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  2. Adobe Photoshop

Movie Poster Design in Adobe Photoshop

Abbey EsparzaLessons: 7Length: 25 minutes
Adobe PhotoshopPoster Design
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1.3 Movie Poster Dimensions

In this lesson, we'll go over the proper printing size and format for large print movie posters. Get your poster dimensions right from the start—it's tricky to fix it later!

1.Introduction
3 lessons, 06:14

1.1
Introduction
01:06

1.2
Iconic Movie Posters
02:42

1.3
Movie Poster Dimensions
02:26

2.The Next Chapter
3 lessons, 16:20

2.1
Storytelling Through Composition/Movie Poster Layout
06:34

2.2
Movie Poster Colors
04:28

2.3
Movie Poster Fonts
05:18

3.Conclusion
1 lesson, 02:34

3.1
Conclusion
02:34

1.3 Movie Poster Dimensions

Welcome back to movie poster design in Adobe Photoshop. This lesson will go over the proper printing size and format for large print movie posters. I want to cover the standard movie poster dimensions right after that, as they are large, a whopping 27 by 40 inches. If you think you may have trouble working with that size of file, don't worry as it's the ratio that is important here. The aspect ratio of a standard movie theater poster being a bit more than a ratio of 2 to 3. So for now let's make our canvas 27 by 40 inches, and size down later just a bit as needed, if needed. Then we can size back up when it's printing time. That way I know that my ratio will be correct and my composition won't be compromised. Next, if your design will be making it to paper, make sure to design in the CMYK color mode. It'll give you a more accurate colors to the final printed product over RGB colors. And lastly, crisp prints start with a high resolution, set your DPI or resolution to a 300. This will make sure your image prints nice and sharp. DPI stands for dots per inch. So 300 little dots of color per inch of paper. Now we just need to create our safe area or trim line and bleed lines. The trim line will prevent text or logos from being chopped off to the final output or print, while the bleed guide will ensure there isn't a random white line on the edges of your printed poster. We can do this very quickly by adding guides to all four sides of our poster, hitting Ctrl+R to bring up the ruler, and then clicking and dragging to create a guide. They should snap right to the edges of the Canvas. Now let's go to Image Canvas size, and add point 25 inches to both the height and width, pressing OK. This will be our trim line. To create our bleed guide, let's repeat the same steps. With that I am happy to say our canvas is all prepped and ready to go. As I mentioned earlier, if you need to now would be the time to shrink your canvas down just slightly. Just work with as big as your computer or resources will allow. And up next is storytelling through composition, here in movie poster design in Adobe Photoshop.

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Abbey Esparza
Abbey Esparza
I’m a mixed media artist and freelancer with over ten years of experience in digital art. I love to take fashion-forward modern-day photography and transform it into the unusual and macabre. But while I typically like to play with surreal themes, I'm experienced in various styles and genres! Including child-friendly fantasy and colorful pop art. In the last five years of my career, I have found a passion for sharing my knowledge and creating educational content showing that anyone can be a successful artist no matter your preferred genre!