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You are here: MacNN Forums > Enthusiast Zone > Art & Graphic Design > Print Newb: What does this all mean?

Print Newb: What does this all mean?
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DeathMan
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Feb 23, 2004, 03:42 PM
 
I have been doing some mailers in Illustrator, and I've done very little in print, and what I have done has been 4 color. These have been 2 or 3 color, using spot colors. I got the following in an email, and I assume most of these issues would be resolved internally if I were using quark or indesign, but does anyone know if I can take care of these in Illustrator, and what do they mean?

Thanks,


Please do overprints on black fonts where possible and when not possible to increase their trap, or use a trap, _this artwork is very difficult to register

This next part, I think, is because I didn't use spot color when I was supposed to, so they were separating into 4 colors, instead of just making 2 plates.

Also, on 2 color artwork._ The PDF's are_still wanting to be broken out into 4 color._ So,__make one color 100% Black and the other 100% of another process color ( magenta, yellow, cyan)_ Then just tell us what the other color should be._ This will allow 2 plates to be the color and the other 2 will be blank.
I think I can take care of this by remembering to use spot colors instead of cmyk.

Thanks for any help.
     
JacobyO
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Feb 23, 2004, 04:26 PM
 
on the first part they are obviously not doing the trapping for you. Therefore they are asking that you either overprint the black type or do your own trapping and choke the color that is behind the type. If you are not a print person then you would have a hard time figuring this out. I suggest you give them the Quark file and the support graphics rather than send them a PDF. PDF's do not allow a prepress guy any ability to fix errors made by the designer.

The second issue is that the colors aren't separating correctly. What they are asking you do to is designate a process color for each of the PMS colors. For instance if your job is in PMS 185, PMS 294, and black, then you should go into your file and make everything that is in 185 magenta, everything in 294 cyan, and leave black as black. Then when the plates are run they can just print using the correct PMS inks.

If you are still having problems with this then I would talk to your prepress guys and ask them if you could just send them the raw/working files and have them take care of the process. They should have no problems doing this as it is a fairly simple task for someone with a moderate amount of Prepress experience.

If they refuse to do this for you then you should reconsider your relationship with this printer.

Please let me know how this works out. Worse comes to worse just email me the files and I can do it for you.
     
Corys
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Feb 23, 2004, 04:34 PM
 
Seems odd they would be asking you to provide the overprints and traps (they are the printer, they should know how it should be trapped). Never understood why printers feel it's the responsibility of the client to do hand trapping..
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JacobyO
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Feb 23, 2004, 04:38 PM
 
exactly! Who does hand trapping now anyway. Sometimes we'd customize the trapping software but rarely if ever do it by hand.
     
DeathMan  (op)
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Feb 23, 2004, 04:53 PM
 
Well, I've been sending them PDFs (though with Illustrator Editability clicked on) so I think they see that and just say, "well there's nothing we can do"

I've talked to a printer that I sort of know, and he said his outputter just throws away all the trapping info anyway, and the outputter handles that all anyway.

Does anyone know how to do this in Illustrator? I'm looking it up in help right now. It doesn't seem very straightforward. Say I'm doing a black circle in the middle of an orange square. Do I need to make a hole in the square in the circle, and then put a stroke on the circle to make sure it doesn't leave a white spot, when they can't get it to register perfectly? With a black circle do I stroke the circle, or would I be better off making the orange background a bit bigger.

How do I know how much to overlap? Is there a rule of thumb?

Thanks for your input, people. I'm not even sure I'm understanding this correctly.
     
Corys
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Feb 23, 2004, 05:09 PM
 
seriously..for a printer asking you to do all of this...it's a joke..

when it comes to trapping there really isn't a standard since each press/paper combo has it's own tolerances..

the printer themselves should be able to give you a number to hit..

a common number many printers use is about 1/4 point or 3 mils.

the problem you run into doing hand trapping is you can't take advantage of mixed / split traps..These are techniques that will do a great job of hiding the visible lines that a trap can make.
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JacobyO
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Feb 23, 2004, 05:09 PM
 
Well, the general rule of thumb for Offset print trapping is .003". If you are not familiar with this process I suggest you let someone handle it for you. Afterall that is their job. Email me the file and I will convert it for you and show you the way it would have to be sent to film.

[email protected]
     
bluedog
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Feb 23, 2004, 05:19 PM
 
Well, I work for a label printer and do ALL our trapping by hand for spot color work. The processing printing we have trapped and seperated by an outside vendor. As most of our work isn't custom color printing it works out fairly well.

It is odd your printer hasn't simply asked for the files and done the trapping for you.

Answering your questions:

1. Depending on the complexity and size of your artwork, I usually use 0.5 point trapping on light colors. This is really generous as flexographic printing isn't quite as precise as offset or sheetfed printing. If you have a black circle on an orange background, what I would do is add an orange stroke of 0.5 and go to the attributes palette and specify to overprint the stroke. This will add the stroke onto the correct plate.

Illustrator has a feature to preview the overprinting which can be helpful.

2, You don't have to put a hole in the circle area, if the black circle is set without overprinting for its fill. If the overprint is NOT checked, then it will knock out of the orange area and you'll be fine when combined with step 1.

Good luck!
( Last edited by bluedog; Feb 24, 2004 at 11:24 PM. )
     
DeathMan  (op)
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Feb 23, 2004, 06:25 PM
 
So am I better off just sending the Illustrator file? It sounds like the trapping and overprint is fairly specific to the printer. If they can do it in Illustrator, I can just send them the files. I've sent them Illustraotr PDFs, but they don't know that they're editable, unless they've tried to open them specifically with illustrator. Is it resonable for me to just make sure the document is set up right, and say, since I don't know your specific printing needs, set your own overprints?

I'm willing to do them, but I don't have any idea how to tell if they're right, and I don't know what is my responsibility and what isn't.

Thanks for all your input.
     
himself
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Feb 24, 2004, 04:16 AM
 
Originally posted by DeathMan:
So am I better off just sending the Illustrator file? It sounds like the trapping and overprint is fairly specific to the printer. If they can do it in Illustrator, I can just send them the files. I've sent them Illustraotr PDFs, but they don't know that they're editable, unless they've tried to open them specifically with illustrator. Is it resonable for me to just make sure the document is set up right, and say, since I don't know your specific printing needs, set your own overprints?

I'm willing to do them, but I don't have any idea how to tell if they're right, and I don't know what is my responsibility and what isn't.

Thanks for all your input.
I typically send Illustraor files as .eps, and the printers takes care of the trapping for me. Like others have said, different printers have different trap settings for different equipment and inks... there's no way I could accurately set the trap for every file send for each different printer I use. Maybe you should ask your printer why they were unable to set the traps for your file. If they still insist on you setting the trap, ask them for specifications (or find a user-friendly printer).

In your example, with the black circle in the middle of the orange square, you could play with the trap, but it is easier to set the black to overprint the orange.

Also, about your files printing 4 color instead of 2, part of the problem could be with the colors in the swatch palette. I would have problems with more colors than I specified in a file showing up in the swatch (common if try multiple color variations), so I would just choose �Select Unused Colors� from the swatch palette and trash those colors. If there are still colors in the swatch palette that I don't want in the file, you have to find those colors in your file and remove them/change them/delete those objects.
"Bill Gates can't guarantee Windows... how can you guarantee my safety?"
-John Crichton
     
DeathMan  (op)
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Feb 24, 2004, 04:16 PM
 
Originally posted by himself:
Also, about your files printing 4 color instead of 2, part of the problem could be with the colors in the swatch palette. I would have problems with more colors than I specified in a file showing up in the swatch (common if try multiple color variations), so I would just choose �Select Unused Colors� from the swatch palette and trash those colors. If there are still colors in the swatch palette that I don't want in the file, you have to find those colors in your file and remove them/change them/delete those objects.
Thats a great suggestion. Also, I'll start sending them as .eps. I knew that printers like .eps, but thought for some reason that .pdf would be better. I guess Adobe's marketing department is doing its job.
     
siliconwarrior
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Feb 24, 2004, 07:40 PM
 
PDF is better.

Some printers just don't realise this yet.

Many of the benefits of PDF remain largely unadopted by much of the industry, probably because there are so many people who do not understand the technology properly.

Postscript is dead. Long live Portable Document Format!
Silicon-Age Warrior
     
JacobyO
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Feb 25, 2004, 11:14 PM
 
last time I checked postscript is still used whether the file format is a PDF or not. In order for files to rip to film or plates in uses the postscript information. PDF is simply compressing and rasterizing the postscript information.
     
siliconwarrior
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Feb 26, 2004, 03:17 PM
 
PDF 1.3 was basically that: optimised and compressed postscript.

But since PDF 1.4 the format has been capable of far more, and with each revision new and more powerful features are introduced. Postscript is an aging, simple page description language confined to raster images and simple vector shapes and masks. PDF offers many advantages over Postscript such as far smaller file sizes, editable contents, advanced embedded fonts/images/output settings, transparency - not to mention the various uses outside of the print industry, ie. on the web and for secure document distribution. PDF is also backwards compatible, allowing Postscript to be converted to PDF and vice versa.

In a true modern PDF workflow, Postscript need never be involved - the RIP will rasterize the PDF natively, and a lot of the native file formats used by modern page layout technology (especially the Adobe Creative Suite) are PDF based now, rather than being loosely based around Postscript.

PDF is not a replacement for Postscript, but the evolution of it. In time Postscript will be phased out � la OS9, but only when more people realise the potential that PDF has as a cross platform multifunctional technology.
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Corys
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Feb 27, 2004, 03:14 PM
 
Originally posted by siliconwarrior:
PDF is better.

Some printers just don't realise this yet.

Many of the benefits of PDF remain largely unadopted by much of the industry, probably because there are so many people who do not understand the technology properly.

Postscript is dead. Long live Portable Document Format!
unfortunately PDF won't fix crappy file preparation. there are a few clients that I will take PDF's from, otherwise, I want native files.

Tools like Pitstop are great when you are in a pinch, but in general it's a slow akward way to edit a PDF file..

it's rare that I get a file from a client that doesn't require some tweaking (or client changes) at that point a PDF becomes a hassle for me.
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JacobyO
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Mar 1, 2004, 10:50 AM
 
Originally posted by Corys:
unfortunately PDF won't fix crappy file preparation. there are a few clients that I will take PDF's from, otherwise, I want native files.

Tools like Pitstop are great when you are in a pinch, but in general it's a slow akward way to edit a PDF file..

it's rare that I get a file from a client that doesn't require some tweaking (or client changes) at that point a PDF becomes a hassle for me.
Exactly! Preach on brother!

What parrallel universe do people live in where designers know how to prepare a file for output. Like Corys said, there are a select few that have the ability to do this, but they are a minority.
     
gadster
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Mar 2, 2004, 08:52 AM
 
Originally posted by JacobyO:
Exactly! Preach on brother!

What parrallel universe do people live in where designers know how to prepare a file for output. Like Corys said, there are a select few that have the ability to do this, but they are a minority.
Well some of us do. I am happy to assign a different screen angle to a spot colour in Quark (if I must), but I consider trapping to be an in-rip job. In fact, I'd rather supply rgb images and let the rip convert to appropriate cmyk profiles (and trap) on the fly. That's what computers are for, no? Companies with proper workflows and RIPS don't have these problems.
e-gads
     
designbc
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Mar 2, 2004, 09:45 AM
 
Originally posted by gadster:
I'd rather supply rgb images and let the rip convert to appropriate cmyk profiles (and trap) on the fly. That's what computers are for, no?
I wouldn't dare!!!
And, by the way, I know how to prepare files for output.I haven't had a problem with a printer in years. I used to work for one, and there I learned. That's why I think every designer should get familiar with the printing process.
There is no spoon
     
siliconwarrior
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Mar 2, 2004, 12:18 PM
 
"That's why I think every designer should get familiar with the printing process."

Indeed. And then supply PDFs.

It's not the job of prepress to make last minute amends to artwork. Whatever happened to 'final' artwork?

Oh, and I wouldn't send RGB images to a RIP either - there's no guarantee of how it will split (there should be, but there isn't). It's best to work in CMYK in order for your film/plate separations to emerge as you are expecting.
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designbc
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Mar 2, 2004, 03:29 PM
 
Originally posted by siliconwarrior:
...And then supply PDFs.
God bless Adobe
There is no spoon
     
DeathMan  (op)
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Mar 2, 2004, 03:48 PM
 
In some cases (at least in Illustrator) PDFs are the native files. But I can see that everything should be set up right. So what are the main things you have to make sure are right, if you want to send stuff in PDF?

This is something I would like to be able to do. Be one of those designers who you can count on to just throw the PDF in the printer and have it work out. So you need:

Proper Color Profile
Embedded Fonts or Outlines


Thats all I know so far. Do you need to expand tranparencies and effects? Do you need to put registration marks? Anything else?
     
siliconwarrior
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Mar 4, 2004, 04:14 PM
 
The main things to remember when preparing a PDF for output:

� Bleed - normally 3mm for every page.
� Crop marks.
� Single pages rather than spreads (for imposition).
� Ensure all images are CMYK before generating PDF.
� Embed all fonts.
� Resolution - minimum 300dpi for print.
� If the job is being printed four colour then make sure that any spot colours are set to process.
� Colour management: your printer can give you details of any colour management requirements, otherwise leave colour management off - prepress will take care of it.
� Flattening - if you are not confident about flattening settings then prepare your PDF in it's native version (PDF 1.4 and higher for transparency) and let the RIP/prepress dept. worry about them.
� JPEG compression - don't overdo it or you will lose image quality.

For InDesign users, the standard 'Press' settings are fine, just add bleed and crop marks.
For Quark users, print to a postscript file (you will to add bleed and crops at this stage) then Distill using 'Press' settings. Quark 6's built-in PDF generation is terrible - avoid at all costs.

I hope this helps people make press-ready PDFs, and makes getting predictable and efficient on-press results easier for all concerned.
Silicon-Age Warrior
     
   
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