Many users do not realize that Adobe and Corel place crop marks and registration marks off the page. The reason this is done is because they assume the page is full of graphics and do not wish to place a registration mark over the artwork, so it’s placed off the page making it necessary to create larger page prints to include the marks.

Both Adobe and Corel have an option to bring the marks onto the page. This option understands the “bounding box” area (total area of all elements on the page), creates an invisible border, and crops the marks to that new area.

Adobe users of Illustrator CS4 and CS5 select (in the General section in the Print window) “Ignore Artboards”, then select the marks in the section called “Marks and Bleed”. Your marks will now appear on the preview screen and on your film.

Adobe users of Illustrator CS, CS2 and CS3 select the option (in the SETUP section of the Print window) “Artwork Bounding Box” for “Crop Artwork to”, then select the marks in the section called “Marks and Bleed”. Your marks will now appear on the preview screen.

Photoshop is not designed to be an output program and is very lite on it’s print features. We strongly suggest you place/import your file into Illustrator or DRAW or even use a publishing program such as InDesign or Quark.

It’s highly advised to learn how to create your own custom registration marks using the “registration color” included in the swatches of your Illustration programs. See tech note Custom Registration Marks. It is so simple to do and very helpful when registering screens on press.