop marks for print in photoshop

Which file format is best for printing?

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How to change resolution in Photoshop?

Will changing image resolution from 300 to 72 without resampling reduce the quality?

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How to make sure my file are using Pantone Spot Colors?

What does it mean when printers have told me my colour is not a Pantone colour, but in my file it is?

How to find a Pantone Color in Illustrator?

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How to convert my Pantone colors?

How To Convert Pantone Tint to similar Pantone Color

How to convert Pantone 7C to TPX?

How can one accurately reproduce color from an already printed (hard copy) color block?

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RGB to CMYK color conversion

Why are my printed colors duller than expected?

How do I edit my CMYK greens to output as brightly as possible?

RGB and CMYK: Why both?

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Working with large files: Performance issues / slow computer

Working with physically large (150''+) canvas sizes

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How to use the Pathfinder tool in Illustrator (or how to cut out shapes from another shape)

Pathfinder divide tool on object with gradient mesh

How to make an area transparent in Illustrator

Cut strokes from other shapes via pathfinder

Merging separate paths in Illustrator

How to subtract text from a shape in Adobe Illustrator?

White Lines (Not Strokes) Appearing between shapes after using Pathfinder tool. How do I get rid of them?

How do I clean up my layers after outlining strokes and dividing?

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Image dimension difference when importing from Photoshop to Illustrator, why?

Photoshop / Illustrator / InDesign - placed image different dimensions and resolution

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Answer 1

Here are some other possible questions based on votes. I'll keep adding more as I find them. Ideally, we should make sure the ones we use as reference Qs are cleared of long comment exchanges and generally well-presented :P

Print:

• What kind of black should I use when designing for CMYK print?

• What should you ask the printer?

Font identification and pairing:

• How can I know what fonts a website is using? (new question - created so we can link to it)

• What are best practices for choosing and pairing fonts? (this is good one for all those "What matches font X?"

• How can I describe the font I am looking for or looking at?

• What is the difference between a font and a typeface?

Finding assets:

• Where are some good places to find royalty free stock images? (might be getting old though)

Design, designers and creativity:

• Tips and resources for beginning designers

• How do I learn to be creative?

• What is the single most influential book every designer should read?

• How do you break out of current creative mind sets?

• What technical/objective qualities do good logos have? (good for "Is my logo good?" when there is no elaboration to make it into a critique Q)

• What price should I charge for design services?

• How can I improve my color selection skill? and Methods for improving color choice and combinations?

• How does one generate a palette similar to the ones in Google's material design?

Software:

• Making the background of an image transparent in Gimp (this used to show up a lot, not sure now)

• Professionals: Would you choose GIMP over Photoshop and/or Inkscape over Illustrator?

• How to get dashed line in Photoshop?

• How to change the color of the artboard in Adobe Illustrator?

• How do I combine two objects into one in Illustrator?

Image Quality:

• How can I increase the size of a .jpeg without losing quality? (I constantly see questions that ask about increasing an image's size without losing quality, please add others/betters ones if you come across them)