Print designers take their company’s cashflow into their own hands each time they send off a print job. Knowing print process basics and how to avoid pitfalls from a client and designers perspective is useful.
When designing for print there are several pitfalls that a client and designer should watch out for to ensure that the process runs smoothly. A few of these points are listed below:
My print colours do not match the screen
Understand that the colours you see on the screen are not necessarily completely accurate in terms of what you will get at the end of the print design process. This is mainly down to the difference between the way colour is created on screen and the way colour is created on paper: on CRT or LCD monitors, the monitor combines Red, Green and Blue light [RGB] to produce colour using very small pixels and any tiny, barely visible gaps between the pixel elements are black whereas the common process of printing with Cyan Yellow Magenta and Black [or Key as it is sometimes known] [CMYK] uses a combination of inks printed at various angles to give the impression of colour tone – all space between the distributed ink is white. Different input and output devices dealing with colour all have a different gamut – ie the range of colours a device can display or print, and the effect of the material or technology used to present this colour also has an effect.
Screen vs print
A screen’s gamut is usually much bigger than the printer’s gamut and this must be accounted for when dealing with images for print. The human eye has a much larger gamut of colours that can be viewed – monitors and printed material can only ever represent a reasonably small proportion of the colour available to us in the natural world.
Adobe users have the opportunity to set their colour spaces for local [eg US, European or Asian] printer technologies in the settings for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign providing a reasonably accurate environment for the images to be imported, processed and saved in suitable colour spaces – though Adobe’s colour engine requires considerable calibration and testing.
I am not the designer. What can I do?
Calibration Hardware
Buy yourself a piece of hardware for calibrating your monitor [and if you can stretch to the expense, your printer too]. See the Design-Design article Why Bother Calibrating? This will give you a fairly accurate starting point though personally my X-black Sony VAIO seems to overcompensate black and therefore shadows are slightly heavier than they should be – watch out for this sort of inaccuracy.
Colour Management – the printed photo method
Unless you have been trained in Colour Management then the most appropriate course of action would be to calibrate using a special image from your printers – my current choice of printer provide a test image on their typical gloss and matt stock and request that people manually set the colour of their monitor or graphics card to match the printed image with an image on screen. In cases where you can use a test image then this is recommended because, if you can get a ball park colour value from using a calibration device, then adjust manually so that what you see on screen matches the lithographic print, you should never be disappointed [though may never see 100% perfection either! - but that's a very tall order]. Ensure that your colour management policies are set to off when you calibrate. For further information please see the Why bother calibrating? article.
Colour Management – the Adobe method
If you find that this process is not yielding the results you want [though if you constantly use the same printer then it is probably best to use the first method mentioned for increased accuracy], then try setting your Adobe software to the appropriate region settings for example in European countries choose EUROPE GENERAL PURPOSE 2 and ensure that Preserve Embedded Profiles is set for RGB, CMYK and Greyscale. This is a catch all method for ensuring that files are reasonably accurate, though if you really want to improve colour accuracy then read this incredibly detailed document from Adobe if you dare!
Conclusion
I’d use the photo method for colour management if you possibly can. The Adobe method requires some serious study and some experimentation with calibration depending on the accuracy or quality of your equipment. In most cases, the client is willing to accept colour tolerance in the region that photo methods will allow.
Does the printer understand your design?
When I’ve finished designing and I am preparing the file for print, I usually create proof files in the form of low resolution JPEGs to send off accompanying the file – this helps to ensure that your vision of the document boundaries, colours and content is communicated clearly and that changes in the PDF between your computer and the print unit’s machine can be identified.
If you feel it is necessary to clarify the print job further then it would be recommended that a physical proof is sent to the printers. This may indicate how pages fit together, where perforations are located or where there may be problems in the PDF. These proofs should be annotated. Usually printers have received all sorts of documents containing all sorts of problems with vectors, bitmaps and colour models eg screen colours as opposed to print colours and so are often experts at identifying potential print issues – I just don’t rely on that knowledge as print is so expensive.
I recently completed a car sticker job for a client. The client was surprised at how much detail I wrote in the accompanying email as I made a list of assumptions of how the process would occur and asked important questions that needed consideration. Assumptions included the understanding that all text would be cut out of the stickers rather than another sticker placed over the top in white – the client did not know that the colour of the car body is white and that this will be expected to show through in text areas. Also, I was concerned that the 4-piece logo items would need some sort of template in the application of the sticker to ensure all parts were accurately spaced – the print guy told me that there was a special coating on the stickers to allow easy application of several elements in the right place. It is really worth getting into the fine detail before money / time / effort is spent.
Turnaround
Never underestimate the time that a printer requires to complete a job – printers run to a carefully planned and priced schedule and will not be able to deviate from this as it would affect their pricing model. In many cases the client can pay a premium to receive the printed material such as stationery within 2-3 days. For example, RCS, the print company I use, have an 11am deadline for the receipt of print and from that point, it is classed as day 1. Within day 1 payment must be made for the job to run within the time guidelines.
It is worth looking at the variety of print options available to the client – RCS offer an economy turnaround time which is twice the normal turnaround but can make savings on the overall cost of the job by 10% – 15%
Colour Proof
Printers can provide a proof of the artwork but this will come at a price. A chromalin or laser copy can be generated which will provide around 85% – 95% accurate representation. It is worth finding a local photocopy shop with industrial quality laser printers to speed up this process but do your research and testing first to ensure that the results are reasonably accurate.
Savings and Offers
Check to see if your printer has special offers and pass these savings on to your client. This always brings a cheery smile to the clients face and shows him or her that you are a loyal designer!
One Response
From an end-user perspective, this is a useful piece as it answers some questions I didn’t know existed.
Running a small business we have traditionally tried to achieve much in house, but have come to realise the value of external support.
That said the better informed you are the better you will be able to guide your external contributors and reduce misundersytandings and of course costs.