JRN 302: Introduction to Graphics and Visual Communication- Commercial Printing

Wednesday, 7/22/15

Class Objectives

Lecture Commercial Printing Designing for Print

Homework assignments ID Tutorial due by the end of class Thursday

Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black(k) Color mixture in print Subtractive: all added together make black

Due to impurities of ink, all added together really makes it muddy brown, so we add black ink

CMYK (review)

Best practices when workingin Photoshop (review) CMYK has a smaller number range of color

than RGB, therefore you will be unable to do everything in Photoshop when in this mode

Best advice, always start in RGB and make your all of your changes, then, as a last step, convert to CMYK image mode.

Limitations of RGB and CMYK modes and Photoshop

CMYK is limited in color representation. Most filters only work in RGB

CMYK doesn’t have nice pinks or bright greens

RGB’s yellows and oranges are lesser

Even though you're working in CMYK mode, your monitor is RGB so Photoshop is converting these values continuously (used to slow computer down)

When will you see a change?

If you use somewhat “neon-looking” colors

Photoshop Color Warnings

Pay attention to out-of-gamut for printing

Ignore warning about ‘not web safe’

When to use CMYK (review)

If you are working as a graphic designer and will be sending your image to a commercial printer, you will need to convert to CMYK

If not, they will

charge you an

extra fee to do this

Types of commercial printing presses Sheet-Fed Offset Printer

Mainly used to print brochures, magazine advertisements, cards, etc.

Uses sheets of paper Web-Fed Offset Printer

Mainly used with newspaper printing Uses a continuous roll of paper

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyxSLOZaj-M (5 minutes)

Printing Presses

Determine # of colors by “humps” Presses can only print 1 ink at a time

6 color press prints 6 inks at one pass

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4 color press prints 4 inks

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Where do you add the ink?

At the top of each press hump

2 methods for printing color on a press

Process Overlapping of cyan,

magenta, yellow and black

Colors do not mix on paper; your eye mixes color

Spot The printing ink is just

the right color you want

Process colors

Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black These are printer's primaries and can be

combined to create the majority of visible ink colors. Again, they do not blend together… your eye

blends the dots on the page Do not confuse 4 inks colors to mean you can

only print 4 colors

When to use Process Inks

Most of your print jobs will be done in process (cymk) inks Positive: good for complex imagery

(photographs) Process is “generic” ink

Compare to generic soda pop Positive: cheap (esp. if your print job is not color

sensitive) Negative: color may not be the same

Different ink manufacturers Different presses (some run “hot”, others run “cold”)

What is Spot Color

Instead of using a “generic” ink, you select the exact ink/color you want to use

The most common spot color system is Pantone Is the main international

reference for selecting, specifying, matching and controlling ink colors.

In Photoshop, to see Pantone colors, click on your Foreground Color, and select Color Libraries.

Pantone Matching System (PMS)

An international color language that helps the designer to communicate colors for reproduction

Each ink color is assigned a PMS number and is created using a specific formula.

When a commercial printer uses Pantone colors, they buy that specific ink and load it into their printing press. Do not need to mix inks to get

Pantone color

When to use spot color

To maintain consistent color In a logo, you want to make sure your red

is the same red, not matter what ink brand or press it runs on

With a spot ink/color, the color reproduction will be identical every time you print

No matter where you print your job Different printers Different materials (labels, t-shirts,

brochures on plastics, paper, fabric, etc.)

When to use spot color

To reduce costs In a 2 color job, use black and

Pantone Red #whatever and Pantone Blue #whatever… job can be run on 2 “hump” (ink) press

If you don’t specify a Pantone color, the red will be made up of cmyk… and job is now a 4 ink job

When to use spot color

Certain colors can’t be mixed Metallics can’t be mixed by using cmyk Example, Purdue logo is officially old gold

Pantone1245 (uncoated) and black Cheap work around is they use yellow or brown

instead of gold so you don’t have to pay for spot inks in a printed piece

Remember, colors on your monitor may not look the same as those printed