Master the art of letterpress 105

Photoshop, Illustrator
and InDesign
Master
the art of
letterpress
From initial sketches
to platemaking: illustrator,
designer and printmaker
David Huyck walks you
through how to create
a letterpress print
Letterpress printing is part of a centuries-old tradition.
As with all relief-printing techniques, ink is applied to a raised
surface that is then pressed onto paper, leaving both colour and a
physical indentation in the page. The result is a rich and textured
image that cannot be reproduced with modern digital printing
techniques, or even with a standard CMYK four-colour process.
As well as being a useful skill to master, experimenting
with letterpress printing is an effective way to diversify and add
depth to your portfolio. In this project I walk you through the
letterpress process, showing you how to prepare your artwork
for print on a modern press, and create a two-colour print.

David Huyck On your disc Skills

An illustrator, designer You’ll find the Create a
and printmaker with resources you need two-colour image
over a decade of to work along with Make colour
experience, Huyck this project on your separations by hand
is always ready to cover disc, in the or digitally
work hard at playing. Resources section Prep your art
He also runs the files to be turned
Cloudy Collection into a film positive
letterpress online Produce a
print project. letterpress print
www.cloudy
collection.com

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 106 Project four Learn craft skills

Equipment
I work with a combination of dip pens, markers and
technical pens on Bristol board paper. I like the sturdiness of the
material, and the flexibility of using whichever pen makes the most
appropriate mark for the image. Sometimes it helps to slip a sheet
of blank paper between the original drawing and tracing paper, so you
can check for mistakes, or simply see what your second layer looks
like without the first layer showing through.

Colour tricks
Designing for a limited colour palette can be challenging
because you don’t have the entire rainbow at your disposal. It helps to
choose one light and one dark colour, so that you can extend the range
of possible tones in your final print. Experiment with a highlighter and
black pen to make the most of your two colours.
A good way to create richer, deeper colours is by overlapping
part of your top image with part of your bottom image. When working in
Illustrator, make sure your top layer of ink is set to overprint by opening
01 When creating a print, the first step should always 02 There are two ways to do this – either digitally (go to the Attributes window and checking Overprint Fill and/or Overprint
Stroke, while your shapes and lines are selected. You can preview this
be to sketch out your idea on paper. You could draw directly into step 7) or by hand. To do so by hand, draw your first layer exactly effect by selecting View>Overprint Preview.
Photoshop or Illustrator, but I find there’s no substitute for a as you want it to print, using black ink on white paper for the best
pencil and paper. Once you’ve designed your image, it’s time to results. If you make a mistake you can fix it with correction fluid,
separate your colours: one for each layer of the print. or by scraping off the ink with a sharp blade – or digitally, later.

03 When you’ve drawn the main layer of the image, make two small dots or crosses in the corners to 04 Scan each finished drawing into Photoshop in Grayscale, and go to File>
use as registration marks. Lay a sheet of tracing paper or translucent vellum over the layer, and tape it in Import. Make sure the resolution is high enough so that the final printed image won’t
place so it won’t slide around. Trace your registration marks onto the tracing paper first, so that you’ll know be pixelated. For the photopolymer plates that we will be using, 1200 pixels/inch is
how to line up the two layers later, and then draw the second layer of your image onto the tracing paper. recommended as the plates are sensitive enough to hold very fine lines. Once you’ve
Again, it’s best to use black ink on the tracing paper. scanned the images into Photoshop, clean up any stray marks with the Eraser tool.

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 Master the art of letterpress 107

06 Finally, save each file in TIFF format, which will preserve the quality of your images. In the Save
dialog window, select TIFF from the Format drop-down menu, and make sure the extension is .tif. If you’ve
chosen to create your colour separations by hand, you can now skip to step 11.

Check your layers

05 Now convert the image to Bitmap format: go to Image>Mode>Bitmap. Use To ensure your two hand-drawn layers will look the way you want them to in colour when they are finally printed
on paper, place your bitmap file (in TIFF format) into Illustrator, and apply any fill colour you want to it.
the 50% Threshold option, and keep the resolution at 1200 pixels/inch. If Bitmap isn’t
an available option, convert to Grayscale first, and then try again.

07 If you prefer to make your colour separations digitally, start by drawing your final image directly 08 Now create one layer for each colour. The print being made in this project
into either Photoshop or Illustrator. Ensure that you create your file in CMYK mode, and if you’re working in uses red ink on top of grey ink, so create a layer called Red, and another called Grey
Photoshop, set your document to 1200 pixels/inch (resolution is irrelevant in Illustrator). beneath it. This allows the digital file to mimic the printing process as much as possible.

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 108 Project four Learn craft skills

10 When you finish creating your image, save your document in either
Photoshop format (.psd files) or Illustrator format (.ai files) – depending on which
software you used – to keep all your layers intact. Bear in mind that you may need
to save the file in a different format if you send it to a print shop for output.

09 As you draw your image, make sure that only red marks are made on the Red layer, and grey marks
Try it at home
on the Grey layer. Remember that the letterpress printing process doesn’t allow the plate to make a gradient
or create partial transparency, so don’t use either of those techniques in your design. You can do simple relief printing at your kitchen table with just a few things from
your local art supply shop, although you won’t get the same deep impression that you get with
letterpress. You’ll need a block of linoleum, carving tools, a brayer (ink roller), ink, a sheet of glass
or plexiglass to roll out the ink, and a wooden spoon. Carve your image into the linoleum block,
cutting away the parts where you don’t want ink. Roll out some ink on the glass so that it coats the
brayer evenly. Now roll the ink onto the carved linoleum block, applying it in several directions.
Place a sheet of paper on the inked linoleum, and gently rub the paper in small circles onto the
block with the back of the wooden spoon. Lift the print and see how you’ve done.

11 It’s now time to prepare your digital files for print. The first thing to do is ensure that the colours
overlap slightly – by a 0.25 point overlap here – so there’s no gap between the two inks where they meet up in 12 The first thing the professionals will do is create the film negatives. At Boxcar
the final print: this is called trapping. You can send your files to the professionals to do this, or do it yourself Press, where my prints are made, the team use a Harlequin RIP, which sends the image
by opening InDesign and creating a blank document. Go to File>Place, and then select File>Print, and open to a Linotronic 530 film recorder – a large laser printer that transfers the image onto a
the Output tab. Now go to the Trapping menu, and choose Application Built In, to output the separations with roll of silver-emulsion graphic arts film. The recorder then loads a sealed cartridge so
an overlap wherever the colours touch. The process of trapping through InDesign saves a separate file for that the light-sensitive film can be handled in the ambient office lighting. This cartridge
each layer, which can then be sent to your printer’s RIP (raster image processor) for film output. is then inserted into an Agfa Rapidline film processor to develop, fix, and wash the film.

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 Master the art of letterpress 109

13 Next, the developed film is cut down by hand, leaving

about a quarter of an inch around the outside of the artwork.
The film is placed emulsion-side-down on top of a Toyobo
KF95 photopolymer plate, which is exposed to five minutes of
high-output UV light, hardening all the transparent elements
on the film negative. The platemaking machine scrubs the plate
underwater to remove everything that wasn’t exposed, leaving
the hard, raised, plastic pattern of the artwork.

14 Adhesive is then added to the back of the plate so that it will mount onto a mechanical gridded aluminium base in the
press – all letterpress printing surfaces much be exactly 0.918 inches high – and the paper is aligned perfectly to the plate. Ribbons
wrap around the press sheet to hold it in place, ensuring the best possible registration.

15 At the Cloudy Collection letterpress we use the

Pantone Uncoated formula guide to match our colour choices
to the inks that Boxcar mixes for the press. This ink is then
applied to the press, and the colour is brought up to the right
strength for the plate. After a few test prints, shims of paper
are added and removed behind the prints to make sure that
each receives an even colour and impression. When making an
edition (a number of prints struck from one plate), ink is added
manually to the press every three to six prints, depending on
how much ink the run requires. This step is then repeated for 16 Finally, the prints are cut down to their final size – here, to our 4x6inch specification. And there you have it: a richly
the second colour. textured two-colour print that is ready for your portfolio.

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