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Our biggest advantage is how small we are and how big we imagine.
Who are our customers?
• Businesses
• Event Organizers & Venues
• Musicians & Artists
• Schools & Churches
• Non-Profit Organizations
No matter the size of your organization, we want to partner with you on your printing needs.
Being a small print shop means we’re able to set time aside for special projects and help our customers create products specific to their needs. With our network of local and national print houses, we’re able to source special products we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do in-house. Making us competitive with nearly every website or print shop nationwide.
We’ll put our best foot forward because we want to see you succeed. Selfishly, the better you do, the more printing you’ll need.
If you have a question that our website didn’t cover, feel free to email us. We pride ourselves on being friendly with other print shops in the area. If there’s something we can’t do, we likely know someone who can. -
QUALITY, COLOR, AND SERVICE GUARANTEE
We believe the best things happen when customers are satisfied. That's why we're always looking to exceed expectations. Our goal is to mix the perfect potion of service, quality, and pricing.
We aren't perfect, but we give it our best shot! We're happy to print a sample before running any order. If you want to make changes to your document after the first sample, we can make another sample until it's perfect. We want to work with you just as much as you want to work with us, let us know how we can better serve you.
GUARANTEE: If you approve a physical proof and your finished product is different beyond the allowable color shift and image placement shift, we will gladly reprint your order or give you store credit for the value of any misprinted items.
If you do not request a proof, you waive your rights to any reprints, store credits, or otherwise compensation. Your order will be printed to the best of our understanding
Our color difference can vary between -/+ 15% and we don't offer color matching. If you need a color-matched, let us know and we'll try to find the best solution that works with your requirements, timeline, and budget.
We do everything we can to be on time. We try to work with every customer’s deadlines as orders come in and respond to requests as quickly as possible. It's very important to include your deadline when you order via our website so we can let you know if we are not able to meet your deadline or offer a recommendation. We have a network of printers both in-house, locally, and nationally which can quickly mitigate production hiccups.
Things happen and we can't always take 100% liability for things like weather and shipping delays, power outages, printing malfunctions, or any unplanned interruptions. What we can guarantee is that we'll do our best. If we mess something up, we'll make it right. If we notice something isn’t looking quite right, we like to be ahead of it and bring it to your attention for review as soon as we notice.
If you have an issue with your order, do not hesitate to bring it to our attention so we can review and remedy a quick and effective solution.
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We take branding seriously, both ours and yours!
If your design is PG and you'd like to include our logo or our name on your print, please follow these guidelines.
"PGH Print Ship" should remain with capital letters for “PGH“ and “Print Ship“ in title case for each word with a single space between each word and all but the first letters in each word should remain lowercase.
“PghPrintShip.com“ should remain with capital letters in title case for each word with no spaces between each word and all but the first letters in each word should remain lowercase.
The font should be "Share" or any Sans-Serif font with bold lettering. Colors in either all solid black or all solid white when typed. The color of the font should be whichever contrasts best with the background. Sans-Serif means the ends of each letter don't have extended features.
https://fonts.google.com/selection?query=Share&selection.family=Share
The logo may not be manipulated, stretched, or skewed in any transformation.
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All orders are produced with the understanding of the integrity of our customers who are committed to refraining from submitting orders that are not either their original artwork, do not have permission, or do not have a license to use.
Copyright infringement can bring fines of $250,000 and/or jailtime for both our print shop and the customer. There is no instance which producing copyrighted materials is worth it for us or our customers.
You may think to yourself, you are not selling the item, so this doesn’t apply to you. However, by us producing the order and charging you for it, that transaction is what makes it potentially illegal.
We reserve the right to coordinate with the proper authorities if we believe a person is acting with malicious intent to break copyright laws.
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Templates make things easy. We created some templates (below) so you can know what to expect from bleed space, cut lines, and safe areas.
All graphics should be 300 resolution or vector with fonts embedded.
For copier and sign printing the color profile should be saved as CMYK and the extension PDF. If not, we can try to work with it.
For fine art printing, RGB is preferred but CMYK is also acceptable and the extension should be JPG or TIFF. Bleed is not needed for fine art printing.
Bleed is important so we aren't trying to cut too close to your image and end up cutting off important text or graphics. The background should extend all the way to the edge of the file on all four sides to ensure the finished product is trimmed down just right with no white space cracking out of any of the edges.
Cut lines are good to get a general idea of how the size is going to come out but try to avoid designs made to work with a specific cut line as the spacing and cut line can shift slightly from sheet to sheet.
The safe area should be 0.125" or 1/8" inside the cut lines to ensure any important text or graphics don't get cut off.
0.25" or 1/4" is an optimal border if you want white around the edge of an image or if you want there to be a border.
Try to keep borders and text inside the safe area. Borders can be tough for any printmaker, even multi-million dollar machines are within 1/10" of an inch, just like us. We'll always do our best; but when we cut in a stack, each sheet may be printed in a slightly different position in any direction. Make it double-sided and you double the amount of space the image can float. In general, the naked eye will never notice. But if you put borders right at the cut line it will stick out like a sore thumb.
Backgrounds on a copier should be gradient or textured. There are a lot of moving parts. Some lines can naturally show up vertically or horizontally in prints with large patches of solid color. We'd be happy to do a test print if you'd like to see how your design will print.
For help with crop marks and bleed, please review this page: https://www.printing.utah.edu/how-to-add-printer-marks-and-bleeds-to-adobe-illustrator/
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Vector files are always preferred.
If you only have an image that is a raster (pixels) please use the File Resolution Calculator to see how your file can be sized.
DIY: Measuring from the file size, divide by either 300 or 150, and that will result in the maximum height and width your image can properly be printed.
Example: If you have a file that is 2400 x 3600 you can either divide by 300 and you will get 8” x 12” or divide by 150 and you’ll get 16” x 24”.
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Don’t see the template you’re looking for? Fill out an order form for the item you’re looking for and mention in the notes field that you need a template and include the program you plan to use. We support templates for Illustrator, Photoshop, and Canva.
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We do not offer art photography in-house.
Our longtime art photographer, Pat Bruener, has opened up a photography store in Bloomfield and we would appreciate you giving him your business.
ART PHOTOGRAPHY BY BODEGA FILM LAB
We do not recommend scanning for artwork.
Scanning is best for documents because it blasts light against the glass and creates a high-contrast copy removing any highlighter-like colors.
In the late twenty-teens, mirrorless cameras with high megapixel counts became available to professional photographers bringing an abundance of improved color and quality to digitizing artwork.
If you would like to do art photography yourself;
You will want a camera that can produce images in a resolution that is suitable for printing. The size of your prints is up to you. A smartphone with a 12-megapixel camera will produce images that can print clearly at about 11” x 14” so if you want to print larger than that, you will want something that can produce larger quality images.
A cloudy day outside is perfect for art photography. The reflections will be minimal and the clouds will diffuse the light.
On a bright and sunny day, you can find a shaded area.
If outdoors is not an option, try to find an area inside where there is natural light and no major artificial lighting adding lighting or shading to any particular area of the art piece.
Square up your camera frame to be even with the artwork so in the four corners the artwork is not askew.
If you’re using a DSLR or Mirrorless camera, you will want to also take a good photo using a smartphone (if it’s available) so that when you’re editing you will have a variation to help you balance the colors.
Edit your file so it is perfectly square or rectangle, at the size you want it to print, with proper color adjustments.
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We love working with online retailers to fulfill their orders with our print-on-demand service.
You can use any of our order forms and just use the shipping fields to send directly to your customer.
You can place your orders individually if you plan to print less than 15 orders per month. If you order more than 15 prints per month, we may set you up with a special order form to make it easier to order.
If your order is under $25, please use the key below to determine your shipping cost.
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SEE SHIPPING INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF OUR WEBSITE.
ABOUT PGH PRINT SHIP
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As a printmaker for twenty years, I can assure you I have poured my heart, soul, and knowledge into this website so that any questions you may have will be answered either on this FAQ page, the order form for that product, or one of the other pages we have linked at the top or bottom of our website. Only after you have reviewed all of the details on our website and you still have a question, you are welcome to email us.
We’re excited to work with you!
Thank you,
Josh Snider, He/Him,
Owner/Operator -
All of our order forms start with a quick quote generator.
Asking the minimum questions to get you a price quickly.
The order form will ask for final details, your files, and then your contact info.
That’s it, no logging in, nothing complicated.
If you have questions about our order form or want to specify a detail, you may email us.
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All of our customers expect us to be thorough and accurate in everything we do.
We feel it is not too much to ask our customers to also care and pay attention when ordering. So we can do our best work with minimal errors or questions.
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In the notes section of every order form, you can mention any special details.
Something that could affect the price of your order.
You can mention your deadline.
You can ask for a proof.
This notes section is the best way to go about finding out more information about potentially ordering from us since we need as much info as possible to assess how, if, and when we can produce your order.
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Our amazing team of just two people 👫 will review your work order and your artwork.
If everything looks good we will send you an invoice via QuickBooks.
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We will correct the issue on your invoice.
Please review your invoice thoroughly.
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If there is any issue at all, we will reply by email with any questions or to clarify something.
If there is any delay in our production schedule, you will be notified via email right away!
Check your spam folder in your email.
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Some of our order forms have a field for deadlines. If not, you can use the notes section to mention if you have a deadline.
If we cannot meet your deadline, we will reply and let you know.
Check your spam folder in your email.
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Orders are not accepted until we send an invoice.
Please do not pay until you are invoiced.
If you get an invoice that means that if you pay the same day, your order is on our schedule and running on time.
Check your spam folder in your email.
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We do not add your order to our production schedule until it is paid in full.
Delayed payment will delay the order.
If your order is urgent, please pay urgently.
Some urgent orders will need to be paid by a specific time that we will instruct via email.Since every order is custom, there is nothing we can do with your order once it is printed.
If there is a failure on our part, we will always do everything we can to make it right. We take pride in fairness and honesty with each one of our customers.
Check your spam folder in your email. -
All communications about your order will be via email.
Any correspondence regarding your order must be done by replying to the order confirmation email that was generated automatically when you placed your order.
If you have any questions, forgot to mention something, had trouble uploading your file, need to change your artwork, or would like to cancel your order.
Check your spam folder in your email if you cannot find the order confirmation email.
CANCELLATIONS or artwork changes cannot be made Once production on your order has started.
Check your spam folder in your email.
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When your order is finished we will email you.
If you are picking up in our office you must reply with an appointment or else we may miss you if we are not expecting you. We no longer have regular business hours, while we are generally available on weekdays, there are many reasons our business will have us out of the office.
Check your spam folder in your email.
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We process 35-75 orders every day.
We are in production 99% of the time.
It is impossible for us to answer phone calls.
When we get DM’s or texts asking us about an order or a quote it slows down production for you and everyone else.
Please, please, please, with a cherry on top reply by email to the order confirmation you got when you placed your order.
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We are not currently offering any graphic design services.
All orders must be placed with print-ready files. if you select full bleed on your order form, we expect your file to have a proper safe area, crop marks, and bleed.
If you don’t know what that means, either do not select full bleed or contact one of the graphic designers we have listed on our graphic design page linked on the bottom left of every page of our website. The graphic designers on that list have either worked for us in-house or we have partnered with them for years, we trust them to provide excellent service and a finished product that is print-ready.