PRINTING

considerations
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Basic

Printing Size

Color/B&W

Paper

Other

Special ink

Type of print

This will help us to decide

Format

Acceptable Resolution

How to prepare our print materia

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1
RGB or CMYK?
I PRINTED SOMETHING IN BLACK AND IS NOT COMPLETELY HERE THE DIFERENCE
It is known that the standard color mode for printing a document is CMYK but BLACK
assuming you all work RGB as digital artist you should keep working in RGB (VECTOR ILLUSTRATION OR DESIGN)
(this of course only if you had no idea you were going to print your piece of art) K=100%
hates pokemon
Black ink is kinda not exactly black ink really, it will always come up like a
gray or a brownish tone if you only use 100% of black ink.
(This is not always true) Ew

WHY THE HECK?

I recommend using 100% black + 20% to 50% of magenta and/or cyan
along with it to get a darker tone.
Chill, this is because working in RGB will give you a larger range in saturation and Not Ew
color that as a digital artist you should want to take advantage of, in any case you I wouldn’t recomend to push this a lot because too much ink could make
can correct the colours and prepare your illustration for printing later on. If the your paper poop. Do some print tests!
comission was agreed to be a print since the begginin, starting in CMYK would
make things easier C= 50%
M= 50%
ONLY DO THIS WITH BIGGER MASSES OF INK, thin text or lines can show K= 100%
. the other inks you are using and mess everything up. invented pikachu
Why not working in CMYK and then adjust saturation for digital media
in RGB?
I MEAN OF COURSE YOU COULD DO THAT I AM NOT YOUR MOM. But
remember that newer versions of adobe products make the colors less saturated
by default when a CMYK space is selected. That in the middle is the kind of black you
will get. OF COURSE IT WILL LOOK GREAT
ON THE PDF because you are looking at it on
(going from saturated to no saturaded is OK, going from not saturated to a screen.
saturated might result in color information to be lost)
Newer versions of illustrator and inDesign will
now show you the black as a rich black but
its because of this option. ------->

WHICHIS THE STUPIDEST THING EVER

CAUSE WHY WOULD I WANT TO SEE THE
COLOR I AM ABOUT TO PRINT AS NOT THE
WAY IS GONNA PRINT.
sorry 00.01
 ink and cool stuff
ILLUSTRATOR
PHOTOSHOP
SHIT 00.01

Over Print Preview Channels

Over print preview is a great way to see how everything Color and inks in photoshop are managed over the
will turn out when printed, is not 100% accurate but it channels CMYK or RGB but you can use a Spot color
works pretty fine (this does not replace the print tests) too
( A spot color is a special color that you can’t get by using
View > Over Print Preview CMYK, this way you can get more saturated colors but
you can only print them if you are doing screen printing
In case you are printing in a bigger scale (check printing or offset and printers will only do it if you print a large
topic) with less inks you can make sure that the the ammount)
colors you are using with the separations preview BUT THIS ALSO can get your prints to be cheaper cause
you can choose how many inks you use instead of 4
Window > Separations preview
To make a spot color chanel in photoshop
This helps to see all the inks you are using and can
delete the ones you don’t use and if you export a Make a selection where you want it to be, go to the
duotone photoshop file will show you the channels that channels pannel and ctrl+click or cmd+click on the
the image is using new channel icon this will creat the spot color
Gamut Warning
channel.
Something you could read about is how to “trap” color The gamut warning is a great way to see in
for other inks not to go on top of your other colors. photoshop all the colors that are not showing (is
not perfect) it will display grey all the colors that are
Trapping: off the printing range for you to adjust them.
https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/trapping.html
Its under View > Gamut Warning
The warning color can be changed in the menu
preferences of photoshop.
Edit > Preferences > Transparency and Gamut

Click on the color square and choose the color InDesign

libraries Pantone solid+coated and Uncoated are
the pantone standar color books. Son
Coated colors are well... coated and are quite more Don’t you worry about InDesign son, InDesign is for
saturated. layouts just make sure your linked files are correct in
cmyk if you are gonna print or Rgb if you are making a
digital publication. You can do all sort of things with colo
You want to know what the other color books are
there too but that is way too more complicated and its
They are pretty much the same but converted to used in only certain really specific momments. SO
CMYK (they don’t look the same) or a guide on DONT WORRY. i will talk about the prep for printing in
what color inks you need to mix in order to create all of these programs later on.
them (this one is for people who make the inks)
GO AHEAD AND CREAT SOMETHING COOL WITH
THIS
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Spot colors and other things

This is exclusive for illustrator and inDesign and large

This circle bellow is filled with the varnish
amount of prints that can give a book a nice touch (of It is important to know that color swatches are just
swatch and it should come up in the
course this can be a bit expensive to print) BUT YOLO separations preview window.
holders, you can print in whatever ink you want on any
of them when doing screen printing so you can yolo a
Special Ink and stuff lot.
Make sure that you choose an option
I am sure you have seen books that have the title called overprint in the window attribute
covered with a clear varnish or a section of the cover ALWAYS TEST PRINT NO MATTER WHAT
windows which will let know illustrator
trimmed. And you ask yourself: that this ink HAS to be printed despite of
having another object on top
“HOW CAN I DO DIS?” window> attributes

Well its easy. For Varnish coat

1. Make a new swatch that has the name “varnish”

and make it a spot color

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As a varnish it wont show up in the pdf
but here is what it looks like.

The pdf doesn’t show the circle because it has a

magenta square on top. But my overprint preview tells
me that it will still be printed on top of the magenta
and that i am not losing any info for it being on top of
2. Tell your printer guy person that the “varnish” spot the shape.
color is for a coat of varnish.
I BET YOU WERE LIKE
3. They will use that file to make the screen and “WHAT CIRCLE IS HE TALKING ABOUT.”
instead of using an ink they will use the varnish.
 90.02 Resolution
OH BOI

Resolution is actually a rather WHAT RESOLUTION SHOULD I PRINT AND HOW IT

WORKS? WHY DOES IT RESIZE?
easy topic.
IT INVOLVES A LITTLE BIT OF
If you didn’t know this a pixel is not really a size,
MATHS SO BE AWARE It is the smallest piece of information in a document
but its size depends entirely on the resolution of the
DPI OR PPI? file.

The difference between this 2 is not much. It can be this big Or this big
DPI means dots per inch which is how many dots a
printer can put inside one inch, some home printers
max is 600 dpi.
NOW is a pixel = a dot ? yes and no.
What does this mean?
If your printer is 600 dpi and your file is 300 ppi it will
place 2 dots for every pixel you made.
Makes sense right? This also means that if your file is Imagine your file is 1px by 1px in size and your resolution
1200 ppi your printer will poop out and lose half of the is 2 pixels per inch.
pxels you are trying to print.
2 pixels per inch
PPI is your photoshop file.

DPI is actual “in real life” dots. 1 inch

1/2
1 pixel inch
Should it always be 300 ppi when priting?
1 inch
If the image is big enought yes but a lot of factors
This means your image will be 1/2 of inch insize
should be considered before deciding if an image has
when printing. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? if you
good enough resolution before being used.
make your resolution smaller, your file will be
able to print in a bigger size.
Paper: For example if you are going to print in a “low
quality” paper, one that maybe sucks on ink quite badly
it wont matter if its 150 ppi or 300 ppi it will still be a 1 pixel per inch
little messy when printing so in this case 150 ppi could
work just fine if you need your image to be bigger.
1 inch

Now i don’t mean you shouldn’t print on porose or 1 pixel

cultural paper, they actually look really nice but you can
Always try to work with a bigger image than
sacrifice a little bit of resolution in those cases without 1 inch what your output is going to be.
losing a lot of detail because the paper wont let you to
have that kind of detail to begin with. In case “A” a pixel is 1/2 inch in size and in case “B”
is 1 inch in size.
Printer: Laser or ink injection or screen print have
different pros, ink looks nice and leaves a nice texture Reducing the resolution and make the pixels
on the paper but it can soak the paper and make you bigger in a “natural” way is better than having an 00.01
lose detail, laser holds the detail but the texture is quite image that is 300 ppi and making it bigger with
unnatural and if your image is pixelated it will be more the transform tool because despite making it
obvious; Screen printing also loses some detail and is bigger it will still be 300 pixels per inch which
more likely to have errors but it looks really nice. means your printer will resample the image
pixels and it will look pixelated.
 Exporting 00.01
Format
PNG TIFF JPEG
When exportin from photoshop to illustrator or InDesign it PSD or PDF: You can also insert the pdf or psd directly into
might be hard to decide what format will work best so just InDesign Or illustrator but again this will make it quite heavy.
take this in consideration.
Another way to make your file lighter would be to link
TIFF: This format is great in every situation, it has transparency instead of embed all the pieces you are going to print.
and it doesnt lose any information at all when switching to
ohther platforms a lot, the colors also stay as truthfull as the
original but yest it makes your file bigger and your computer
slow.
In any case if someone else is printing for you, ask what
I recommend using Tiff whenever you are only doing 1 page format works the best for them, always be on constant
prints , if your image has transparency and if your computer communication with the person who is printing for you.
can handle it.
The format you use for printing, thanks to technology, is
PNG: If your coputer can’t handle using tiffs you can always the least of the problems when printing but it is a really
use png for images with transparency, Now png is never good thing to consider the little difference it does and the
going to be CMYK so it will be converted to CMYK once you little effort it takes comes a long way.
export a pdf from illustrator or InDesign which might change
the colors just a little bit.
ONLY USE WHEN TRANSPARENCY IS NEEDED

JPEG: This one works just fine if you can’t handle the size of a
TIFF image, maximum qualiy jpegs now lose little to non
pixels information from the original file but it can change
color info depending on what computer or printer runs this
file.

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 Printing 00.01

WHAT ARE THOSE

Bleed, marks and exporting pdf

A bleed is a “margin” that goes outside of your page, Here the image goes out of
it is generally used to get color all the way to the the artboard, that is a bleed.
edges of the page. This way, when its cut, if they
did it wrong it wont show a
The bleed can be set when a new Document is white line.
created.

Take in count you will have to print in a bigger piece

of paper and set up marks to help you know where
to cut.

Then, when exporting to pdf make

sure you leave the trim marks and
registration ones.

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Printing
Color Bars and compression
IF YOU ARE LAZY AND YOUR IMAGES ARE ENOUGH
RESOLUTION BUT YOU WANT THEM TO BE LESS
One way to make sure colors printing the way they
RESOLUTION THERE IS AN OPTION TO AUTO LOWER
should or as a comparative point to know what to
THE RESOLUTION WHEN EXPORTING
adjust is the color bar.
Also be sure to check if the pdf is changing your color
mode when expoting cause it happens sometimes.

Here KAY THATS IT YOLO

You can activate them on the marks option or

create your own with any color you want.

It works by comparing your colors to the bars, if you

see something that should be a different tone of
magenta or black or whatever you will be able to see
it better.

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