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home > Tips & Tutorials > PREPRESS AND PRINTING

Printing & Prepress : Working with a Commercial Printer : Prepress Know How : How to Send Files to Press

PAPER INFORMATION

PROOFING / PRESS CHECKS

BLEEDS & BLEEDING EDGES

SPOTLIGHT GRAPHIC DESIGNERS FROM OUR DESIGN COMMUNITY

BLUELINE PROOFS

PREFLIGHT CHECKLIST / PREPARING FILES FOR PRINT

PDFS AND PREPRESS

POSTSCRIPT

IMPOSITION

RIP

TRAPPING

COLOR INFORMATION

COLOR SEPARATION

FOLDING . SCORING . BINDING

HALFTONES AND DITHERING

COMPUTER TO PLATE (CTP)

ENGRAVING

FLEXOGRAPHY

GRAVURE

OFFSET LITHOGRAPHY

SILKSCREEN

STOCHASTIC

THERMOGRAPHY

Printlocal.com - Print Buyers submit quotes online for bid (FREE SERVICE). Printers from our network bid on jobs. Print Buyer awards the job to printer of choice

Business Cards – Business card design & printing - Business card printing company offering thousands of free business card designs online

Adjusting Your Multi-Panel Folders Before Printing - It's important to note that adjusting your files before releasing the job for printing is the responsibility of the designer - not the printer.

A Preflight Checklist - To help prevent costly errors and dissatisfaction with the end result it is important to ask yourself some questions at the onset of the job.

Are Picas the Same as Inches? - No, they aren't the same but there are surprising similarities between the two. Though the design industry has changed dramatically with the advent of the computer age, picas and points are here to stay. Could you really envision everyone switching over how they describe font sizes, rule widths or leading? Not likely at this point.

Avoiding Fuzzy Four-Color Type - Printing small type in more than one color can be a nightmare for printers.

Avoid Printing and Finishing Delays With a Preflight Checklist - Failure to include all items required by your service provider or failure to properly prepare digital files or camera ready artwork can result in both time delays and create addtiional costs. Use of a comprehensive preflight checklist can save time, money, and frustration.

Basic Planning of Your Design for Commercial Printing - For most graphic designers there is an enormous sense of achievement to be had from seeing your creative efforts finished and in print. After 16 years I still get a thrill from seeing a printed version of my screen creations.

Business Card Printing - Anybody who owns a business will eventually need business card printing services. Depending on your budget, design, and personal preferences, you can use different forms of printing. A lot of cards are designed to be black text on a white card, so a full color card will really stand out from the crowd.

Changing PDF Versions - Readers debate the best way to change the version of a PDF from 6.0 to 4.0.

Choosing a Color Printer For In-house Proofing - Xerox offers 4 tips for choosing the right color printer to support your in-house proofing needs.

CTP 101 (Computer to Plate)- Successfully implementing CTP requires printers to manage the transition to a dramatically transformed manufacturing process. This article will review key concerns for quick and small commercial printers evaluating an all-digital workflow.

Computer to Plate - Entire page dedicated to Computer to Plate process.

Converting Word bookmarks to PDF - How can I ensure my bookmarks include both number and title when I convert from Word to PDF?

Converting a Process Color PDF To a Hghlight Color PDF - How can I generate a highlight color PDF from one that contains process colors?

Cropping and Printing - Readers offer tips on cropping and printing a PDF.

Ensuring your commercial print is successful - Tom Arah begins a two part look at producing commercial print by investigating how to successfully get your publication to your outputting bureau.

Beginning With The End - Prepress - 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.

Brochure Printing Tips - Brochure printing tips and the other related printing tips sites will allow you to maximize the power of your messages to prospects and customers for all your brochure printing, flyer printing, post card printing, catalog printing and other promotional printing needs.

Carlson Printing Co. Tips and How-to Save Money

Color Printing - In the past few years the use of photographic processes has expanded greatly, and with the development and enhancements of copiers and other electronic devices, a new era in printing has been born. Also, as more personal computers are being used, improved quality color printers are being offered on the market. Today, it is not hard to find both businesses and individuals producing camera-ready documents.

Color Printing Authority - Nothing grabs a person's attention quite like vibrant colors. If you're designing anything from business cards to posters, chances are you want to include color. Color printing is a must as it makes your brochures, business cards, posters, and envelopes look more polished and attractive.

Files to Press Preparing DTP files for commercial printing--beginner to advanced

Design Guide For Print - Submitting Files For Print - We've learned that by streamlining the prepress process we are able to pass significant savings onto our customers. Our prepress guidelines also let us bypass common pitfalls associated with preparing digital artwork for print such as embedding fonts, and unlinked images.

Digital Prepress vs. Traditional Prepress - Design and Prepress for Desktop Publishing

Dos and Don'ts of Postscript Files - Learn how to create a PostScript file from your work.

Flyer Printing Tips - Flyer printing tips and the other related printing tips sites will allow you to maximize the power of your messages to prospects and customers for all your flyer printing, brochure printing, post card printing, catalog printing and other promotional printing needs.

A First Guide to PostScript This is meant to be a simple introduction to programming in the PostScript page description language from Adobe. 

Full Color Printing - When you are planning an advertising campaign, it is essential that you maximize every penny that you spend on postcards, business cards, or brochures. One of the best secrets to success is full color printing, as your advertising products will stand out from those of your competitors. It can feel like an uphill struggle trying to get your business off the ground and build a strong customer base.

GAIN - The Graphic Arts Information Network (GAIN) is your portal to the entire graphic arts industry. Brought to you by Printing Industries of America; Easily find a printer in your area.

Getting Better Customer Files - This article is for prepress organizations, but it can benefit you, the designer, as well. You have to hand it to technology. While advancements such as FTP, e-mail and other file-transfer methods have streamlined print production and made it easier for printers to receive job orders from customers, they have also introduced a new problem to the production process: customer-created files.

Get Accurate Pantone Colors Off of Ink Jet Printers - Gimlé announces the AbsoluteProof Extrachrome system.

Graphic Printing - Over the last 15 years or so, graphic printing options for designers and advertisers have increased dramatically. Many of these advancements are the direct result of the development of new kinds of vinyl and vinyl adhesives. But the development of better and larger printers, inks, and computer technology has no doubt played an equally important role, though

Hidden Costs of Printing - HP says these 4 costs sometimes get overlooked when organizations calculate their printer TCO.

How Can I Keep My Printing Costs Low? - If your budget for a printed project is low, there are several things you can do to keep costs to a minimum. Here's a few tricks to keep your printing project on budget.

How to Find the Right Commercial Printer Finding just the right commercial printer for a particular job is an exercise in narrowing:

How to Avoid Gradation Banding - Printing by Design offers this checklist for avoiding gradation banding during printing.

Image File Checklist - How to avoid interrupted print jobs.

Inkjet Ink - Inkjet ink is an endlessly complex formulation that enables this colored fluid to penetrate or adhere to almost any surface. Home computer owners may have the common bubble jet or thermal printer that perfectly suits their needs for printing on porous paper. In industry, however, codes and markings must be affixed to plastic, metal, cardboard, and glass.

Is There an Easy Way to Figure Out Decimal Equivalents? - There certainly is. You can check out this explanation on how to do it or you can scroll down and check out the chart at the bottom of this page. It doesn't get much easier than that.

Julian Fosters Printing Tips DO's & DON'Ts On Sending Files To A Printer / Service Bureau For Output

Online Printing Services - Online printing services are really providing a great service for the business and professional world. Not only do they offer great prices on all kinds of printing, but a good number also provide excellent customer service and websites that list all of their prices. Some online printers offer free shipping as well, so you don't have to worry about that.

Online Printing - Online printing is the wave of the future for any business with publishing needs. With today's cutting edge technology, it is easier and more efficient than ever to produce high quality documents that reflect the class and integrity of your business establishment. Given the widespread use and utility of business printing services, it is important to look for first-rate, comprehensive online printing options.

Pearls of Output-File Wisdom - Here are some pearls of file output wisdom I have collected over the years from my friends that ride imagesetters everyday.

PrePress Magic - Colour Print - Full colour printing is an illusion built on an illusion. Tom Arah looks at the tricks involved.

Printing Basics - It is important to understand the basics of the printing process to insure that your packaging looks like what you designed it to look like.

Printing Services - Fast and Professional - Printing services specialize in the design of product and services materials for companies of all sizes. They are here to help you develop sales and marketing materials, everything from a professional product catalog to a print brochure. This site introduces some common services offered by printing services and will help you get started on developing the perfect marketing materials.

Avoiding Four Color Fuzzy Type- Printing small type in more than one color can be a nightmare for printers. Keeping the type in register throughout the run is challenging and often impossible. For you, this means fuzzy type that looks bad.

PostScript or PDF Color Separations - Two Degrees of Separation: Composite vs. Pre-Separated

Poster Printing - Welcome to the #1 poster printing resource. In this website, you will find all the information you could ever want on photo, poster and canvas printing needs. You couldn't find a more informative site than this one

Printing - Business printing has changed dramatically over the last few years. Off-site, cumbersome and poor-quality print jobs are a thing of the past. Modern tools like digital printing, digital libraries, document control, and Internet printing have created opportunities to enjoy superior-quality printing from one's desktop.

Printing-101.com - A guide to color printing and working with printers effectively.

Preflight Your Files - Tight budgets and deadlines are a fact of life in the printing business, so it's a given that the production process must flow as smoothly as possible. And in today's digital workflow, optimized as it is for speed and efficiency, one has to be particularly careful to avoid setbacks.

Platesetting FAQs - Platesetting FAQs

Printing Services - Affordable Printing Rates - Are you curious about the different printing services available today? Depending on exactly what you need printed there are many different options available for you to choose from. You can get some great prices if you shop around long enough, and who knows, you might even learn something in the process.

Printing Services - Whether you're looking for business cards or poster printing, chances are that you need someone to take care of your printing services. Sometimes it can be difficult to know exactly what kind of printing services you need for any given project. Take some time to become more informed about the types of printing jobs, and the services you might need.

Process Vs. Spot Color - When combined, the four process inks--cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, or CMYK for short--can produce a wide range of colors, often far more than you will need for your project.

Proofing Halftone Patterns - The moire pattern created by descreening, then sharpening, then rescreening the map caused the problem, but it was far less offensive in the ink-jet proof than in the printed piece. So in this case the ink-jet did not function as an adequate proof.

Quark and PDF - Printing a Quark file: Postscript vs. EPS.

Questions on Preflighting - Questions on preflighting RIP digital output image trap trapping and more.

Reviewing a Blueline Proof - What should you look for when reviewing the blueline your printer sends you?

Sending Jobs to Press - Other than the printing specifications, what should you send your printer once the final corrections have been made to your print job?

Sending Files to Your Service Bureau - Getting files, fonts, graphics, disks ready for commercial printing

Sheetfed Vs. Web Presses - Four features that determine which type press is best suited to your print job.

Should I Photocopy or Print My Project? - With copiers becoming more sophisticated all the time, the line between copying and printing is becoming much more blurry. Here are the strengths and weaknesses of each option in terms of three important considerations

Six ways To Cut Your Printing Costs - IBM’s Printing Systems says that instead of focusing on cutting hardware and software costs, organizations can reap greater savings by considering the total cost of printing.

Solving Digital File Problems - Solving Digital File Problems before you bring your files to the Service Bureau...including trapping.

Specifying Paper for Printing - The more you know about the characteristics of paper, the better able you will be to save money when specifying paper for your printing jobs In fact, if you specify the qualities you require in your paper, rather than a specific name brand, your printer may be able to offer several acceptable options.

SWOP Specifications - The SWOP Specifications are here in their entirety. The Specifications provide the necessary information for suppliers of input materials for advertising and editorial pages to magazines to do so in a uniform way. When these Specifications are followed, the input received by the printer can be reproduced at the quality level intended and desired by the advertiser/publisher.

Tips on Fonts and Service Bureaus

Tips and Tricks to Provide Your Files to Printing Bureaus - Explains about different specific software files such as , Quark, PhotoShop, Illustrator, PageMaker, Freehand, and Corel Draw to press

Varnish Techniques - The company I worked for, graphic department had swatch books that showed different varnishes (dull, glossy) and UV coatings. I would like to have something like that on my job now. Do you know where, I can find these?

Varnish: The Finishing Touch - Varnishes, though they are actually part of the printing process, come to mind as more of a part of the finishing process. Varnishes are an extra coating put on all or certain areas of a printed piece to give it a more slick or finished appearance.

What You Should Know About Ink - Ink seems pretty straight-forward, right? You just decide what color scheme fits the tone and audience for your publication, you decide on spot colors vs. process color, and you're done. Right?

What's the Difference Between Direct-to-Plate and Digital Printing? - Direct-to-plate and digital printing have not been around very long but they've very quickly become popular methods for printing low-quantity, full-color (CMYK) projects.

What's the Difference Between Engraving and Thermography? - Engraving and thermography are actually quite different from one another but these two printing methods are frequently confused. The printing results can be somewhat similar and can commonly be found on wedding invitations, business cards and the occasional letterhead.

What is Flexography Printing? - Like letterpress printing before it, flexography works on the principal of raised items on a plate catching ink and then touching the paper to make the printed impression. As the name suggests, the plates are made from flexible materials like rubber and can conform to uneven surfaces. Typically, only spot colors are used with this process.

What is Gravure/Rotogravure Printing? - Gravure printing works on the opposite concept of letterpress printing. With gravure printing, etched areas are the ones that will create impressions on the paper's surface. These areas are recessed into a metal plate to create tiny wells...

What is Letterpress Printing? - Letterpress is the oldest form of printing. When a person outside of the industry thinks of printing, typically they're thinking of letterpress printing. The process is one of the easiest to understand.

What Is Offset Lithography? - In offset lithography (also known as plantographic) printing, plates carry both the image and non-image areas on the same level (unlike letterpress where areas are raised to catch ink). The transfer of ink is controlled by an unlikely principle. The principle that oil and water don't mix.

What's a Web Press? Is It Related to the Internet? - Web presses (not related to the Internet) are really the way to go if one needs really large quantites of magazines, newspapers or catalogs printed (we're talking many thousands and thousands here).

What is Screen/Silkscreen Printing? - Screen (or silkscreen, as it is sometimes called) printing primarily uses a hand or electronically-prepared stencil.

What To Look For On a Press - The following is a short list of what to look for when reviewing press sheets at a press inspection. An entire book could be written on this subject; this is by no means a comprehensive list, just a brief overview.

What Options are There for Coating a Job? - The two most common reasons for adding a coating over your printed piece are for protection: to avoid scuffing the ink, if you have included areas of heavy ink coverage; and for aesthetic reasons: to draw the reader's eye to particular items, to add depth and interest to your printed piece.

What Should I Ask My Prospective Printer? - When you start a project that will be printed, it's best to find a few printers to discuss the project with. You can ask associates, a business group or your designer for recommendations. It's a good idea to communicate with the printer to get a feel for who you'll be dealing with.

What Does My Printer Need to Know About My Project? - Before you start a project, I'd recommend talking to a few printers to ask for printing quotes. It's best to talk to them before your job is designed. This way, you can figure out what specifications the printer recommends and what kind of job is in your budget.

What Are Duotones, Duographs, Tritones and Quadtones? - Duotones are two-color halftone image reproductions. Usually, a duotone will be made up of black and one other color, though it doesn't necessarily have to be....

What Are Halftones and Linecreens? - How can a printer print a grayscale photograph with black ink? A mystery of the universe? No, but I do think whoever came up with this one should've gotten a big bonus in their paychecks. Think how different our world would be if we couldn't print photographs in our books and magazines! Okay, on to the explanation...

When a Smaller PDF Isn't a Better PDF - Dan Brill, publisher of Graphic Exchange, talks about why PDF is a container for more than just the electronic equivalent of static paper pages.

Wholesale Promotional Printing - Small businesses to large corporations all over the world depend on wholesale printing companies for their promotional and advertising needs. Promotional printing can include numerous types of services and products. Some examples are business cards, business flyers, postcards, promotional posters, door hangers, gift certificates, and brochures. You can have these types of items printed at local printing and copy places, but ordering them wholesale is a lot less expensive and more efficient.

Moiré Patterns and How They're Caused - A moiré (pronounced "more-ray") pattern is sometimes seen in printed materials. Moiré patterns come about when two halftone screen patterns come into conflict — something that both designers and printers want to avoid. There's a few common ways for this to happen.

What Are Spreads, Signatures and Imposition? - If you want to save a lot of time and money when you work with a printer, it's best to make sure you have a designer that has a good understanding of how spreads, signatures and imposition work.

Digital Variable Data Printing - Digital variable data printing has opened up some of the most creative opportunities in used in the industry of digital printing. It has provided an additional means of printing things. However, enough knowledge is required is you want to have quality outputs. So this article will tackle some tips on how to go about digital variable data printing. In digital variable data printing images are likely to come out differently when printed. The reason for this is that sometimes the resolution of the supplied images may be too low resulting in a not so great image. Nonetheless, there are cases wherein the resolution of the images supplied is too high. In this case the resulting image will tend to have more data on it. Most digital printers are at 600 dpi nevertheless your digital variable data printing provider can give you specific specs for images that you want printed.

The Ultimate Printing Solution - At present, most businesses and companies in the market find various means to achieve effective marketing and generate tremendous sales and profits. One way is through the use of different promotional materials such as flyers, posters, catalogs, brochures, postcards, business cards, and many more. In considering these marketing tools, you are also tasked to find the perfect printing solution that can help you achieve your marketing goal. With the present demand on the different sorts of advertising materials, printing companies have also mushroomed from almost all parts of the globe. Say in your area, you can always expect at least one printer to provide you professional printing services whenever you need them. They truly help businesses to choose the best printing solution and to print in large amount of printing jobs. After all, printing has certainly lots of purposes to serve.

What Makes Full Color Format Poster Printing Services Unique? - Large format poster printing is a sure and efficient way to generate full-color, high quality and oversize graphics. Generally, the graphics involve in this type of printing are larger than 11" x 17". Prints are enhanced with lamination or mounting for more arresting appearance. Generally, large format poster printing is done with the use of large format inkjet color printers. These printers are usually 60” wide with ultra-violet pigmented or dye based inks and 1200 dots per inch for good quality indoor/outdoor printing. Large format poster printing uses rolls of paper, poster wood, strength bond, photo gloss, photo satin, wet adhesive back vinyl and vinyl banner as primary printing material. Aside from these materials, printing companies are also using backlit film, fabrics and fine art canvas.

PAPER INFORMATION

PROOFING / PRESS CHECKS

BLEEDS & BLEEDING EDGES

BLUELINE PROOFS

PREFLIGHT CHECKLIST / PREPARING FILES FOR PRINT

PDFS AND PREPRESS

POSTSCRIPT

IMPOSITION

RIP

TRAPPING

COLOR INFORMATION

COLOR SEPARATION

FOLDING . SCORING . BINDING

HALFTONES AND DITHERING

COMPUTER TO PLATE (CTP)

ENGRAVING

FLEXOGRAPHY

GRAVURE

OFFSET LITHOGRAPHY

SILKSCREEN

STOCHASTIC

THERMOGRAPHY

Logo Design Creation Process from Start to Finish by Expert Graphic Designer - Mark Misenheimer
This article was written by the very talented, Mark Misenheimer of Misenheimer Creative, Inc. Mark is an expert freelance graphic designer who has been in the design business for years. He has documented the design of a logo from start to finish in order to help other graphic designers. I know that you will learn something from this tremendous logo design article.

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Getting a Handle on the Creative Process for Graphic Designers
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Jul 5

20 Ways to Avoid Graphic Designer?s Block
As a designer everyone has experienced a point where they just can no longer think of anything worth while. It?s in these situations when you have to reevaluate your perception of what works and what doesn?t. Use the following 20 tips to avoid and get through a tough designer's block.

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Jun 18

Free Online Font Tools - Mega List of Web Based Font, Text, & Type Tools
Graphic Design and Typography are deeply connected. For that reason, I figure that most of you are going to love these free online font and type tools. Most, if not all, of these are very useful and I recommend that you use them when you have a chance. Below you will find the huge list of free browser-based font and type tools.

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Jun 13

List of Graphic Design Podcasts on Topics Graphic Design, Web Design, Typography and More
I have found a load of design related podcasts that I am sure will peak your interests. Just think of it as radio shows geared towards you and your love of design. You will even find Podcasts on Photoshop, Illustrator, Typography, Freelancing, as well as Web Design and Graphic Design.

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Jun 7

List of Vector Conversion Software - 30+ Tools to Turn Photos into Line Art and Illustrations
I love Vector Magic, a free online vectorization tool. It is a really cool browser-based tool that can be used to turn a photograph into an illustration. It doesn't always succeed in getting that look that you might be looking for, but it does a pretty good job. I usually just use it to play around with photos to see what Vector Magic can do with it, but it also can be very useful if you want to convert a photo into an illustration. I started to wonder how many other vectorization tools and software packages there were out there and I was surprised to find out that there are a ton o them. Basically, most of these tools turn Raster / Bitmap / Photo Images into Line Art / Illustrations / Vector Art.

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Free Photoshop Shapes Downloads - Mega List of Free Custom Vector Shapes for Adobe Photoshop - Part I
I am in love with vector shapes right now. I think they are so handy to have around when you are building a site. The way that you can stretch vectors without creating jaggy edges, makes them incredibly useful. Most of the time I just land up breaking them apart to use a curve that I like. I also love using them for as badges or buttons on web sites. I have collected a huge selection of free custom Photoshop shapes. If you download every single one of these, there are probably close to 15,000 free Adobe Photoshop shapes. There are more to come in Part II. Enjoy.

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May 27

A New and More Accurate Search Engine for Finding Free Clipart
As graphic designers, we are always on the hunt for quality free clipart images to use in our designs. The problem is that often searching for clipart often brings back very inaccurate search results. Well, thanks to one of my friends, I have found a new site called Find Free Clipart which will make my life much easier the next time I search for clipart online.

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May 20

Become a Graphic Designer - Design Careers & Design Education Advice from Professional Designer
Whether you?re right out of high school, a Mom looking for a career she can do from home, recently out of the Military or simply someone who feels they have a knack for design and is ready for a career change, consider that you have a few options on how to gain the skills you will need to pursue your dream job. But first, ask yourself some questions

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May 16

Online Drawing Tools & Free Online Painting & Sketching Tools
As Graphic Designers, we are all creative individuals. I thought that most of you would love to know about all of the fantastic online drawing and painting tools that are available online. Not only are they fun, but they are also quite useful for sketching out some of our ideas. Some of these tools can also be used as design collaboration tools to use with your co-workers, clients, friends, teachers, and family. Enjoy and don't hesitate to send me links to online drawing tools that I might have missed.

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