Computer Genius? Digital Camera User?
Or just thinking about it?
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Digital Photography and inexpensive scanners have given you the opportunity to do some or all of the pre-press work yourself. Provided you follow a few guidelines, there is nothing wrong with that as long as you realize we can only print as good as the files you provide. Here are some points you need to consider.

Scanning
If you use your own scanner and you scan slides or transparencies you will not get any satisfactory result with a flat-bed scanner, even with a transparency adapter. With some exceptions of high end flat bed scanners, the D-Max on those scanners is not high enough to scan the slides in a good density range. In our experience, a D-Max of 3.8 or higher is required in order to get professional looking results. However, there are always exceptions as it depends many times on the quality of the slides and the experience of the person who makes the scans and their knowledge of Photoshop in the preparation of the scan.

Color Calibration
It is very important that your monitors are calibrated properly. You can do this with Photoshop or use any of the available monitor hardware/software combination monitor calibrators available on the market. For example, xRite and Monaco just to name a few. Once the monitor is calibrated properly, make sure that you have the proper color settings in the RGB and CMYK in Photoshop. For postcards we use the US Sheetfed Coated settings and for Books and Calendars we use Euroscale Coated as the default. Don't worry too much about those settings however, as we will apply the proper profile before we go into printing.

File Size/Resolution
We print all our post cards in a 200 line screen and prefer to get our files in TIF format with a 350 ppi resolution with an 1/16 bleed on 4x6 cards and 1/8 bleed on 5x7 cards. For calendars and books we work with a bleed of 1/8 inch as well. TIF files are fine for post cards and calendars, books should be assembled in Quark, and proper types styles will have to be included. All files have to be converted to CMYK before printing on your proofer.

Proofs
Inkjet proofs are acceptable for your jobs. As long as the proof matches what you see on screen, you should not have any major problems. Use the proper profile when you print them if you use a post script printer however. Printing without post script printers may give you different results once printed.