Perhaps you would just simply like to ask Cove® a technical question? Please do not hesitate to call us on 01275 34 98 94. Whatever your query, we will be more than happy to help. You may e-mail questions or enquiries to us at info@covedigital.com or use our enquiry form
You will see below that we have outlined some of the most common problems and questions related to setting up and supplying artwork for print. Please familiarise yourself with the practices shown below to ensure your jobs are submitted correctly and to ensure problems do not occur.
We have also provided a downloadable Adobe acrobat PDF file of these facts that you can print out and refer to whilst working on your artwork. You may download a copy by clicking here.
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Prepress Requirements...
To save any confusion when setting up artwork for print, please take some time to familiarize yourself with the points we have provided below to help you compile your documents and files.
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Return to top of page FONTS:
Ensure no pseudo/faux fonts are used, i.e. fonts created by pressing the italic or bold buttons on the font menu. Fonts should be selected by name, i.e. if you are working in Souvenir Demi Bold and you require italic, you should scroll down your font menu until you find Souvenir Demi Bold Italic. Being disciplined about this will avoid problems such as using a font that does not exist (several fonts in the Rotis family have no italics, for example).
If you are using a font which you wish to italicise and there exists no italic version of the font, you can always skew the type if you are using Quark (5 and upwards) or InDesign (2.0 and upwards).
Supply all fonts used with the job. If you are using software such as Quark or InDesign with a Collect for Output function that can gather fonts, then always use this function. This will ensure all component parts of the fonts used within your documents are sent along with the original files.
Return to top of page GRAPHICS:
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Lineart/bitmaps should be scanned at 800-1000 dots per inch and as close to the final required size as possible. | |
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Greyscale/colour images should be scanned at 300 dots per inch, and as close to the final required size as possible. | |
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Images required or commercial print should be supplied as either Greyscale, Bitmap or CMYK. NO other file formats are useable. | |
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Images can be supplied as TIF's, high-resolution JPG's or as EPS's (saved as binary, not JPG compression). |
All of the above also applies if you have been supplied with images on disk: almost certainly they will not correspond to these parameters but you can make them do so with Photoshop or Illustrator.
Low-resolution images
Often you will be supplied with images (almost certainly JPEG s) which are 72dpi resolution. Just changing this to 300dpi resolution will not improve the image. To get a true 300dpi resolution you need to divide the image dimensions by 4 (4 x 72 =288, which is close enough to 300 or our purposes). So, if you have a JPEG which is 80cm wide but only 72dpi, then converting its width to 20cm while at the same time changing the resolution to 300dpi will result in an image which is of a high-enough resolution for commercial print, at a width of 20cm.
Web graphics
Most graphics produced for websites are far too low-resolution for commercial printing. If you download a 2cm wide logo from a website and then place it in a document intended for printing, it will look very poor. The only way to increase its quality is to do the reduction described above, but in this instance that would result in a logo that was only 5mm wide!
Return to top of page USING GRAPHICS IN QUARK / INDESIGN
Do not cut and paste images from one software package (i.e.Word or Photoshop) into Quark/InDesign.
You will be able to do so on screen, but when the job has to be run digitally or to film or plate, there will be no high-resolution image information for the RIP to refer to and the resulting image will be low-resolution.
You must import graphics with a specific file name, from a specific location. These images must then all be supplied on disk or sent to your FTP site, complete with the Quark/InDesign document and all associated fonts.
Make sure that no large percentage image resizings are carried out in Quark/InDesign. If you are working in QuarkXPress and you have an image that is resized in Quark to 23%, open that image into Photoshop and reduce it until it matches roughly the final size that you require. Then reimport it into Quark, not resizing any more than about 10%. Do the same for images that you have set to an angle in Quark or or large croppings: even if you have cropped an image in Quark or InDesign, the RIP will process all of the redundant image area. This can result in delays to your film being run and a possible missed deadline.
If using duotones, please ensure that the curves for each colour are not identical, as the second colour will then identically overprint the first on press. Please note that if a job containing duotones is to be printed litho in four-colour process, then you must re-save your duotones as CMYK TIF's. This is because a duotone EPS specifically tells the RIP which Pantone colours it requires, and so the RIP will not image it on to any of the Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black plates.
If you have altered a graphic after you have imported it into Quark/InDesign, please ensure that you update it into your Quark/InDesign document. This is very important – if you have resized, cropped or repositioned an image within its picture box and do not update it within your file, it will shift in position when we output the files.
Return to top of page COLOURS:
Spot Colour documents
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Delete all unused colours in your documents, be sure the rest are defined as spot colours. | |
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Be sure the colours defined in your graphic files match those in the document. | |
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Print colour separations to your laser printer and be sure all items print on the correct separation. |
Process Colour documents
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Delete all unused colours in your documents, make sure the rest are defined as process colours. | |
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Be sure ALL placed graphics are CMYK. Double check any embedded bitmaps. |
Return to top of page General
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Check that no colours are duplicated (i.e.Pantone Green CV and Pantone Green CVU ). If for any reason you cannot avoid duplicated colours, please advise us of their existence on your purchase order. | |
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It is advisable when selecting colours from your colour menu to only use Pantones rather than colours with names such as Deep Sunset Red, etc. This way we will know what the colours are meant to look like. | |
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If you edit the make-up of a Pantone colour then always rename it, for instance Pantone Green CV EDITED. | |
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Never use the colour Registration when you intend to use Black. Registration is a colour that prints on to every plate, and is intended for register marks only. Likewise, if you draw register/cut marks on to your document, always colour them in Registration. Cut marks must be 0.25pt thick. |
BLEEDS
Any document that has any part of its image area running right up to the trim (i.e.the very edge of the page) must have a 3mm continuation of that image area over the edge of the trim. This is known as Bleed. This is the case for any commercial printing.
Return to top of page GOOD PRACTICE
Do not leave text or images on the pasteboard (outside the document area) in your Quark or InDesign artwork. These will all be processed by the RIP. Often a prepress operator can spend time trying to find fonts or images that the document insists it needs, only to find eventually that they are from old material that has been left on the pasteboard.
If you have a large area of solid colour which contains 100% of at least one of the CMYK colours, and wish to have tints contained within this solid of the same colour, then allow or 20% dot gain. (Dot gain is an increase in the diameter of the halftone dot. If a dot pattern on film covers 30% of the image area and when printed covers 50%, this results in a total dot gain of 20%.) In this instance, to achieve an acceptable solid a larger amount of ink has to be used on that area of the paper; this larger amount of ink cannot help but increase dot gain. So, if you wish to have, say, type in the same colour but at a tint of 80%, then you should set it to 60% and the dot gain will increase it to approximately the tint you require. If you are unsure about this,again please give instructions with the job so we are aware of your requirements. Also, if you are using a very fine font such as Helvetica Thin, in a small size such as 10pt, it is not practical to set this in white in the middle of a large area of solid. The resultant lettering will be so fine that the dot gain will almost certainly fill it in.
Adobe Acrobat PDF files
Above we have talked about supplying Quark/InDesign files, but assuming that you do not need us to make any alterations to your finished files, we would prefer to receive high-resolution press-ready PDF. This can then be used for either digital or offset-litho printing.
Please contact us for a copy of our preferred Acrobat Distiller settings - If you use these, then your job will always be set up correctly for both digital and lithographic printing.
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