Turning the intangible into matter Part 1
Printing is akin to a living being, an organism defined by the 5 senses, since sight, smell, touch, hearing and taste are all present. Every living organism has needs that must be served and in this case we are dealing with a very demanding being, one that is not comfortable with half measures and does not survive on low value food.
The requirement for a Prepress department grew as printing started to require more and more; better quality and speed, larger variety and vastly more applications.
Prepress was like a feeder; it’s goal? Rapid production of large quantities of “food” of the highest quality composed only of the finest, most digestible ingredients. Thus, rules had to be created to ensure proper nutrition, good health and the continued development of this organism. Let us take a look at some of these rules.
01. The child to be born: Category
First off, you have to identify the species the child to be born belongs to. Is it a brochure? a catalogue? a stand? a box? is it flexible packaging? a label? a booklet or a peel off label? Where and who is it addressed to? What sort of conditions will it be exposed to? How will it be printed?
Knowing the answer to these will give one a clear picture of the specifications required. If the product is to be exposed to outdoors conditions such as sunlight or humidity, one would have to deal with these needs and take them into serious consideration.
Another factor could be the thickness of the substrate for the right bleeding, clearance, crease, cut and glue. Glue area when it comes to boxes and flexible packaging as well as glue-less area on peel off labels is extremely important. A box, depending on its type, could have features such as a lock bottom which could obscure text if not planned for. One may be asked to achieve color matching between a box / label with a lid or can.
Printing on a metallic material such as a can for instance, will not have the same effect as it would have on a metallic substrate and the difference would be even more exaggerated on ordinary paper even with metallic colors.
Color processing should be done accordingly and the client should always be informed about the differences or issues that may arise. The lines for security are very small in terms of thickness and cannot be printed by conventional means; if one does not have a license what they will end up with would be a simple lookalike.
Check each category and identify what action is required.
02. The mother: Printing method
Printing is what will bring the baby into the world. Each printing method has different specifications. This means that one would have to master each way of treatment in order to minimize risk.
Different printing methods utilize different means to achieve color transfer (plates, cliché, blanket). In digital printing for instance, the condition of the blanket is often blamed on a chromatic aberration, while the pigments remain the same, however, digital printing can produce details that flexo cannot due to flexible clichés and the pressure exerted. One may have to thicken lines.
If the same product (or a variation of it) has to be printed using a different printing method (perhaps due to order volume) while maintaining color similarity, measures need to be taken.
If one is informed that said product is to be printed offset or flexo but also digitally, they should avoid pantone; Digital printers are unable to cover the entire color range, especially when it comes to greens, blues, pastel and very faint colors even if 98% accuracy is mentioned.
Be aware of the differences, find the similarities and strengthen your position in the production process.
03. The needs: Specifications
In order for a healthy child to be born we need to know what the mother’s potential is. So, acquire deep understanding, record the possibilities and limitations of the press. Each press and printing method had its own special needs and limitations.
It is as absurd to expect the speed and volume of flexo / offset from a digital press as it is to demand digitals level of coincidence from a flexo press. A clear understanding of requirements as well as our toolset can save us from a lot of trouble.
One has to learn the minimum sizes in letter and line thicknesses, how much trapping or knock out is required without exaggeration, how many colors one can use and in what order, one needs to find the color curve of the press and apply it on the artwork, the dot gain and the raster percentage in min/max, one needs to avoid black overprint on joined colors.
These are just some of the details a designer is most often not aware of. Always be vigilant; designers often create without any knowledge or understanding of basic printing principles. Protect the job, the printer and the customer from any missteps.
Become a perfect partner by attaining the required level of knowledge.
04. Nutrition : Software and processing
A healthy body requires adequate sustenance! The highest level of understanding is crucial when it comes to the software one uses. The software can give one automatic solutions such as trapping, knock out, thickness correction, overprints, step and repeat without copy/paste, however this increases risk of errors such as throwing invisible object etc.
One should not forget that even in the case of the vending machine (automation), you must have full control. A trap for instance, that ends at an angle or a curve must in some cases be selected but not default and one must understand why. Very thin to invisible lines between junctions can appear when converting files to .PDF or 1bit .TIFF by certain software.
Get to know your tools in depth and turn them into weapons.
