The Blog at BargainPrintingThe Blog at BargainPrintingBargain Printing's blog for printing buyers, graphic designers and prepress fans to learn more about the products and services offered at BargainPrinting.com Articles
The art of Process Control pt 1- Plates
2007-02-28 10:43:12 The printing industry is technically a section of the manufacturing industry. Instead of manufacturing tires or pipes or cars, we manufacture ink on paper. In manufacturing, you need process controls to insure that every step of the process is controlled, minimizes waste, maximizes profit and delivers the best quality product to the customer. Proc ess control is an integral part of printing as well, and it is more of an art form than an exact science. I am going to look at what is involved in process controls on the press side of printing- from plates to paper. Some of these subjects get pretty complex, so I may just gloss over certain things, or add links to an outside reference if you are interested. The first step is to check your plates. In offset lithography, the plate is one of the most important parts of the process. When the ink touches the plate, it sticks to the image area and is then transfered to the blanket and then the paper, so if you have bad dots on your plate the... More About: Plat , Control , Late , Process
Promote your business with the right logo! - Part 3
2007-02-26 22:41:03 [Part 3] It is felt that certain elements make up a credible and a high quality logo. These are: A logo should be different from your competitors. In my view there is no point being another face in the crowd. So stand out and if you dare, be different. Sometimes breaking rules and conventions may work in your favour. Evaluate maverick design ideas and themes. It should reflect the companies business, products/services. It should be easy to compress and still uniquely retain its design elements. When finalizing your logo design think about your target market and ask these questions: 1) By looking at your logo image, will they be able to guess what the company products/services are. 2) Will they see the image as a representation of professional, reliable company ? A company that delivers on its promise? Remember the logo is not to please you but your customers. Why? Because they are the ones who pay your salaries. They are the ones who will help you buy that lovely apartment with wat... More About: Business , Promote , With , Prom , Your
FREE FONTS? I?M IN.
2007-02-26 22:41:03 Free (fr?) - Costing nothing; gratuitous: a free meal. Or in this case free fonts. There are tons of free fonts on the web and even more free font sites. When searching Google for “Free Font s ” you will find over 61 million results. So it is nice to find a place that does all that searching for you. Vitaly Friedman’s frequently updated list of 25 Best Free Quality fonts is a great place to start if you’re looking for an update to your font collection. His list leans towards the well-crafted and functional (but not boring) fonts, which is a welcome break from all the ‘weird and wacky’ handwriting and grunge fonts that tend to dominate the typical free font database. So type away and enjoy. More About: Free
Do we really need to ?Reinvent the Wheel??
2007-02-26 22:41:03 It is said that “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration”. When it comes to graphic design I think that inspiration plays a much greater role. It’s more the “what” then the “how”. In today’s digital age, we have software that gives a wide group of people the ability to do design and layout in there home or office. This was once reserved for only the design professional. Now don’t get me wrong, just because you own a hammer doesn’t make you a carpenter. I know that. But, if your handy, coordinated and what the DYI channel on cable, you can proberly do a decent job around the house. Back to graphic design, from MS Publisher to Adobe CS2 and all the software in between, non pro’s now have a larger choice than ever before. But that’s not enough, these tools will not make you a graphic designer by themselves. This is where inspiration come in, the internet has turned many a person in to... More About: Real , Need , Wheel , Vent , Really
Crisp Vector Type from Photoshop
2007-02-26 22:41:03 I am a vector geek. When it comes to printing, vector graphics are the best. Nothing looks better to me than crisp clean printed type. As a vector geek, one of my pet peeves is type set in Photo shop. When type is set in Photos hop, more often than not, the files that get sent to the printer are flattened (no layers) 300dpi TIFF files. This is absolutely perfect for images, but for text? The thing is, when you set a line of type in Illustrator or InDesign and it gets output to any device- office printer, inkjet, platemaker etc. vector data (text) is output at the highest resolution possible by the imaging device. This means that for most office laser printers, your text is 600dpi. In the printing world, you text is being output anywhere from 1600dpi-3600dpi! These nice sharp solids are now being output at only 300dpi; in the case of most printing companies, that is about 1/3 of the standard resolution! The worst part is that when Photoshop rasterizes type, it is no longer solid! Look... More About: Shop , Type
Promote your business with the right logo! - Part 2
2007-02-26 22:41:03 [Part 2] Concept: Concept is the most crucial aspect of logo design. The logo needs to undergo rigorous tests in order to create a unique place in the market its brand owners operate in. While deciding on what kind of logo you want, ask yourself about the kind of image you want to portray about your company ? For example cartoons could represent a fun filled company philosophy. Never forget that once decided upon, your logo will be a silent medium that will communicate the company?s ideals and philosophy. The logo should be impressive and at the same time should not be over dramatic. The design elements need to be as few as possible so that the logo does not appear to be packed with different image components. It should be able to attract the customers the company wants to attract. For example, research shows that using bright colors does not create the brand confidence in finance related companies. Finance companies are advised to stick by the traditional grey, blues and reds (rem... More About: Business , Promote , With , Prom , Your
Why Colors Shift when converting from RGB to CMYK
2007-02-26 22:41:03 You have all seen it; the dreaded color shift when you convert from RGB to CMYK. I didn’t realize until today that most people don’t know why it happens. It is simple- the RGB primaries can produce a much wider gamut of colors than the CMY primaries can. This odd little graph on the left is 3-dimensional graph of an RGB and a CMYK profile in the CIELAB color space. CIELAB (more accurately CIE 1976 L*a*b*) is a mathematical color space that computers use to understand color. There are several spaces, but CIELAB is one of the most common in the graphic arts industry. Take a look at the graph. The brightly colored solid area in the middle is the graphed color gamut of the SWOP color space. SWOP is the standard for magazine printing, and most common color space people use when they convert their images. The outside area (in wireframe) is the graphed color gamut of the sRGB color space, which is the standard color space for the Windows operating system as well as many consum... More About: Color , Colors , When , Convert , Shift
Promote your business with the right logo!
2007-02-26 22:41:03 [Part 1] By Alok Vats A logo is a design or image that represents a company, brand or product. Its aim is to help people identify the company with a positive customer experience. It is the basis of all future branding, advertising and communication strategies. Therefore considerable attention should be paid by the brand owners to develop and create an image that besides being unique will stand the test of time ? Remember a logo will outlive people, products and services and exist as long as a company continues to operate. Background: The word ?logo? is derived from the Greek word ?logotipos? meaning a graphic symbol, element or icon of a trademark or brand which is set in a unique typeface or arranged in a particular way. The three different aspects of a logo are: Logotype/ word mark /letter mark Icon: symbol/trademark Slogan: Tag line Logos gained enormous popularity in the 19th Century after the Industrial Revolution which led to increase in output, distribution and beginning of ... More About: Business , Promote , With , Prom , Your
Bybass Font Folders and Font Management
2007-02-26 22:41:03 Here’s a handy little tip for all of you InDesign users out there. Have you ever had problems adding fonts to your favorite font management software? Are you leery of adding more fonts to your system? If you are an InDesign user, there is a way around this. Inside the application folder for InDesign there is a fonts folder- just install the fonts you need into this folder, and they are available to InDesign. To get there on a Mac: ApplicationsAdobe InDesign [Version#]Font s To get there on a PC: C:Program FilesAdobeAdobe InDesign [version#]Fonts For Mac users, this is how to get PC PostScript Type 1 fonts to work with InDesign. Those pesky .pfm and .pfb files work fine when installed into InDesign’s fonts folder. Also, if you only have a partial PS Type 1 font for the Mac, you can sometimes get it to work in InDesign by going this route. Unfortunately, you need the PostScript outline part of the file for this to work. More About: Management , Men , Bass , Folders
DESIGN TIP? CMYK Versus RGB
2007-02-26 22:41:03 A common problem we see at Bargain Printing is files being sent in the RGB color mode. A quick rundown between the 2 modes: RGB - is the color you see on your monitor, made up of Red, Green and Blue. This colors appear more vibrant and pop when viewed on your computer screen. CMYK - are the colors that are used when printing. They are referred to as “process colors” in the printing industry. CMYK is short for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. When designing in Photoshop, Illustrator or Publisher it is important to always create your document in CMYK mode as it will give you a better representation of how it will look when printing As you know some filters like the render filters are disabled in CMYK mode in Photoshop and Illustrator. Here is a quick tip… work in RGB mode with CMYK preview turned on. CTRL or CMD+Y (CTRL button for PC users and CMD for Mac users) build your file as normal. When you are finished, convert it to CMYK. This will allow all the filters to w... More About: Design , Desi , Versus , Sign
Permanently set some Illustrator Settings
More articles from this author:2007-02-26 22:41:03 Tell me if this sounds familiar; You spend hours working on an Illustrator file, apply all kinds of filters and effects and drop shadows to your designs, and when you get it back from the printer, much of these effects look different. Sound familiar? The problem is usually a setting called “Document Raster Effects Settings” in Illustrator. This setting controls what resolution and color space all of your filters, effects, and drop shadows are output. To change the settings you need to go to Effect->Document Raster Effects Settings. Make sure your colorspace is CMYK, and set the resolution to 300dpi. There is a way of making this the default for every single file you create in Illustrator. In the Illustrator Plug-Ins folder, there is a file called Adobe Illustrator Startup_CMYK.ai. Open this file and change the Document Raster Effects Settings, then save it. Quit and restart Illustrator. Every new Illustrator file you create will now by default have the correct Document ... More About: Trat , Lust , Erma , Stra 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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