A good piece of artwork will be extremely clear and will be a black image (not in color) on white photographic paper. It will be extremely sharp, will show great detail and will be a very dense black. Many times a black and white laser printout on a 600 DPI or better laser printer will be sufficient.

An example of poor black and white artwork would be something that has been copied from the original artwork on a copy machine. Often times the black image will be washed out and may even look gray and the outline will look fuzzy. An even worse example would be a piece of artwork that has been copied from another printed piece or a copy of a copy of a copy.

Many times customers will think that the can provide their printer with poor black and white artwork and that it will somehow magically turn out looking crisp and clear on their finished printed materials. This could not be farther from the truth. There is no quick and easily way to make poor artwork look good again except by completely re-doing it which could end up costing hundreds of dollars. Customers should take extra time to provide the best artwork they have. One thing to always remember when dealing with artwork is "garbage in, garbage out".