Prepress

Ten Pre-Press Tips For Perfect Print Publishing

A lot of designers think CMYK is the way to go when designing for print. We will, of course, always use CMYK-based ink, but this does not mean you have to work with CMYK files. You can work with RGB images to perfectly optimize your print colors.

Printing and Prepress Basics

While art and design schools do an impressive job of teaching the importance of form, function, and how to use flashy Photoshop techniques, it's rare that designers have been taught the skills necessary to pass off their projects to printers so that they may not only successfully, but smoothly, produce a designed work. In this article, I'll discuss the basics when it comes to translating your brilliant ideas (and surely hours of your precious time and energy) into successfully printed projects with a printer, making it easier to keep your deadlines and maintain a blissfully happy and healthy relationship with your vendor.

The Newest Tool for Technical Communicators: Redux

Discusses color properties and color systems. Re-examines and supports Jan V. White's advice to technical communicators to use color to increase document usability. Discusses what technical communicators should know about color to work effectively with professional printers.

Seven Habits for Highly Successful Documents

To assure that your job flows smoothly through the printing shop without a glitch, this document presents seven preparation habits for highly successful documents.

Successfully Merging Litho and Digital

The merger of offset lithography with digital printing is a highly successful technique that maximizes the benefits of both technologies.

Understanding Paper Weights

The system of paper weights used in North America dates back to medieval Europe. It is important to understand this system, in which 50# (50-pound) paper can well be thinner and lighter than 24# (24-pound) paper.

Green Printing: A Guide to Environmentally Responsible Printing

Pressure from various green organizations (such as the Forest Stewardship Council and ForestEthics), government agencies, and environmentally aware consumers combined with the development of new vegetable-based materials have resulted in the availability of several alternatives to petroleum-derived chemicals for printing and paper made from wood pulp. These alternatives are increasingly price-competitive and a bargain when all costs to our environment are considered. Whether you print documents from your desktop computer or regularly contract with a printing company to produce 100,000 annual reports, user guides, or newsletters, you now have environmentally responsible printing choices. Such choices offer your company an opportunity to reduce its environmental footprint and favorably position itself in the growing Green Market. As a technical communicator, you can also feel better about your work product. This tutorial describes some of the business benefits of going green and outlines the choices that you can make when you print documents, from choosing an environmentally responsible print company to selecting vegetable-based inks and recycled or alternative paper. Even if your organization rarely produces paper-based documents for its customers, you likely can still reduce your office's paper consumption. This tutorial tells you how.

Recycled Papers

The demand for recycled paper is on the rise and more and more paper manufacturers are producing recycled paper in the same categories and range of choices as virgin stock. However, because of the variations and inconsistencies in the raw materials used, paper that contains recycled fiber tends to he at the middle to lower quality levels of each paper grade.

Practical Applications of Print Design to Promote Visual Understanding

Print design is a task facing many technical communicators. Practical understanding of the principles of design is necessary for quality print design products, but even this may not be adequate for producing print documents that users can quickly understand. Pairing the principles of print design with knowledge of visual communication theory will aid technical communicators as they develop print materials that are not only well designed, but easy for audiences to understand. This paper will explain both the principles of print design and basic applications of visual communication theory to provide a knowledge base on which successful print documents can be built.

How Does Commerical Offset Printing Differ from Desktop Printing?

The three primary differences in offset printing and desktop printing (such as inkjet and laser) are the colors of ink and the way the ink is placed on the paper as well as the type of machinery used to accomplish the task.

Easy Duotones and Silhouettes

Using the Blend If sliders in the Layer Style dialog box, you can quickly and easily create interesting duotone and silhouette effects.

The Pantone Matching System: Always Show Your True Colours

It can be very frustrating to see the logo you worked hard to create look deep blue on the client's letterhead, blue-greenish on his business card, and light blue on his very expensive envelopes. A way to prevent this is by using a standardized color matching system, such as the Pantone Matching System.

Photoshop Tutorial: How to Preserve Spot Colours in Photoshop

How many times have you wondered why, no matter how much you save spot colours in other applications, you cannot preserve a spot color in Photoshop? There is a way of course, and this is what this article will cover. This tutorial has been made using Photoshop CS for Mac, but it should be OK also for previous versions of Photoshop up to version 6, and of course also for whoever has the Windows version of Photoshop. This is not the only method to use spot colors in Photoshop, but it is a simple one which you could find useful.

Prints Look Muddy

Screen doesn't match prints? Paper affects density of inks? Open your color management dialog in CS and look for the printer profile. This should fix the problem.

The Form and Function of Folds

Folds are as important to your brochure design as illustrations, typefaces, and color. A smart layout heightens the drama with which your message is revealed to the reader.

Mastering Image Exposure Corrections in Photoshop

It's very important to always do your exposure corrections in Photoshop first, before any other corrections or effects. If you don’t, you’ll find that correcting exposure is extremely hard (if not impossible) to do.

Printer Versus Press: How and Where to Print Your Projects

How, you ask yourself, would someone who is unfamiliar with printing navigate their way through the mine field of contemporary offset printing?

Prepress Tutorial: Preparing PDFs Made from Microsoft Word for Offset Printing

You just received this wonderful PDF from one of your clients. It was made from Word. On top of that, the client who gave you that PDF wants you to make some changes to the text. How do you make those changes using the PDF itself and what do you have to do to make that PDF press ready?

Tips to Save Money When Printing Translated Work

When designing things in several languages, the cost of production can become quite high. However there are ways to save money and make the printing cost of flyers, magazines, etc. much lower. These tricks also apply when doing several versions of one job even if it's in the same language.

Worldlabel

Download label templates, in Word or PDF format. CD, DVD, shipping, book, and many other blank label templates for designing your own labels.

How Offset Printing Works

Printing is a fascinating process involving huge high-speed machines, 2,000-pound rolls of paper, computers, metal plates, rubber blankets and sharp knives.

Pearls of Output-File Wisdom

Some pearls of file output wisdom collected over the years from friends who ride imagesetters everyday.

Printing Primer for Graphic Designers

Originally published in 1989, this printing primer for digital artists has been updated and annotated for today's digital desktop publisher.

Single-Sheet 16-Page Gift Book

Everyone loves photos, and by using a little creativity and a little planning you can make a superb photo album.

When Good Color Goes Bad

Color expert Mike Davis of Colorprep knows what to do when color goes wrong... and many times it's the photographer or designer's fault!

Digital Print Production and Distribution

A presentation about aspects of digital prepress every technical communicator should know.

The Challenges of Managing Print Operations

As organizations seek to outsource non-core functions and reduce costs through improved efficiency, in-house print operations face a number of challenges. They must meet customer need for high throughput and consistent quality; deliver the same degree of variety, personalization, and flexibility available in the commercial print market; maintain visibility over print operations; more efficiently allocate resources; and maintain high service levels. Health Care Services Corporation turned to Infoprint Workflow for a solution.

Does Color In The Office Replace Color in the Print Shop?

Color printing has been a profitable application for print shops. Whether it be marketing collateral materials (brochures and the like), posters and signage or coupons, color documents have been the exclusive domain of offset printing.

PDF Means Change for Many Print Shops

There is a battle brewing in the back rooms print shops around the country, and after Graph Expo the pressure is on and tempers are flaring. What is causing the problem? PDF. Owners and production managers are going back to their shops to talk about the amazing things they have seen equipment do using PDF files. What they are hearing back from prepress staffs is that PDF files won't work for their shop. Owners are confused and not sure who to believe.

Color in Technical Documents for Paper, Web, and PDF

Traditionally, technical documents have been produced in black and white because the cost of color reproduction on paper is high. With new delivery options of the Web and PDF, color is suddenly available at no cost online. And new digital printers make color on paper increasingly affordable. When opportunity knocks, issues tend to follow. Writers will find that using color is a learning experience. There is a new alphabet soup: RGB, CMYK, GIF, JPEG, CSS. There are new buzzwords: spot colors, process colors, digital printing. There are new techniques for representing color in Web pages and in PDF documents intended for paper or screen. Our presentation focuses on practical techniques, not graphic design.

Free Guide to Color Printing

3M Imaging has come out with a pamphlet that explains these color anomalies and more. And best of all, it's free.

Taking Stock of Paper

Paper stock makes a big difference in the appearance of a product, and even though prices have come down recently, it's probably the most expensive element in your print run, so you need to make it count. Though budget is probably the biggest factor in choosing stock, here are several other considerations.

Problems with Colors - and the Solution: Color Management

The profession of the technical editor is rapidly changing, from the pure text manufacturer to a data manager, which leads inevitably to intensive occupation with the production of the final product: the technical documentation on paper or online. The color matching reproduction on the local screen or printer plays a new, important role. Particularly since the meaning of color in documents increases rapidly.

PDF Printing, Preflighting, and Prepress

PDF is becoming the de facto standard for not only viewing documents onscreen but also for printing them on paper. Acrobat 6 Professional includes better printing and prepress tools than ever before. PDF pundit Ted Padova shows you how they work.

Including Bleeds in a PDF

How do you ensure the PDF file you distill includes bleeds that are acceptable to a printer?

The Big Picture on Monitors

The analog format of the CRT is challenged by the digital capabilities of the LCD monitor.

Streamline Review Cycles

Acrobat's annotation tools are valuable for marking-up and commenting on design layouts and digital comps no matter where your client is located. Acrobat 6.0 goes a step further by integrating e-mail comment tracking for more efficient review cycles. Learn how to tap into these powerful features.

Computer to Plate Basics Explained

In Europe and the US, Computer to Plate (CtP) seems to be a fast growing market. In some areas of the print market the majority of printers have already made the transition from traditional plate techniques to CtP. The reason why is easy to see: CtP gives almost instant colour register on the press, and there is no need to worry about stopping the press for removal of dust marks and scratches that sometimes would plague traditional film.

Computer to Plate Hits High Tide

Technology tends to be an irresistible tide, tugging individuals and businesses toward the newer, the faster, the better, and punishing the holdouts with obsolescence. No industry and no profession can escape that steady march of upgrades and improvements. Computer-to-plate imaging (CtP) has certainly not been an exception, driving all but niche shops to abandon the old (film imagesetters) for the promise of the new.

Polyester Plates Earn a Second Look

Yes, the 'poor man's CTP' still suffers from some early shortcomings, but four-color work on four-up equipment is becoming a short-run mainstay.

Preflighting PDFs for Print

Between 23 and 30 percent of all files submitted for print are in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF), a figure that's likely to grow.

Becoming a "Business Communications Service Provider"

Print service providers have historically been defined by output technology such as commercial color, sheet-fed, web offset and large-format. These print technologies by themselves can be easily commoditized. As the market begins to migrate to a digital infrastructure, Print on Demand – or POD – represents something far more interesting and important than technology for technology’s sake. POD hardware and software offer the potential for new ways to communicate business information. The primary focus of successful users of POD technology is building a services portfolio and positioning their companies to provide 'business communications solutions and services.' These users are looking at digital printing and the associated services as a way to decommoditize printing and increase both profitability and customer loyalty.

The Digital Democratization

The latest digital copier-printers provide enhanced digital printing functionality, enabling users to do more than ever.

Digital Paper Platform: Papers Impact Digital Print Quality

As digital printers and presses advance, paper manufacturers continue to improve the quality and variety of their digital paper lines.

Digital Printing - Making the Right Moves

The number of printing companies that can call themselves digital printers jumps to many thousands in the United States alone. If you've got a Digital Press, or a Direct Imaging Press, or utilize Computer to Plate technology to 'feed' your conventional presses, you're a Digital Printer!

On Demand Journal

A daily on-line resource for digital document management.

Personalized Color Communications

Four firms discuss the benefits of color variable data printing, such as creating marketing campaigns and experiencing up to a 40 percent rate of return.

Color Forecasting

Every year I look forward to the Communication Arts issue that has the color predictions for the coming year. Mostly because I'm fascinated with the subject, but also because I want to see the funny color names they come up with.

Digital Paper

New press introductions have resulted in an almost bewildering range of paper sizes. Nonetheless, that old standby, the 8 ˙ 11-inch sheet, remains the most popular choice.

Printing and Prepress

This Is Print

Everyone who has worked with color proofs knows that proofing systems are fundamentally flawed. A color proofer represents the output of the offset press.

Color Imaging Workflow Primitives: Details and Examples

The term 'color fidelity' refers to the successful interoperability of color data, from image creation to output across multiple targets, such that color reproduction quality consistent with the user’s intent can be achieved Note: Interoperability among system color components, necessary for color fidelity, is both color-workflow and market-segment dependent definitions for architecture, image state, and image processing.

Color Management How-To: Understanding Computer Color

Learning how to match the color you see on screen with that in your printed output is critical information for any digital artist or photographer. But first you need to understand how color works both on computer display and on paper. Start with this chapter from 'Real World Color Management.'

A Horse of a Different Color is Fine--Just be Accurate!

As much as the hardware and software manufacturers in the digital imaging world would like you to think that buying a digital camera and a photo quality printer will make you Ansel Adams, those of us that earn our living as pixel jockeys battle with color management in one way or another every day. Depending on your workflow and the final destination of your images, there are a number of ways to keep your colors accurate.

ICC Color Management for Print Production

An introduction to device-independent solutions for color management.

Industry Standard ICC Printer Profiles

If you have a Pantone-calibrated printer, you can use this online tool to determine which ICC profile is appropriate for your printer and platform.

Letterpress in the Digital Age

Stern and Faye combine fine letterpress printing and an eclectic sense of fun to produce traditional printing that could only be done today.

Soft-Proofing and Printing with Profiles

Many photographers today print directly from Photoshop to photo-quality inkjet printers or send images to a lab to have enlargements made on LightJets, Lambdas, or the Fuji Pictography and Frontier systems. All of these devices are capable of stunning, photo-realistic output. However, if you do not employ color management effectively the output from these devices will not match the image you saw on your monitor. At best, you will waste some time, ink and paper making reprints. At worst, if you are sending images to a lab, proofs and reprints to get the image correct can become costly.

Behold the Value of Color

Why you should be designing pieces to be printed in color.

Digital Photography Resources

A collection of links to online resources for desktop publishers interested in digital photography.

Digital Printing Resources

A collection of dozens of links to online resources in digital printing.

Digital Proofing Resources

A collection of dozens of links to online resources in digital proofing in prepress.

InDesign How-To: Adding Custom Sizes to the Page Menu

Of course making custom page sizes if nothing new. But here's a handy InDesign CS trick for adding those custom page sizes to your Page menu so you can call it up at anytime.

Large Format Printing Resources

A collection of dozens of links to online resources for large-format printing, including signatures.

Page Layout Resources

A collection of dozens of links to online resources in page layout and desktop publishing.

Paper Tips: Printing on Uncoated Stock

Uncoated paper has a soft finish and tactile quality not possible with most coated papers. But uncoated stock also interacts differently with ink than it coated cousins. Follow these tips to ensure the best results.

Color Management and Windows: An Introduction

An overview of Microsoft image color management technology.

Color Management Resources

A collection of dozens of links to color management prepress resources.

Computer to Plate Resources

A collection of dozens of links to computer-to-plate digital prepress resources online.

Graphic Designer's Digital Printing and Prepress Handbook

The Graphic Designer's Digital Printing and Prepress Handbook is not a beginner's manual. Sidles does not walk you step-by-step through the basics of trapping or scanning. Instead, hers is an approach that expands on the knowledge of the graphic design professional. I think her aim is to help you become someone who easily knows how to avoid buying paper that will curl or using overprinted type that is illegible. Sidles, with her print production experience, seems to care about sharing the wisdom she has acquired through decades of haps and mishaps—no small benefit.

Color Under Control

Several years after the hype began, color management is maturing into a useful tool that can solve real problems. Here's a comprehensive overview.

Pleasing Mr. Postman

Designing something that will be mailed? Save time and money by asking the right questions before you start.

See Spot Print

An in-depth guide to working with spot colors in Photoshop.

Buying Laser Paper That Won't Jam

How to choose paper for laser printing.

Color in Mind

Despite advances in the technology of measuring and managing it, how we perceive color is still full of mystery and illusions.

Coming to Terms

Picking paper involves deciphering a lot of arcane terminology. Here's a quick reference guide.

Everybody Makes Mistakes

Special 'blooper reel' edition: the author's biggest paper mistakes.

The Future Meets the Press

Digital technology has transformed design, layout, and prepress; now it's beginning to change printing presses too.

The Many Faces of Cheapness

In the spirit of Adobe Magazine's Cheap Tricks Contest, a grab-bag of ways to save money, save time, and cheat fate.

Paper Fits (and What to Do About Them)

Save money by designing to fit standard printing-paper sizes.

Tree-Free at Last

'Tree-free' paper - made from fibers other than wood - isn't just a gimmick.

You Get What You Pay For...Sometimes

Buying the quality you need isn't just a matter of checking the price tag.

Only the Strong Survive

Picking the right strength characteristics when you're buying paper can determine whether your job holds up on press, in the mail, or in your customers' hands.

Quick Footwork in a Dull Market

Right now the paper market is stable. So should you relax and enjoy the calm? Hardly. Now's the perfect time to test new paper sheets and negotiate better financial terms with your supplier.

The Bleach Wars

Blank paper...could anything be more basic and uncontroversial? Who'd have thought those innocuous white sheets could cause such a ruckus? Learn what the fuss is about and why paper mills and environmentalists are lining up on either side of the presses.

Choice Paper

Even the pros forget the basics sometimes. Constance Sidles gives a quick refresher course on asking yourself, and your client, all the right questions when you're choosing paper.

The Full Gamut

Give your colors the room they need in Photoshop by understanding and choosing RGB working spaces.

Getting to the Finish Line

You're a designer, so you shouldn't waste your creative energy worrying about how your Illustrator document will print, right? Wrong. Spending a few minutes planning your project can ensure that its final output will go smoothly, potentially saving you hours of printing-related hassles.

The Ineffable Mystery of Paper Grades

It was so much easier when we just had papyrus.

It's a Colorful, Wired World

Adobe® PostScript 3 printing systems offer a variety of new features for better, faster, Web-savvy printing. Here's an overview of what they are and how they're likely to affect you.

Roughing It

Not in the mood for smooth? Consider going rustic with your paper and design.

Sheet Smart

'Going against the grain' is more than a cliché when you're weighing the merits of one paper characteristic over another. Learn how paper's grain direction affects the finish of your jobs.

Color Glossary

This glossary lists and explains color and visual perception terms which are relevant for graphic and Web design as well as usability. The information was taken from several sources and adapted to the needs of this glossary

Foolproof Your Files, Part 1: Proofing

After weeks or months of preparation, review, and production, it can be cathartic to package up a job and send it to the print shop. If files have been too quickly or carelessly assembled, however, sending that final disk to print means crossing your fingers and hoping that nothing goes wrong.

Trapping? Dangerous Subject

Oh, it's in vogue these days isn't it. Trap here. Trap there. All the computer graphics experts and magazine writers showing off their divine knowledge, writing about 'trapping.' Some people don't even know what trapping is. Some don't even care. But the computer industry sure wants us to know – and they want us to buy the latest and greatest software to prove it. Do I sound cynical? (He asks with a sly grin.) Your first line of defense in avoiding trapping traps is to understand the concepts.

Beginning With The End: Understanding Printing

Where does a typical desktop publishing project begin? Dumb question? Perhaps not. For all practical purposes, the information gathering process starts at the end, with the printing process. If you're new to desktop publishing, this article will explain some of the technical aspects of design you may not have considered. If you're an old pro, it might remind you of some of the production steps we (I include myself here) sometimes forget.

Booklet Publishing

Write a book this afternoon. Sound preposterous? To the contrary--you can create an information-packed, 16-page booklet using a single sheet of paper in little more time than it takes to type the text. Use it to market your product or service, to tell the story of your organization or to offer tips and how-to information to prospects and clients. Print five or ten copies directly from your laser printer or take your master artwork to a commercial printer and have it reproduced by the thousands. No matter how you cut, fold and staple it, this book is proof-positive that big things do come in small packages.

Getting it to the Printer: DTP to Press FAQ

Although it takes many hours and piles books to prepare yourself for competent DTP -> Print, we've capsulized a series of comments which address some of the most frequent questions readers and workshop attendees ask. These are also based on our mentoring program, and makeover clinics as the most common problem areas we see in beginner to intermediate desktop publishers. These steps will help you as you approach each project. Each topic is by no means a complete text -- but serves to alert you of problem areas, and suggest simple entry-level solutions.

Digital Workflow: Managing the Process Electronically

Between the invention of the printing press and that of the computer, developments in printing and publishing technology occurred in small increments over long periods of time. In those intervening centuries, the process of preparing manuscripts for publication remained fairly static. In the last half-century, however, the pace of change in printing and publishing technology has become dynamic. Now changes in technology come about in a matter of years, sometimes even months. And with those changes, the steps in the process of publication may now be controlled, tracked, and subsumed into one continuous electronic system often called digital workflow.