I am placing an advertisement in a magazine, what is the best file type to send through my graphic as for the best printing quality? I have read that a layered PSD or TIFF is optimal, is there a way to send through the graphic without the layers that holds the same quality for print media? Will the best option be to merge all of my layers into one then save as a TIFF?
Appreciate a reference to the best file types for this.
It’s probably worth asking the printer what format is preferred, as it might vry from one place to another.
There should be no need for a layered file format unless you expect the printer needs the capability to edit content. Providing unflattened PSD files offers the possibility of errors occurring due to version incompatibility with layer styles and compositing, or font replacement due to missing fonts.
More and more people are doing layered PDFs these days, the image quality is a little better and it utilizes less disk space. I went to PHOTOSHOPWORLD last fall and the speakers were using layered PDFs for print.
My last print add had to be PDF at 100% 305PDI in CMYK. the one pefore i’m sure was different, best ask twice and print once 
It’s best to consult with your printer. You can’t go wrong with that.