Tips for the novice designer

After you have designed your piece and before you take it to be output to film, make sure that you have trapped appropriately. Trapping is the process of slightly overlapping inks where two solid colors meet. This technique helps to compensate for any paper shrink or movement on the press that may cause slight mis-registration. If you do not trap, and there is any mis-registration, then you may see tiny white lines where the inks did not match up properly. An exaggerated example of this would be when you notice that the colors in the comics of the Sunday paper have shifted.

Usually trapping is most important when you are using two or more solid ink colors, such as the industry standard Pantone Ink colors. There are several techniques for trapping, and most DTP (Desktop Publishing) programs have their own methods, so for exact instructions consult the owners manual for the DTP program that you are using. To give you an idea of what is going on, here's a brief overview:

In essence what you are doing when you trap is assigning a stroke (around a letter for example) that will overprint (print on top of all other colors in the job). The width of this stroke (usually between .18 points and 1 point; different requirements for different print jobs) falls halfway onto both inks. Now, with the trapping, if there is a slight shift in the paper or shrinkage the overprinting stroke will fill the gap.

At Printco Graphics, we set the trapping for you. You won't have to worry about that pesty white line or too much overlap of color.

Bleeds

Simpler than trapping is bleeding. If you are ever designing a piece that will have a full bleed (have ink that goes all of the way to the edge of the paper) then you need to bleed it. What bleeding does is run your inks over (usually about .25 - .5 inches) the edge of the paper.

You do this so that when the job is all printed and ready to be cut and folded, there will not be blank spaces (much like mis-registration gaps) if the cutter misses the edge by a small amount.

Correct Color

The trickiest part in designing a print piece is getting accurate color when it comes time to go to press. The reasons for this are numerous but in short we can say that what you see on screen isn’t always what you get on paper.

“YOUR MONITOR CAN DECEIVE YOU”

Let me say this again, “YOUR MONITOR CAN DECEIVE YOU!”

Monitors (and TVs) display colors by combining the colors Red, Green and Blue (RGB) in different combinations to make up every other color. This is like the reverse of sunlight being broken down into its primary colors in a rainbow. We’ve all seen a rainbow.

On the other hand, when printing, all possible colors (in a four color job only) are created by combining different combinations of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK).

So what we have are two different methodologies that do not translate perfectly from one to the other, and thus we sometimes have error. The details in getting good color could fill a book, but these should give you a good solid platform to start with and learn more from the Printco University.

Tips for correct color:

1. Expect Variation. No matter what you do, color will always be something that will need extreme attention and adjusting. It’s just the nature of printing. If you do not want variation, the only thing you can do is to call for a “press check.” Beware that you may be at a press any time from midnight to 11:59 p.m. checking colors to ensure you get exactly what you want. This can have an attached fee to it. Check with your Printco sales representative for more details.
2. Never trust your monitor. Even with the best monitor, you will not get truly perfect color reproduction from monitor to press let alone from scanner to monitor to press. Remember RGB is your monitor’s color usage, while you are going to print CMYK.
3. Use your pantone books. Always trust your pantone books (SEE Pantone Color Bridge) over your monitor. You can get these color swatch books to use as a reference when picking and proofing colors. Your print provider can use what is called an Ink Bible that provides you exactly the “recipe” for the color you want.
4. Request a proof if needed. If accurate color is critical to the job, then plan extra time and money to pay for a good proof. This will save you a lot of headaches in the long run. There are several types of proofs that Printco can provide you, from high resolution (Sherpa) to low resolution (laser). High resolution, while a higher cost to you, can provide you assurance that there is a lesser amount of variation at press.
5. Use a decent monitor. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars for a great monitor, but a good monitor can make your job a lot easier. You should be able to find a good 17" monitor for about $650 - $700.
6. Calibrate your monitor. There are plenty of ways to do this, from $2,000 color calibration hardware to adjusting simple system settings on your computer. Most good monitors will come with some software calibration that works pretty well when used correctly.
7. Use a capable computer. Even the best monitor will look horrible if the computer running it can't drive it accurately. Critical here is the ability to display at least "Thousands of Colors" and preferably "Millions of Colors" . All color Macintoshes have the ability to display at least "Thousands of Colors" but many older Windows machines can only display 256 colors. To extend your computer's color capabilities look into a quality video card and/or possibly adding some VRAM (video RAM) to your system.
8. Scan appropriately. Use a scanner that has good color depth (at least 24-bit, preferably 30-bit) and good reviews. If the job is important enough, pay to have your photos drum scanned to get the most color possible.