Graphic design and Pre-press Tips for Photoshop Users

There is some ?must-know? tips for CG people who decide to start doing some pre-press and design for printing.

As beginner you have to know that design for printing has some differences than web design or other screen designs.

Always use CMYK
First of all, printing technology uses CMYK color description and screen design use RGB. CMYK (Cyan Magenta Yellow blacK) is used because of printing technology that uses these 4 colors to make picture on paper. This color model is for Reflective surfaces. RGB (Red Green Blue) is for self-lighted surfaces, like screens and TVs. If you have photos or illustrations in RGB, allways convert them using Photoshop?s Image > Mode menu, because Adobe Photoshop gives best result with minimum changes of colors. CorelDRAW, for instance, gives totaly different colors if you export drawing to RGB or CMYK. In my opinion, if you have to use some design elements from CorelDRAW, export them in RGB and then convert in CMYK using Photoshop.

Black should be only 100%K, not composite from all colors
You have to keep in mind that printing process has minimum 4 passes (to print full color ? in Offset technology), and that alignment of these four passes may not be 100% same. Every pass is one color. So if you make text from 100C 100M 100Y 100K composite, you will have noise at letter?s edges. Photoshop has habit to form black from all composites so pay attention to select only pure black (0C 0M 0Y 100K) when you write text.

Use minimum 300DPI for Offset and 600DPI for Digital printings
Human eye can easly notice granulation of image raster if its resolution is lower than 96 DPI. Common Offset printing plates (machines) support 300DPI, so use this quality and make design in that resolution. Also, some digital printers support more dots per inch so you can make design from 600 to 1200 DPI?s, but it is very hard to notice difference between 600 DPI and higher. In special cases if you make design for buildboard, you can use 30 DPI, because of view distance.

Clean up small composite values
Keep in mind that every colored surface is made from these 4 components mentioned before. If you have on some surface less then 10% of some color, it is better to modify that color component to 0% in order to avoid edge noise. You will make small change on color. Also if you try to print 5% of some composite it is very small chance that something will be printed at all on Offset printing. Example: if you fill background with gray color: 5C 5M 5Y 5K you will probably bet totally white surface, but, if you use 0C 0M 0Y 11K, which gives very similar color on screen, you will have some gray color on background.Simply, printing and screening technologies are different

Make from 3 to 5 mm overedge on every edge that should be trimmed
Printing surface is always bigger than required dimensions. When you do screen design you don?t think about cutting, because it doesn?t exist on screen, but, when you do design for paper you have to keep in mind that someone will have to cut edges of your design. So there is Trimmed dimensions and Not-Trimmed. As designer you are thinking in trimmed dimensions, but when you send file on printing you have to make tolerance in case that swings that cuts paper to fit required dimensions make mistake, and, it always make some mistake. If you don?t make your design bigger you will have white stripes at edges of your catalogue or flyer.


This guidelines shows where paper should be trimmed.

In case of flyer, you have to make this tolerance to all edges, in case of cataloque, only outer edges should have this because, edge that comes to bending line doesn?t have cutting.

Make margins at least 5mm
All elements of design and all texts should be at least 5mm from edge of cut. I tried with 3mm, it was bad looking because on some places distance was smaller because problem of swings. In some cases you can go up to 10mm of margin.That is something that I noticed that beginners in graphic design should know. There is also some pure design tips about contrasts and colors, but I?ll leave it for some other tutorial.

Use TIFF as final file format
I advise you to use TIFF format when you send design to printer company. I had cooperation with many printing companies and printing professionals and everybody agree that TIFF / CMYK is most trusted image format for color-safe exporting and transporting from design workstation to film exposition company. It is safe to use: LZW compression (more compatible) or ZIP compression (less compatible). For final file you can discard layers to reduce file size.

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Additive Color

Color reproduction on the computer monitor (and on television) is achieved by combining Red, Green, and Blue light (RGB) in varying levels to produce a full color image. Red, green, and blue are the primary colors of white light and they cannot be produced by the combination of any other colors. When they are combined full strength, they will produce white light. The combining of red, blue and green colors is known as the "Additive Color Process", because when the colors of light are combined with one another, or added together, the result is an increase in light intensity. If none of the additive primaries are present, the color is perceived as black.
When two primary colors of light are combined, a secondary color is produced. The secondary colors of light are Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow (CMY). The secondary light colors are also the primary colors of the "Subtractive Color Process". The process of combining cyan, magenta and yellow colors is used to reproduce color for printed media

Color Gamut
The color gamut refers to the range of colors that can be viewed, displayed, or printed. The items in the list below are arranged from the greatest to the least in terms of the range of colors that each is able to reproduce:

• Human Eye
• Photographic Film
• Television or Computer Monitor
• Digital
• Printing Equipment
• Offset Printing

Defining Color
The following are the properties that are used to define color:

• Hue: is used to describe the name of a color such as red, orange, violet, or blue.
• Value: describes the lightness or darkness of the color. Value is also known as tone, tone value, or lightness.
• Saturation: describes the intensity of the color such as bright or dull. Saturation is also known as intensity or chroma. It is important to remember that a color that has a very intense or bright level of saturation may not necessarily be very light in value just as a very dull color may not necessarily be very dark in tone or value.

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Color

Color Conversion
The color gamut of RGB is broader than CMYK and the file size is smaller as well, but CMYK is the better choice for documents that will be used on the Web and for print. CMYK documents work well enough in the RGB environment, but RGB doesn't work as well in the CMYK environment.

Trapping
Trapping can help compensate for registration problems by slightly expanding one color into another and eliminating the gaps and color shifts between colors. PDF stores the trapping instructions in such a way that the trapped images will look the same on any computer and also when the images are output.

For trapping to be effective, it must compensate for less than perfect registration without forming noticeable lines of unrelated color around objects caused by the overprint. Process colors that share a sufficient percentage of common colors do not require trapping, because any registration problems will reveal a color that is similar to each of the adjacent colors. An example of where trapping would not be necessary would be a printed item containing mostly reds and oranges. If the object on such a page were not in perfect register, the result would not be visually distracting because the colors in the gaps and overprinted areas would be similar to any adjacent colors.

The sequence in which the process colors are printed also influences ink trapping. For standard four color printing, the correct sequence to print the process colors are black, cyan, magenta, and finally yellow. Printing in the correct sequence will help ensure the best results. A change in the standard sequence will result in a change in the ink trapping characteristics.

Color Management
Device color spaces refer to the color space of the input device such as a scanner and the color space of the output device such as a printer. Data that is scanned may not display the same colors on a monitor and a printer, so a color management system is necessary. There are many differences between color profiles, so there is no guarantee that colors will be consistent throughout the workflow.

The ICC (International Color Consortium) was developed to set standards for device independent color. ICC profiles are electronic files that describe all of the color characteristics of a device. They can be either generic for a certain device such as a scanner or a monitor or they can be customized with profile generation tools. Color profiles are important because the color spaces of devices such as scanners, monitors, printers, presses, and digital cameras vary greatly.

PDF is able to support objects that are specified in different device dependent, device independent, or special color spaces. Acrobat supports Adobe Color Engine (ACE) and ICC Color Management that are in Photoshop and Illustrator. Displaying and printing color documents is more consistent. InDesign does not support this.

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Color Bar

Color bars are also referred to as color control bars, color control strips, or proofing bars. Color bars are rows of different colored patches printed in the trim area of the press sheet. They are used by proofers and press operators to control the trapping, ink density, dot gain, and print contrast of the proof or the printed sheet. They usually consist of solid and tint blocks of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black; two and three color solids and tints; and additional elements and patterns such as resolution targets and dot gain scales.

Solid process colors ofBlack, Yellow, Cyan, andMagenta. A color bar are used to measure ink densities.

Solid overprint colors include blue (C&M), green (C&Y), and red (M&Y)

Screen tint patches usually 25%, 50%, and 75% of the process colors. A color bar are used to check for dot gain.

A color patch made up of 50C/30M/30Y. A color cast in the patches will show an imbalance in one of the colors, either from incorrect ink density or from dot gain.

There are several different types of color bars and which one to use depends on the type of printing being used. Prepress and print suppliers purchase original film or the rights to digital files of color bars and other test images. The film and files can then serve as constant reference points throughout the proofing, platemaking, and print processes. They are available from GATF (Graphic Arts Technical Foundation), DuPont, RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), and others.

Color bars are an essential troubleshooting tool. They are easy to analyze, both visually and with a densitometer, which is an instrument used for measuring the relative density of any part of an image.

Color bars created for computer-to-plate (CTP) systems may require additional features than color bars generated for film.

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Spot Color

The colors used on spot color proofs are also known as "matched" colors, special colors, or by one of the brand names "Pantone" or "PMS" colors. Spot colors are printed from a single ink on a separate printing unit of the press. Spot colors can be standard, pastel, fluorescent or metallic colors. Several colors can be printed in select areas to create two, three or more color jobs. Spot colors can be used on may types of jobs, such as business cards, letterheads, forms, brochures and direct mail pieces.

There are several variables involved with spot colors. A few manufacturers create color guides such as binders, chips, and fan books to show the spot colors and the equivalent process colors. It is important to realize that the color guides fade over time and the paper may change colors so check the date of your guide and replace it periodically.

When you choose the spot color on the monitor, remember that it is simulated in RGB, and not as the spot color or CMYK. Be sure to tear off a chip from the guide and include it with the job.

Remember that if you are trying to match a spot color with process colors, very few colors will match. Many spot colors are outside of the color gamut of process inks. The paper stock that is used for the job will also provide different results than expected. The use of varnishes or coatings can also change the appearance of the color.

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Color Separations

In order to reproduce or prepare a full color image for printing using four process colors, the image must be divided into the the individual subtractive primary color components. The separation process can be accomplished photographically or electronically.

• Photographic Separations: Using a large process camera, a full color image is converted into halftone negatives which contain a series of dots of various sizes to represent shades of gray. The dots are achieved with the use of special screens placed over the negative material during exposure. When printed, the smaller dots create the lighter areas of the image, with the lightest appearing white, and the larger dots make up the darker areas of the image, with the darkest appearing black. This system of using the halftone screens directly with the film is known as the Direct Screen Photographic Color Separation method. A halftone negative is made for each of the separate subtractive color components of the image (cyan, magenta, yellow) and black. The four halftone negatives are records, in varying shades of gray dots, for each of the separate color components and are known as "Color Separations".

Another photographic technique known as the Indirect Photographic Color Separation method is also used. The original image is separated into the individual primary color components and continuous tone films are made for each of the separations. From continuous tone films, the halftone negatives or positives are created. The advantage in first creating continuous tone separations before creating the halftones is that the continuous tone separations can be reduced or enlarged and corrected before the actual halftone films are produced.

Color separations created from photographic methods are used to prepare analog plates for traditional printing methods. Each plate corresponds to one of the four colors, cyan, magenta, yellow, or black. The plates are coated with the corresponding ink colors during the printing process and the inked image from the plates is transferred to the substrate. The varying sizes of the halftone dots on the plates determines the amount of ink that will be printed on the substrate. The dots from each of the different colored images overlap to produce the full color image.

• Electronic Separations: The electronic separation of an image into its individual color components has become the most popular and labor saving method of producing color separations. The original image is placed in a scanner which stores the image as a digital record. The digital image can be imported into a software program such as Adobe PhotoShop™ where the color separations can be produced with the click of a mouse. The scanned image and/or the color separations can be quickly manipulated and edited in an infinite number of ways with the tools provided with the software. Color separations created electronically can be output to film to prepare analog plates or they can be used for Computer-to-Plate applications and digital printing.

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Common problems encountered in Offset printing

Here is a list of problems that need to be paid attention to during the process of offset printing:

Uneven colour: Always make sure that the colour is the same on both sides of the sheet by rolling the sheet up so that you can look at opposite edges of the sheet side by side.

Ghosts: These are either

• Images formed in areas where they should not appear, or
• Formation of lighter areas where there should be even inking.

Hickies (aka Fish-Eyes): These arenon-inked circles created by lint on the plate or blanket. They are generally something that can be cleaned up when appearing on several sheets in a row. However, chances are you will never be able to eliminate every single hickie, especially if you have large solids in your printing piece and have to print thousands of sheets.

Picking: These are the non-inked areas that look like snow created in areas where the ink and some of the paper has been lifted off the sheet when the ink is too tacky.

Note : Picking can occur due to a paper related problem.

Muddy or Uneven Screens: These occur as a result of dot gain (see SCREENS.) In the worst case scenario caused by a muddy or uneven screen, you may need to remake a plate using a coarser screen. However, some dot gain can be alleviated by

• Running the ink a little lighter and
• By ensuring that the gradients on your piece, if any, look even. (Refer to GRADIENTS to see how to avoid banding in the design and prepress stages of the job.)

Offsetting: This is the appearance created on the back of a sheet by an image present on the sheet touching it. Offsetting happens as a result of

• Too much ink
• Insufficient driers in the ink or
• Irimming of the job done when the ink is too wet

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Three Color Printing

Theoretically it is possible to produce an adequate range of colours using just Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. However, three colour printing may also refer to the use of either.

• Three special inks or
• Black combined with two special inks

The Four Colour Printing Process, which is a system rarely used today, uses a black plate to add shade and depth reducing the amount of ink required.

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Four Color Process Printing

Four colour process printing is the most common system for producing full colour print. In fact, the vast majority of magazines and colour books are produced using the four-colour process.

Originally the artwork and originals had been separated using filters and four printing plates were produced.

The four colour process printing consists of four ink colours namely, Cyan (Blue), Magenta (Red), Yellow and Black and is often referred to as CMYK. The inks used for four colour process printing are translucent due to which they can be overprinted and combined in a variety of different proportions to produce a wide range of colours.

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Advantages of Offset Printing

There are many advantages to offset printing namely:

• Economical-It is less expensive, especially when there are large quantities involved.
• Widespread Usability – It can be used on the widest range of printing surfaces, including paper, wood, metal, even leather.
• Ease of creating the printing plates.
• The paper does not have to be rated for the high temperatures and stress of either the copiers or laser printers.

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Offset Printing Process

The process of offset printing:

Offset printing has been the most common form of commercial printing for the last sixty years. The most important element of the offset printing process is a plate manufactured from metalor polyster. This plate carries the copy of the image to be printed. The process of printing takes place as follows:

• The plate is chemically treated so that water may be absorbed only by the non-image areas of the plate.
• The plate is next attached to a plate cylinder, which rolls past the water roller. At this stage, the water on the water rollers is absorbed by the non-image areas of the plate, i.e. the areas not requiring ink.
• The cylinder next rolls over the ink roller. At this stage, the ink on the ink rollers sticks to the areas of the plate that are free of water.
• The rubber surface on the offset cylinder takes the ink from the plate cylinder and presses it onto the paper, as it is being rolled between the offset cylinder and the impression cylinder.

The above steps are repeated for each color of the ink present in the publication, to achieve a crisp and professional print. Though the system of offset printing involves a complex process, the entire system of is extremely efficient and robust in its overall performance and output.

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What is Offset Printing

Offset printing is a printing process in which the inked image is transferred (ie, "offseted") from the plate to an intermediate blanket before being printed on the substrate. Following are the common terms you come across in offset printing.

• Opacity - This refers to the quality of being impenetrable by liquids or light. With paper, it refers to the ability to keep print from showing through to the other side.
• Opaque - In production it refers to a solution or paint used to block out areas on a film negative to keep them from being reproduced on the plate.
• Overprinting - It generally refers to printing an image over another impression. It also refers to printing a secondary color over a primary color in graphic arts work.

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Johannes Gutenberg is known for the invention of the Gutenberg press

The earliest dated printed book known is the "Diamond Sutra", printed in China in 868 CE. However, it is suspected that book printing may have occurred long before this date.

In 1041, movable clay type was first invented in China. Johannes Gutenberg, a goldsmith and businessman from the mining town of Mainz in southern Germany, borrowed money to invent a technology that changed the world of printing. Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press with replaceable/moveable wooden or metal letters in 1436 (completed by 1440). This method of printing can be credited not only for a revolution in the production of books, but also for fostering rapid development in the sciences, arts and religion through the transmission of texts.

Gutenberg Press
The Gutenberg press with its wooden and later metal movable type printing brought down the price of printed materials and made such materials available for the masses. It remained the standard until the 20th century. The Gutenberg printing press developed from the technology of the screw-type wine presses of the Rhine Valley. It was there in 1440 that Johannes Gutenberg created his printing press, a hand press, in which ink was rolled over the raised surfaces of moveable hand-set block letters held within a wooden form and the form was then pressed against a sheet of paper.

Gutenberg Bible
Johannes Gutenberg is also accredited with printing the world's first book using movable type, the 42-line (the number of lines per page) Gutenberg Bible. During the centuries, many newer printing technologies were developed based on Gutenberg's printing machine e.g. offset printing.

Brief Biography - Johannes Gutenberg
Johannes Gutenberg was a German goldsmith and inventor best known for the Gutenberg press, an innovative printing machine that used movable type. Gutenberg was born between 1394 and 1400 and died in 1468.

In 1438, Gutenberg began a business arrangement with Andreas Dritzehn, who funded his experiments in printing. In 1450, Gutenberg began a second arrangement with German businessman Johannes Fust. Fust lent Gutenberg the money to start a printing business and build a large Gutenberg Press, their printing projects included the now famous Gutenberg Bible. On September 30, 1452, Johann Guttenberg's Bible was published becoming the first book to be published in volume.

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What is a Printing Press?

A printing press is a machine used to make multiple copies of something an artist has drawn onto multiple pieces of paper or fabric. The printing press takes the ink and transfers it to paper or fabric. The printing press was originally developed by Johannes Gutenburg in the 15th century. Gutenburg was the first man to show how practical moving type was. He is credited for developing the first printing press in history.

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What are Phenolic Bed Plates for a Printing Press?

Phenolic bed plates are an alternative to the old metal plates found in printing presses. These phenolic bed plates are lighter than metal bed plates and great for use in a printing press that uses water based ink because these types of plates will not get rusty like metal plates will. These types of plates for a printing press are typically sold separately and can cost a bit more than metal plates but are a great addition to your printing press.

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Why Should you Printing Press be Aligned?

If you are using a printing press it is important that you have it properly aligned before printing your material. If your press is not properly aligned you will end up applying an uneven force to the object you are trying to print on. This will allow for your art to turn out fuzzy and obviously not looking even or straight on the surface you were printing. Plus, uneven alignment of a printing press can do damage to the press in the long run. It is best to keep your printing press aligned to avoid these potential problems.

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Some Digital Questions in Printing

Q: What is the difference between vector graphics and bitmap graphics?
A: A vector graphic is defined in a mathematical nature which makes it resolution-independent. A vector graphic can be printed clearly at any size. A bitmap image is formed by a rectangular grid of small squares, known as pixels. Each pixel contains data that describes whether it is black, white, or a level of color. Bitmap graphics are resolution-dependent they can appear jagged and lose detail if they are created at a low resolution and then enlarged or printed at a higher resolution.

Q: Where do vector graphics come from?
A: Vector graphics are typically created by illustration software such as Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand.

Q: Where do bitmap graphics come from?
A: Bitmap graphics are typically created by pixel-based image editing software such as Adobe PhotoShop. Additionally, bitmap graphics are generated from digital cameras and scanners.

Q: Can bitmap graphics be converted to vector graphics, and vice versa?
A: Yes. Software such as Adobe Streamline can convert bitmap images to vector images. Vector images can be converted to bitmap images by opening them with Adobe PhotoShop. Please note that converting a vector image to a bitmap image is rarely necessary, removes the resolution-independence of vector graphics, and should only be done if you have a very specific reason to convert the graphic.

Q: What are the different types of bitmap graphics?
A: A one-bit image refers to an image that is a solid color, with no shades of that color. A continuous tone image refers to photographic images, whether they are full color, black-and-white images with shades of gray (grayscale), or single-color images with shades of that color.

Q: What guidelines do you have for bitmap graphics resolution?
A: One-bit images require 600 pixels per inch. Full-color continuous tone images require 300 pixels per inch. Grayscale and single-color continuous tone images require 200 pixels per inch.

Q: Can I resize bitmap graphics in a page layout application?
A: These guidelines are for bitmap images that are used at their actual size. If the image is enlarged in a page layout application, the requirements enlarge by the same amount. For example, enlarging a full-color continuous tone image 225% in QuarkXPress would require a resolution of 675 pixels per inch (the original requirement of 300 pixels per inch multiplied by the enlargement of 225%). It is best to avoid performing scaling in a page layout application, as these programs have no ability to change the actual pixels in an image.

Q: Can I resize bitmap graphics in PhotoShop?
A: PhotoShop can increase the resolution of a low-resolution image, but increasing the resolution of an image scanned or created at a lower resolution only spreads the original pixel information across a greater number of pixels and rarely improves image quality.

Q: I’ve heard Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) mentioned in the context of both vector graphics and bitmap graphics. How can it be both?
A: EPS files act as a container for transferring graphic information. When an illustration software such as Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand creates an EPS file, it is a vector EPS. When a pixel-based image editing software such as Adobe PhotoShop creates an EPS file, it is a bitmap EPS.

Q: Can I copy a graphic and paste it into my document?
A: While copy-and-paste is supported by most software, you will have much more predictable results by creating a link to your graphic. The graphic then remains outside of your document and is referenced as needed. Please refer to your software’s documentation for full details about creating links to your graphics.

Q: What is a PDF file?
A: Documents in Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) preserve the exact look and content of the originals, complete with fonts and graphics, and can be printed, distributed by e-mail, and shared and stored on network systems (including the internet) for others to use and view. When properly created, PDF files have proven to be an excellent method for generating quality printing.

Q: Where can I find my fonts?
A: On a Windows-based computer, fonts can be located in two different places. First, check Start Menu>Settings>Control Panels>Fonts. Additionally, you may have a folder names psfonts (typically on the C: drive).

Fonts in the psfonts folder are PostScript fonts and require two separate files to accurately define a font’s appearance. The first file, found in the psfonts folder, ends with a .pfb extension. The second matching file is found in the psfonts>pfm folder and ends with a .pfm extension. The font name can be accurately determined by double-clicking the .pfb or .pfm file.

On a Macintosh computer fonts are found in the System Folder>Library>Fonts. In many cases, an alias of the Library folder can be found on the root level of your hard drive, as well. In that case, the path is simply Library>Fonts.

If you use a font management utility on either platform, fonts are found in a location specified by the utility.

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Choosing the Right Paper

Paper grade defines paper in terms of its use. Each grade serves a purpose, usually suggested by its grade name. Below are some of the most common classifications of printing papers.

Bond papers are commonly used for letters and business forms. They have surfaces which accept ink readily from a pen or typewriter and can be easily erased.

Coated papers are used when high printing quality is desired because of its greater surface smoothness and uniform ink receptivity. There are many kinds: cast coated, gloss coated, dull coated, machine coated, coated one- and two-sides, etc.

Text papers are noted for their interesting textures and attractive colors. They enjoy frequent use for announcements, booklets and brochures.

Offset papers are considered the most economical printing papers. Offset papers may be used for directories, newsletters, books, direct mail pieces with only a few photographs, and other printing products requiring average quality.

Cover papers complement coated and text papers in heavier weights and matching colors for use as covers on booklets, etc. Papers are also made for cover purposes only. Many special surface textures are available. Special characteristics of cover pages include dimensional stability, durability, uniform printing surface, good scoring, folding, embossing and die-cutting qualities. It is a useful rule of thumb that cover stock of the same basis weight as text paper has about twice the thickness.

Index papers have two outstanding characteristics—stiffness and receptivity to writing ink. Index is commonly used whenever an inexpensive stiff paper is required.

Tag is a heavy utility sheet. Tag board is sometimes tinted and colored on one or both sides. Tag stock has good bending or folding qualities, and a surface adaptable to printing, stamping, or writing.

Bristol is one of the board grades, with a softer surface than index or tag, making it ideal for high-speed folding, embossing, or stamping. It is very receptive to ink and has good snap and resilience.


If your printing project includes envelopes, there are many styles to choose from.

Commercial envelopes are used for business correspondence, either surface or airmail, and are available in all standard sizes.

Window envelopes are used primarily for statements, dividends and invoices. The window saves time and prevents an element of error by eliminating typing of an extra address. Window envelopes are made in all sizes and styles, from many types of paper.

Self-Sealing envelopes have latex adhesive on upper and lower flaps that seal instantly without moisture when the flaps come together. These envelopes are a time saver in handling.

Booklet, Open-Side envelopes are ideal for direct mail. A concealed seam lends itself to overall printing in front and back.

Baronial envelopes are a more formal open-side envelope with a deep, pointed flap. They are often used for invitations, greeting cards, announcements, etc.

Clasp envelopes are sturdy and widely used for mailing bulky papers. Metal clasps are smooth and burrless. This type of envelope may be opened and closed many times.

Open-End envelopes are used for mailing catalogs, reports, booklets and magazines. Wide seams and heavy gummed flaps ensure maximum protection under rough handling conditions.

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Choosing the Right Ink

Choosing the right ink combinations can have a dramatic effect on your finished product. Use this handy ink guide to help you make the correct ink selection. Black ink, as you might expect, is the most common and least expensive ink.

Spot colors and tints are printed with premixed inks. You can choose from among thousands of different spot-color inks. A spot color printed at 100% is a solid color and has no dot pattern. A tint is a lightened spot or process color and is created by printing smaller halftone dots of the base color.

Process colors are reproduced by printing overlapping dots (halftone screens) of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) inks. Since CMYK inks are translucent, they absorb some colors and reflect others. To create blue, for example, you combine cyan dots and magenta dots. Your eyes merge the cyan and magenta dots to perceive the color blue. Process (CMYK) printing gives us the ability to simulate photographic images using just four basic ink colors.

Metallic inks use metallic powders to give a pleasing metallic luster. Metallic inks can often add an extra sparkle or touch of class to your printing project.

Magnetic inks were developed to increase the speed and efficiency of handling bank checks. These inks are made with pigments which can be magnetized after printing, and the printed characters are later “recognized” by electronic reading equipment.

Fluorescent inks are naturally bright inks. They are used for jobs of a semi-permanent nature, such as labeling, packaging and direct mail.

Varnish is used as a coating over printing to protect the printing and increase gloss.


Here are some guidelines for specifying colors.

Use spot colors when..
You need three or fewer colors and you will not be reproducing process-color photographs.

You want the limited color variety you get from one or two-spot colors and tints of those colors.

You want to print varnishes or special inks, such as metallic or fluorescent spot inks.

You want to print logos or other graphic elements that require precise color matching.

Use process colors when..
You need more than three colors in your design. In general, printing with process inks costs less than printing with three or more spot inks.

You want to reproduce scanned color photographs or color artwork that can only be reproduced with process colors.

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Colors by its Means

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