Printing Terminology
Printing Terminology
ART PAPER OR BOARDThis is the name for any paper or board that has a smooth, polished, clay coating. The paper may be gloss, satin, silk or matt finish. Coated papers are used for better quality work and are almost always used for full colour work and jobs with photographs on them. Art papers are usually only available in white, so any colours or shades of colour are printed on with the other colours, usually by four colour process.
BLEED
This just means any area of ink (even a line) that “runs off” the edge of a print job. Thus, “bleeds off” means that the job was printed on larger size paper and cut down to the finished size.
BOARDThe printers name for card. The thickness is usually measured in microns. A micron is one thousandth of a millimetre. Business cards are usually on 340 micron board. Reply cards would usually go on 280 micron or 230 micron board. An uncoated board, such as a filing card is called a pulp board. They are available in white or tints (pastel colours). Coated boards (art boards) are usually only available in white.
BOND
Paper made from wood pulp, without any coating, as opposed to coated paper such as art paper. Copier paper is a bond. Thickness is measured by weight in grams per square metre, rather than the actual caliper of the stock. Available in weights from 60 gsm to 120 gsm. and in white or tinted.
CLOSE REGISTER (or TIGHT REGISTER)
This means that the colours on the job are very close to each other and that the accuracy of their positions, relative to each other, are critical. Loose register, sometimes called commercial register is where a slight movement (of say one millimetre or so) between the relative positions of the colours would not matter.. Tight register work somethimes costs more, as a different type of process or printing machine may be used.
FOUR COLOUR WORK or FOUR COLOUR PROCESS
The printers name for full colour printing. The actual colours used are Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black, from which almost any shade of any colour can be reproduced. Also known as process work or four colour process. Full colour designs seen on a computer screen are displayed in three colours, red, green and blue (RGB). This means that the finished printed work will often look considerably different when printed in the four process colours.
HALFTONE
Printers name for a photograph, which has to be turned into a fine dot pattern before being printed. This process is called SCREENING.
LAID
A method of making paper from a high rag content pulp. Laid lines in the paper and a watermark make laid paper popular for letterheads. Conqueror is the best known although we can also offer an unwatermarked laid at a much lower price.
MARBLE
An expensive finish available in paper (90gsm) or board. Marlmarque is the most popular make. Usually used for short run invitations or certificates due to the high cost of the material.
NCR
This stands for No Carbon Required and is the popular name for self-carbonising paper. The top sheet is available in light or medium weight. The bottom sheet is available as a thin board. There is only one weight of the middle sheets. A range of pastel tints are available for all sheets, although board bottom sheet is usually only available in white.
NUMBERING
The addition of a unique sequential number to each sheet. Numbers are printed on to the stock by a different process than the rest of the sheet and in our case are always in red ink.
PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM (or PMS for short)
An international method of making sure that all specified colours used in printing, publicity etc are very similar. Colours are specified as numbers, i.e. PMS 032, PMS 300 etc., sometimes followed by the letter U or C. The letters simply mean how the same ink colour looks on either uncoated stock or coated stock as the colours often look totally different on each.
PERFORATIONS
The tiny holes or slits that enable a sheet to be pulled out of a book (as in a cheque book) A perforation may be down or across the sheet, but generally has to go all the way across or down. Occasionally, a job will appear where the perforation has stopped before the edge. This costs considerably more to produce and is called a stopped perf.
REVERSED OUT
White lettering on a solid background. Offset Litho ink is transparent so offset litho printing cannot use white ink so any white type has to be made from the paper colour showing through a solid.
SCORING
When printers score, they put a fine crease in a straight line, down or across a sheet of board. This enables the job to be hand or machine folded accurately.
SOLID
A large area of ink coverage. A full out solid means that the solid area extends all over the sheet. Most printers assume a maximum print area of 25% in any one colour and charge extra for the higher ink and setting up costs of printing a large solid on a job.
TINT
Any area of colour on a print job that is made up of a halftone screen of one or more of the solid colours used on the job. Tints are expressed in percentages, i.e. 10%, 20% etc. They are made up of a percentage of tiny dots of one of the ink colours. Laying tints is an extra cost on any job. Great care should be taken when selecting tints as they can often look totally different on the finished job than they did on the designer’s screen. Dark tints of 50% and more tende to look much darker on the printed job than on the screen, due to dot gain on the press.
TINTED
The printers term for coloured paper. Pastel tints are cheaper than intensive (deep colour) tints.
WASH-UP
Single colour printing machines normally run in black ink. Full colour machines run in black, magenta, cyan and yellow. The use of any other colour will incur a wash-up charge, for the time spent in washing down the rollers and ink ducts to take another ink colour. Very light coloured inks and metallics cost more because the wash-up takes longer.
WEIGHT OF PAPER
The bulk of most papers is measured in grams per square metre (gsm). Although not a measure of thickness, GSM gives an idea of the feel. Board is usually, although not always, measured in microns which is a measure of thickness. A 200 micron board is around 160 gsm in weight.
WOVE
A high quality paper made from the same rag-content pulp as laid, only with a smooth finish. Usually only used for letterheads.
PAPER SIZES
Printers buy paper in large sheets and cut it to the finished size, often after the job is printed. This enables a job to be printed twice or four times on one sheet and cut up afterwards. It also allows for any BLEED (see above) as printers cannot print right to the edge of the sheet. It makes sense to try to stick to standard paper sizes. Going slightly smaller will cost much the same, but by going even slightly larger than a standard size, you will be spending money on wasted paper.
Standard Metric Paper Sizes
A7 105mm x 74mmA6 148mm x 105mmA5 210mm x 148mmA4 297mm x 210mmA3 420mm x 297mmA2 594mm x 420mm
In each case, the next larger size is TWICE the shortest dimension of the last one. In other words, two A5’s will fit on one A4, two A4’s fit on one A3 etc. This means that 16 A7’s will fit neatly on an A3 sheet.
Business cards are usually the same size as a credit card, which is 85mm x 55mm.Compliment slips are often seen as 1/3rd A4 which is 99mm x 210mm.
Remember that all sheets can be used either way up. A compliment slip can be lying down or standing up. This is called PORTRAIT (210mm tall by 99mm wide) or LANDSCAPE (99mm tall and 210mm wide). The same applies to Business Cards, Forms, Posters etc. Letterheads are always portrait in format.
saving you delays and extra costs, by following these guidelines.
Low resolution files do not print well - Files created at 72dpi are NOT good enough for litho printing. Please produce graphics at 300dpi minimum.
RGB files will not print - all litho printing is produced from either spot colour work or CMYK. We can convert to CMYK for you, but the colours usually change slightly.
We aim to produce the best possible work for our customers with the minimum of delay. We can work from almost anything that you supply - your handwritten or typed copy, word-processed text file or professionall produced finished artwork on disk, However, our quotations are based on the details that you give us when requesting the quote. Any remedial work required to bring supplied artwork up to printable specification and extra costs incurred on unfinished or incorrect digital files will be notified to the customer and will be charged extra. Where artwork files are supplied, or final film is supplied, although we make as many checks as we can before printing, NO RESPONSIBILITY can be accepted for an unsatisfactory result caused by errors in design, style, spelling, typesetting, layout, tint levels, film output, scanning or any other results outside our control.
COPY AND TEXT SUPPLIEDOur quotations assume that all copy supplied will be clear and legible, preferably typed. If illegible, hand written or hard to read copy is supplied, an extra artwork charge may be levied to cover the extra time involved in our studio. Studio time spent altering or correcting any errors caused by misleading copy will be chargeable after proofing. Alterations made by the customer, other than minor corrections, and re-design work after the first proof will be chargeable on a time basis. Any text supplied on disk should be saved as an ASCII file, as well as in word-processor format.. We can accept no responsibility for any spelling or grammatical errors in text supplied on disk and assume that it has been read and spell-checked before we receive it.
PROGRAMSOur own studio produces all our work using the printing industry standard programs. i.e., Quark Xpress™, Adobe Illustrator™ and Adobe Photoshop™. We are usually able to accept work produced in a wide range of other programs, although the most satisfactory results are always from professional programs rather than from word-processing programs. Please remember that word-processing programs such as Microsoft Word™ are NOT designed for litho printing, as the necessary bleed, tick marks, register marks etc cannot be accommodated. We can however often convert Word™ files into a suitable format for litho printing at extra cost. Please ask our studio for advice before starting. If we quote you an "artwork supplied" price, it is based on the assumption that the artwork is professionally completed, has been thoroughly checked and is produced in an industry standard program. Naturally, we will have to charge you more if we have further work to do when we receive it.
COREL DRAWIf you work in Corel Draw, we can print direct from your files. Please EXPORT the file as an Adobe Illustrator file™ (AI). It also is preferable that the type is saved as curves. The avoids having to send us the fonts as well. If in any doubt, please telephone our studio for advice on 01902-402693.
MEDIAWe can accept files on CD, DVD, PC or Mac Zip Disk, PC Floppy or Mac Floppy. Digital pictures or any other files can also be supplied on CompactFlash™ cards or SmartMedia™ cards. We appreciate that Zip™ disks, CompactFlash cards™ and SmartMedia™ cards are relatively expensive and promise to post them straight back to you after copying the data. Other media formats can sometimes be accepted - please ask for details. We also have ISDN facilities on 01902- 579324.
E-MAILFiles (up to 10mb maximum please) may be emailed to sales@centreprint.co.uk. For larger files, please send on CD.
FONTSPlease supply all fonts used in the artwork that you are supplying. These will be used to output your work and then discarded (due to licensing regulations). Please therefore supply fonts each time you supply artwork. Errors will often occur if you make a font bold or italic by using the shift/command controls. It is essential that you use the ACTUAL FONT FAMILIES to achieve these type styles. Never use system fonts such as Geneva or Chicago. Please also make sure that you have supplied ALL the original printer and screen fonts used on every job supplied. Mistakes in spacing and wrap-around may welll occur if different fonts are inserted by ourselves. All fonts within an EPS file should be embedded or converted into paths.
TABSIf tabs are used in Quark Xpress™, it is important that actual tab settings are entered, rather than just using the tab key. Tab positions on the finished work may vary if this is not followed and no responsibility can be accepted for this.
COLOUR SEPARATIONPlease check carefully that NOTHING used in your artwork file, pictures, scans or colours, is in RGB mode. Everything used in litho printing has to be in CMYK or (for spot colour work) in Pantone colour. If you are using spot colour, it is essential that images created in other programs, such as Adobe Illustrator™, are supplied as EPS files in the same spot colours. Extra costs will be incurred if we have to correct files or images.
TINTSNever produce an RGB tint or graduated tint in Adobe Photoshop™ and then convert it to CMYK. Banding will result if you do. Always work in CMYK from the beginning. Never produce a graduated tint that runs from 0% to a solid. Banding at the point where the lightest tint ceases to print and where the darkest tint fills in will occur.
SCANS AND IMAGESWe recommend that CMYK scans be produced in Adobe Photoshop™ at 300 dpi. Do NOT convert a 72dpi file into 300dpi. If in doubt, please leave digital camera files etc in their raw state for us to convert, making sure that you inform us of this when you order. Scans and clip art should always be supplied as CMYK not RGB. When converting the scans from RGB files to CMYK files, the CMYK Set up (under File> Color Settings> CMYK Set up in Photoshop 5) should be as follows:
Black Generation MEDIUM - Black Ink Limit 100% - Total Ink Limit 320%UCA (Under Colour Addition) should be set to 5%
All scans and Postscript files should be saved as TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) or EPS (Encapsulated Post Script™). If producing finished artwork in Freehand, you should supply the original file as well as the EPS file. In Adobe Pagemaker™, please save the scans as EPS and not TIFFs. Please remember that you must always supply the original fonts that have been used in graphics files from programs like Adobe Illustrator™. Alternately, convert type to outlines first. Ensure that picture boxes in Quark Xpress™ are filled with “white”, rather that “No Fill”. This will give maximum edge sharpness of graphics.
LASER PROOFSA laser or ink jet proof MUST please be supplied with any artwork supplied on disk. Failure to do so means that we cannot accept any responsibility for errors.
COLLECT FOR OUTPUTQuark Xpress™ has a command called “Collect for Output”. This command collects all the images and fonts used in your file and puts them in one folder, ready to supply to us.
TINTSPlease remember that tints may look very different on the final printed job than they do on your monitor screen. Due to unavoidable dot gain in plate making and on the printing press, many tints look considerably darker on the paper than they did on the screen. Be careful never to put any dark type over a dark tint. This may look quite good on the monitor, yet be unreadable on the final printed result. For tints in general, we would advise going no darker than a 50% tint on coated stock, with a maximum 30% tint on uncoated stocks. Graduated tints that start as a solid will show a step, as they start to fill in at the darkest end.
STOCKSCertain colours may rub, finger mark and scuff on some stocks. In particular, matt and satin stocks may be more satisfactory if sealed or varnished. Our advice should be sought when deciding the stock to be used if you are unsure of the results. Reflex Blue in particular is likely to rub on coated stocks.
FINE LINES AND LETTERINGPlease do not create hairline rules or rules of less than 0.25 pt thickness as these will not output on the imagesetter as they are too fine. Registration of fine lines or lines produced out of more than one process colour cannot be guaranteed. There is always the possibility of very slight movement during printing. Very fine work is best produced out of one colour.
REVERSALSSmall point sizes, particularly of serif faces, should be avoided when reversed out of a solid or tint.
BLACK SOLIDSOffset litho inks are transparent, so when producing a solid black area in four colour process, it is advisable to introduce a 30% cyan tint to add better density to the black.
PAGE SPREADAn allowance should be made when producing the artwork for saddle stitched booklets with many pages. The centre sections bulk out and trim smaller due to the volume in the spine caused by the outer sections. Please allow a 1.5 mm reduction in the page width per 32 page section when produced on 80gsm bond stock.
BLEED Please always allow 2mm bleed on all edges.
IF IN DOUBTPlease always check with me first at shahnaumaan@gmail.com or call at 9873300382.
ART PAPER OR BOARDThis is the name for any paper or board that has a smooth, polished, clay coating. The paper may be gloss, satin, silk or matt finish. Coated papers are used for better quality work and are almost always used for full colour work and jobs with photographs on them. Art papers are usually only available in white, so any colours or shades of colour are printed on with the other colours, usually by four colour process.
BLEED
This just means any area of ink (even a line) that “runs off” the edge of a print job. Thus, “bleeds off” means that the job was printed on larger size paper and cut down to the finished size.
BOARDThe printers name for card. The thickness is usually measured in microns. A micron is one thousandth of a millimetre. Business cards are usually on 340 micron board. Reply cards would usually go on 280 micron or 230 micron board. An uncoated board, such as a filing card is called a pulp board. They are available in white or tints (pastel colours). Coated boards (art boards) are usually only available in white.
BOND
Paper made from wood pulp, without any coating, as opposed to coated paper such as art paper. Copier paper is a bond. Thickness is measured by weight in grams per square metre, rather than the actual caliper of the stock. Available in weights from 60 gsm to 120 gsm. and in white or tinted.
CLOSE REGISTER (or TIGHT REGISTER)
This means that the colours on the job are very close to each other and that the accuracy of their positions, relative to each other, are critical. Loose register, sometimes called commercial register is where a slight movement (of say one millimetre or so) between the relative positions of the colours would not matter.. Tight register work somethimes costs more, as a different type of process or printing machine may be used.
FOUR COLOUR WORK or FOUR COLOUR PROCESS
The printers name for full colour printing. The actual colours used are Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black, from which almost any shade of any colour can be reproduced. Also known as process work or four colour process. Full colour designs seen on a computer screen are displayed in three colours, red, green and blue (RGB). This means that the finished printed work will often look considerably different when printed in the four process colours.
HALFTONE
Printers name for a photograph, which has to be turned into a fine dot pattern before being printed. This process is called SCREENING.
LAID
A method of making paper from a high rag content pulp. Laid lines in the paper and a watermark make laid paper popular for letterheads. Conqueror is the best known although we can also offer an unwatermarked laid at a much lower price.
MARBLE
An expensive finish available in paper (90gsm) or board. Marlmarque is the most popular make. Usually used for short run invitations or certificates due to the high cost of the material.
NCR
This stands for No Carbon Required and is the popular name for self-carbonising paper. The top sheet is available in light or medium weight. The bottom sheet is available as a thin board. There is only one weight of the middle sheets. A range of pastel tints are available for all sheets, although board bottom sheet is usually only available in white.
NUMBERING
The addition of a unique sequential number to each sheet. Numbers are printed on to the stock by a different process than the rest of the sheet and in our case are always in red ink.
PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM (or PMS for short)
An international method of making sure that all specified colours used in printing, publicity etc are very similar. Colours are specified as numbers, i.e. PMS 032, PMS 300 etc., sometimes followed by the letter U or C. The letters simply mean how the same ink colour looks on either uncoated stock or coated stock as the colours often look totally different on each.
PERFORATIONS
The tiny holes or slits that enable a sheet to be pulled out of a book (as in a cheque book) A perforation may be down or across the sheet, but generally has to go all the way across or down. Occasionally, a job will appear where the perforation has stopped before the edge. This costs considerably more to produce and is called a stopped perf.
REVERSED OUT
White lettering on a solid background. Offset Litho ink is transparent so offset litho printing cannot use white ink so any white type has to be made from the paper colour showing through a solid.
SCORING
When printers score, they put a fine crease in a straight line, down or across a sheet of board. This enables the job to be hand or machine folded accurately.
SOLID
A large area of ink coverage. A full out solid means that the solid area extends all over the sheet. Most printers assume a maximum print area of 25% in any one colour and charge extra for the higher ink and setting up costs of printing a large solid on a job.
TINT
Any area of colour on a print job that is made up of a halftone screen of one or more of the solid colours used on the job. Tints are expressed in percentages, i.e. 10%, 20% etc. They are made up of a percentage of tiny dots of one of the ink colours. Laying tints is an extra cost on any job. Great care should be taken when selecting tints as they can often look totally different on the finished job than they did on the designer’s screen. Dark tints of 50% and more tende to look much darker on the printed job than on the screen, due to dot gain on the press.
TINTED
The printers term for coloured paper. Pastel tints are cheaper than intensive (deep colour) tints.
WASH-UP
Single colour printing machines normally run in black ink. Full colour machines run in black, magenta, cyan and yellow. The use of any other colour will incur a wash-up charge, for the time spent in washing down the rollers and ink ducts to take another ink colour. Very light coloured inks and metallics cost more because the wash-up takes longer.
WEIGHT OF PAPER
The bulk of most papers is measured in grams per square metre (gsm). Although not a measure of thickness, GSM gives an idea of the feel. Board is usually, although not always, measured in microns which is a measure of thickness. A 200 micron board is around 160 gsm in weight.
WOVE
A high quality paper made from the same rag-content pulp as laid, only with a smooth finish. Usually only used for letterheads.
PAPER SIZES
Printers buy paper in large sheets and cut it to the finished size, often after the job is printed. This enables a job to be printed twice or four times on one sheet and cut up afterwards. It also allows for any BLEED (see above) as printers cannot print right to the edge of the sheet. It makes sense to try to stick to standard paper sizes. Going slightly smaller will cost much the same, but by going even slightly larger than a standard size, you will be spending money on wasted paper.
Standard Metric Paper Sizes
A7 105mm x 74mmA6 148mm x 105mmA5 210mm x 148mmA4 297mm x 210mmA3 420mm x 297mmA2 594mm x 420mm
In each case, the next larger size is TWICE the shortest dimension of the last one. In other words, two A5’s will fit on one A4, two A4’s fit on one A3 etc. This means that 16 A7’s will fit neatly on an A3 sheet.
Business cards are usually the same size as a credit card, which is 85mm x 55mm.Compliment slips are often seen as 1/3rd A4 which is 99mm x 210mm.
Remember that all sheets can be used either way up. A compliment slip can be lying down or standing up. This is called PORTRAIT (210mm tall by 99mm wide) or LANDSCAPE (99mm tall and 210mm wide). The same applies to Business Cards, Forms, Posters etc. Letterheads are always portrait in format.
saving you delays and extra costs, by following these guidelines.
Low resolution files do not print well - Files created at 72dpi are NOT good enough for litho printing. Please produce graphics at 300dpi minimum.
RGB files will not print - all litho printing is produced from either spot colour work or CMYK. We can convert to CMYK for you, but the colours usually change slightly.
We aim to produce the best possible work for our customers with the minimum of delay. We can work from almost anything that you supply - your handwritten or typed copy, word-processed text file or professionall produced finished artwork on disk, However, our quotations are based on the details that you give us when requesting the quote. Any remedial work required to bring supplied artwork up to printable specification and extra costs incurred on unfinished or incorrect digital files will be notified to the customer and will be charged extra. Where artwork files are supplied, or final film is supplied, although we make as many checks as we can before printing, NO RESPONSIBILITY can be accepted for an unsatisfactory result caused by errors in design, style, spelling, typesetting, layout, tint levels, film output, scanning or any other results outside our control.
COPY AND TEXT SUPPLIEDOur quotations assume that all copy supplied will be clear and legible, preferably typed. If illegible, hand written or hard to read copy is supplied, an extra artwork charge may be levied to cover the extra time involved in our studio. Studio time spent altering or correcting any errors caused by misleading copy will be chargeable after proofing. Alterations made by the customer, other than minor corrections, and re-design work after the first proof will be chargeable on a time basis. Any text supplied on disk should be saved as an ASCII file, as well as in word-processor format.. We can accept no responsibility for any spelling or grammatical errors in text supplied on disk and assume that it has been read and spell-checked before we receive it.
PROGRAMSOur own studio produces all our work using the printing industry standard programs. i.e., Quark Xpress™, Adobe Illustrator™ and Adobe Photoshop™. We are usually able to accept work produced in a wide range of other programs, although the most satisfactory results are always from professional programs rather than from word-processing programs. Please remember that word-processing programs such as Microsoft Word™ are NOT designed for litho printing, as the necessary bleed, tick marks, register marks etc cannot be accommodated. We can however often convert Word™ files into a suitable format for litho printing at extra cost. Please ask our studio for advice before starting. If we quote you an "artwork supplied" price, it is based on the assumption that the artwork is professionally completed, has been thoroughly checked and is produced in an industry standard program. Naturally, we will have to charge you more if we have further work to do when we receive it.
COREL DRAWIf you work in Corel Draw, we can print direct from your files. Please EXPORT the file as an Adobe Illustrator file™ (AI). It also is preferable that the type is saved as curves. The avoids having to send us the fonts as well. If in any doubt, please telephone our studio for advice on 01902-402693.
MEDIAWe can accept files on CD, DVD, PC or Mac Zip Disk, PC Floppy or Mac Floppy. Digital pictures or any other files can also be supplied on CompactFlash™ cards or SmartMedia™ cards. We appreciate that Zip™ disks, CompactFlash cards™ and SmartMedia™ cards are relatively expensive and promise to post them straight back to you after copying the data. Other media formats can sometimes be accepted - please ask for details. We also have ISDN facilities on 01902- 579324.
E-MAILFiles (up to 10mb maximum please) may be emailed to sales@centreprint.co.uk. For larger files, please send on CD.
FONTSPlease supply all fonts used in the artwork that you are supplying. These will be used to output your work and then discarded (due to licensing regulations). Please therefore supply fonts each time you supply artwork. Errors will often occur if you make a font bold or italic by using the shift/command controls. It is essential that you use the ACTUAL FONT FAMILIES to achieve these type styles. Never use system fonts such as Geneva or Chicago. Please also make sure that you have supplied ALL the original printer and screen fonts used on every job supplied. Mistakes in spacing and wrap-around may welll occur if different fonts are inserted by ourselves. All fonts within an EPS file should be embedded or converted into paths.
TABSIf tabs are used in Quark Xpress™, it is important that actual tab settings are entered, rather than just using the tab key. Tab positions on the finished work may vary if this is not followed and no responsibility can be accepted for this.
COLOUR SEPARATIONPlease check carefully that NOTHING used in your artwork file, pictures, scans or colours, is in RGB mode. Everything used in litho printing has to be in CMYK or (for spot colour work) in Pantone colour. If you are using spot colour, it is essential that images created in other programs, such as Adobe Illustrator™, are supplied as EPS files in the same spot colours. Extra costs will be incurred if we have to correct files or images.
TINTSNever produce an RGB tint or graduated tint in Adobe Photoshop™ and then convert it to CMYK. Banding will result if you do. Always work in CMYK from the beginning. Never produce a graduated tint that runs from 0% to a solid. Banding at the point where the lightest tint ceases to print and where the darkest tint fills in will occur.
SCANS AND IMAGESWe recommend that CMYK scans be produced in Adobe Photoshop™ at 300 dpi. Do NOT convert a 72dpi file into 300dpi. If in doubt, please leave digital camera files etc in their raw state for us to convert, making sure that you inform us of this when you order. Scans and clip art should always be supplied as CMYK not RGB. When converting the scans from RGB files to CMYK files, the CMYK Set up (under File> Color Settings> CMYK Set up in Photoshop 5) should be as follows:
Black Generation MEDIUM - Black Ink Limit 100% - Total Ink Limit 320%UCA (Under Colour Addition) should be set to 5%
All scans and Postscript files should be saved as TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) or EPS (Encapsulated Post Script™). If producing finished artwork in Freehand, you should supply the original file as well as the EPS file. In Adobe Pagemaker™, please save the scans as EPS and not TIFFs. Please remember that you must always supply the original fonts that have been used in graphics files from programs like Adobe Illustrator™. Alternately, convert type to outlines first. Ensure that picture boxes in Quark Xpress™ are filled with “white”, rather that “No Fill”. This will give maximum edge sharpness of graphics.
LASER PROOFSA laser or ink jet proof MUST please be supplied with any artwork supplied on disk. Failure to do so means that we cannot accept any responsibility for errors.
COLLECT FOR OUTPUTQuark Xpress™ has a command called “Collect for Output”. This command collects all the images and fonts used in your file and puts them in one folder, ready to supply to us.
TINTSPlease remember that tints may look very different on the final printed job than they do on your monitor screen. Due to unavoidable dot gain in plate making and on the printing press, many tints look considerably darker on the paper than they did on the screen. Be careful never to put any dark type over a dark tint. This may look quite good on the monitor, yet be unreadable on the final printed result. For tints in general, we would advise going no darker than a 50% tint on coated stock, with a maximum 30% tint on uncoated stocks. Graduated tints that start as a solid will show a step, as they start to fill in at the darkest end.
STOCKSCertain colours may rub, finger mark and scuff on some stocks. In particular, matt and satin stocks may be more satisfactory if sealed or varnished. Our advice should be sought when deciding the stock to be used if you are unsure of the results. Reflex Blue in particular is likely to rub on coated stocks.
FINE LINES AND LETTERINGPlease do not create hairline rules or rules of less than 0.25 pt thickness as these will not output on the imagesetter as they are too fine. Registration of fine lines or lines produced out of more than one process colour cannot be guaranteed. There is always the possibility of very slight movement during printing. Very fine work is best produced out of one colour.
REVERSALSSmall point sizes, particularly of serif faces, should be avoided when reversed out of a solid or tint.
BLACK SOLIDSOffset litho inks are transparent, so when producing a solid black area in four colour process, it is advisable to introduce a 30% cyan tint to add better density to the black.
PAGE SPREADAn allowance should be made when producing the artwork for saddle stitched booklets with many pages. The centre sections bulk out and trim smaller due to the volume in the spine caused by the outer sections. Please allow a 1.5 mm reduction in the page width per 32 page section when produced on 80gsm bond stock.
BLEED Please always allow 2mm bleed on all edges.
IF IN DOUBTPlease always check with me first at shahnaumaan@gmail.com or call at 9873300382.
posted by Muhammed Naumaan Shah at 1:39 AM
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