Hi all,

I've been lurking on these boards for about a year now and I could use a little advice. I would have introduced myself sooner, but I'm kind of shy.

Short history of my problem: I work as a marketing coordinator for a small division of a large corp. Until recently my digital art hobby has been only for my own enjoyment and relaxation (in addition to Photoshop, I dabble in Illustrator, Poser, Bryce, Rhino and I'm trying to learn Softimage).

A while back one of the ads we run in an industry trade mag needed to have our new logo inserted. Doing this through the regular channels would have involved either going through our global art dept (countless forms and many months involved) or using an outside graphics firm (way beyond my dept's budget). So, being fairly comfortable in PS I did the job myself.

Well, one thing has led to another and now I find myself creating entire ads from scratch. I'm comfortable with the artwork, but the problem is I'm totally lost when it comes to dealing with the mechanical requirements from the printers: color separations, embedding fonts, bleeds, slugs (I don't want no slugs in my ad, snails might be ok, they're kinda cute, lol).

Anyway, I would be deeply indebted to anyone who can recommend some good resources that explain the basics: books, tutorials, online courses, etc. Everything I've been able to find seems to speak to those who already have more knowledge than myself. I'm sorry if this isn't the right forum to post this request. If someone can point me to a more appropriate venue, I'd be greatly appreciative of that, as well.

Best regards,
Leilani