EXACT Size of 5 x 7 Invitations

[klsantillo]

Hi,

I’m making rectangle frames in Photoshop for my wedding invitations that contain transparent centers. Since they are transparent, I can’t make them in the Design Studio, so I create them in Photoshop and import them. When I make them in Photoshop, I create them as a 5x7 size, but when I import them into Design Studio and center them on the background, the area that shows around the outside of the imported frame is not even on all four sides in the preview, even when centered. This suggests to me that the Zazzle invitation isn’t exactly 5 x 7. Does anyone have a solution to make all four sides even? Or have the EXACT measurements of the invitation so I can change my Photoshop canvas size? I can’t modify an imported rectangle in the same way as a shape used right from in Design Studio. The imported rectangle can only be sized up or down, so I can’t fix the imported rectangle once it’s in Design Studio. Ugh!

[Idraw]

• @klsantillo  
  I checked the blank card template, no safe area, no bleed area, and in product description, no info other than 5 x 7 size. So no help there. 

Try this old school printing way…. trim size 5 x 7 , bleed size 5.25 x 7.25
might just work for you, create using bleed size (even tho there is no bleed shown on the template) then upload to z and size down/or not, and see if it solves your dilemma. Worth a shot.

Or do the reverse, create 4.75 x 6.75, upload to z, scale to fit the 5 x 7 template, May also work.

[Cat_Ritchie]

OK… disclaimer here, I’m not entirely sure that I understand your question (I don’t use PhotoShop or Design Studio) but… assuming that I do understand, I think the problem you’re experiencing may actually be geometry and not the size of the invitation.

If you create a frame that is 5x7 inches, and then shrink it slightly on a 5x7 inch card, you’re NOT going to end up with equal space on all sides of your frame - which is crazy and counterintuitive, but if you want to maintain an equal margin on all sides of your frame, you actually need a different aspect ratio than the card itself.

So, for example, let’s say you have a 5x7 card and you want a frame with a one-inch border between the frame and the edge of the card. In order to achieve that, you need a frame that’s 3x5 inches (an inch off the top, an inch off the bottom, and inch off the right, and an inch off the left.) BUT, if you shrink a 5x7 inch frame so that it’s 3 inches wide, you end up with a frame that’s only 4.2 inches high! (because 3/5 of 7 = 4.2) So, you actually need a taller narrower frame than the size of the invitation. 

I spent an entire afternoon bashing my head against this problem trying to come up with a frame that would look centered on a business card. If you look at this design (Simple Dusty Blue & Lilac Watercolor Wash Feminine Business Card | Zazzle) the frame is centered in a 3.5"x2" card. But if you open the design tool and grow the frame, you can see that it’s actually a wider and shorter aspect ratio than the card! 

So, I think the formula for getting the frame right is to subtract two times the space you want as a border between the frame and the edge from each dimension of your card size. So, if you want an inch border between the frame and the edge of the card (like our example above) you need to subtract double that amount from each dimension - so you need a 3x5 inch frame. For a half inch border, you’d need to subtract an inch from both the height and the width of the card, giving you a frame that’s 4x6 inches. If you want a quarter inch border, then you need to subtract half an inch from each dimension, giving you a frame that’s 4.5x6.5 inches. So the aspect ratio changes depending on how big you want the border to be. Hope that makes sense!

All that being said… Zazzle actually discourages designs that use frames because the way the print process works, they can’t guarantee that it will be exactly centered even if your design is perfect. You can see Scott’s explanation here: https://community.zazzle.com/t5/general-zazzle-discussion/feedback-from-samples-i-ordered/m-p/23337/highlight/true#M3265

ANYHOW, I hope that helps… of course it’s perfectly plausible that I’ve completely misunderstood the problem, in which case you can just ignore all of my blathering! Just hoping to save someone an afternoon of headaches because it is VERY counterintuitive… at least for the way my brain works! 😋

[klsantillo]

Thank you, I’ll try it 😊

[ColsCreations]

If you create a frame that is 5x7 inches, and then shrink it slightly on a 5x7 inch card, you’re NOT going to end up with equal space on all sides of your frame - which is crazy and counterintuitive, but if you want to maintain an equal margin on all sides of your frame, you actually need a different aspect ratio than the card itself.

Totally! I struggled with this back when metal parking signs came out. I was trying to add an inner hollow rectangle shape that I made in PS same ratio as the sign itself and finally gave up because even if I resized my shape a tiny little bit, it would stretch/shrink the other way too and no longer be exactly the right shape to leave equidistance between it and all sides of the sign itself. I remember trying a bunch of different things before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort. I never tried figuring it out mathematically like you did though.

You would think that as long as you make something the same ratio it will size up or down to fit without issue but that’s not the case. It is very counterintuitive.

[Cat_Ritchie]

I know, right? I really thought I was losing my mind! I think the way to visualize it is that you have to think of the space between the frame and the edge and calculate backwards from there - like how much you’re chopping off of each side.

Of course, even when you do that, it’s hard to get it right because the aspect ratio that you need varies depending on how big your border is, so you have to size it perfectly, and the grid tool doesn’t give you any idea of how big things are in real life. This is one case where it would be SUPER helpful if we could set the grid to show us inches or mm or something so we’d have some prayer of making it work!

[Connie]

OH boy!, It took me the LONGEST time to wrap my head around that counter-intuitiveness! And I actually liked geometry in school! (many years ago)

[Connie]

I set up my Photoshop file with the bleed added, and the green lines as 5x7, so that I can see exactly what size to make the rectangle so it fits perfectly on Zazzle.

[klsantillo]

Thank you! You understood the question perfectly. I’ll try this and see if it works, especially the screenshot template.

[klsantillo]

Are you talking about the green lines in Design Studio?

[Connie]

If you are calling the Design tool on Zazzle “Design Studio,” yes, I screencap the blank design area, and add that to my Photoshop file. I use the blue lines for the actual 5x7 outer edge, and add a bleed outside that, but keep my frames inside the green area.

[klsantillo]

Woo hoo! The screenshot from the Design studio in Zazzle and imported into Photoshop to use as a template worked! Thanks, everyone for the helpful suggestions. 🤗

[chefcateringbiz]

What I do is create different-sized rectangle transparent “fillers” and designy rectangles with different ratios and just keep them in my image corral, then you can use your backgrounds on a variety of different products without the burden of having to create a single-use image per product.

[8PawsStudio]

…I was just trying to figure this out too and was trying to keep the aspect ratio the same, with no luck. Will try some of these other suggestions. Thanks @klsantillo  @Connie  @chefcateringbiz  @Cat  

[chriiisss]

A trick I found to measure an area:

1- draw a rectangle that covers this area (click fit if you want it to cover the entire drawing area)

2- make a pattern, it doesn’t matter which one, the goal is just to get the size of the tile

and there you have it:

[8PawsStudio]

@chriiisss  sssmart!

[SeeJaneB]

Unfortunately, when I draw a rectangle and set it to fit or fill and then try to add a tiling, there are no dimension boxes that come up for me. Is there a setting somewhere this needs to be turned on?

Nevermind, it just appeared now. I can’t delete this comment.

[SeeJaneB]

I figured it out for the 5x7 card. The bleed is 1/16 inch (.0625 to be exact) beyond the cut line, and the safe zone is 1/8 inch (.125 as a decimal) as a margin inside the cut line. So to fill the entire canvas to the bleed line, your overall dimensions in your design file need to be 5.125 inches by 7.125 inches. This worked perfectly for me when I uploaded my design onto the Zazzle canvas.

[LoveofaCat]

I’m a couple years late, but thank you for these measurements – super helpful!