toner-based – Digital Imaging Inc

Making Digital work for You Part V

Posted by Michael at 3:56 PM

Jul 092011

Go to the grocery store and at the check out line the question is “paper or plastic?” There are some quick print and “big box” printers that have pretty much the same limited choices. Text or cover? Gloss or matte?

There are countless choices in paper. Weights from a very light weight 16 pound text to a very heavy 110 pound cover are all available for our digital printer. And finishes vary from uncoated to dull coated to high gloss, and cover weights coated on one side or both sides are also available. The possible permutations seem truly overwhelming. Which should you use? There’s no one right answer; the choice depends on many factors. We like to ask about how and where you are going to use our product before you make that choice. Some people think we’re a bit nosy. And maybe we are, but in a good way.

All paper is roughly divided into text and cover. Text weights refer to the kind of paper that would make up the inside pages of a paperback book. Cover weights are what the cover of that paperback book might be made of. Within these categories, paper can be uncoated, dull coated (also called semi-gloss) and gloss coated (also called “calendered”).

As we like to say here at Digital Imaging, it’s a matter of personal preference. Photos tend to set up and look snappier on a gloss paper, but if you’re planning on looking at the piece in what we call “high key” or bright overhead lighting, you may want to consider a semi-gloss to cut down on glare. Will you need to have someone write on the finished piece (perhaps a form to fill out)? Then gloss is a poor choice. Is the piece going in an envelope? Select a text weight. Is it a stand-alone piece? Perhaps a cover weight is a better choice. Bleed through is always a factor. Selecting a heavy enough stock to prevent the image on one side of the paper from being visible from the back of the sheet depends on the content being printed. Toner-based digital printing also tends to impart a gloss to the printed material. In some cases, if you use a semi-gloss stock, the printing looks as if it were varnished. This may be a good thing or not, depending on what you had in mind. We have a certain amount of control over this gloss. The newer equipment (like our DocuColor) has good control over this gloss effect.

Cost is always a factor. In general, the heavier the weight the more expensive a paper is. Gloss papers tend to cost more than uncoated paper. Semi-gloss (or dull coat) is often more expensive than either uncoated or gloss. Premium papers cost more in all weights. These are the fancy sheets that contain fibers, unique surfaces, or specific colors.

Post-processing also is a factor. Gloss papers tend to “crack” more along a fold than semi-gloss or uncoated stocks. Lightweight papers don’t hold up well to perfing. Some sheets are only available long grain; a score and fold across the grain is more difficult to control than a fold along the grain.

It’s confusing but we’re usually amenable to printing a proof on two or even three different stocks to help you decide. The comforting thing about digital printing is that the difference in price for a short run between or most expensive and least expensive stock is minimal.

Not all stocks can run successfully in digital presses. Some heavily-textured or “laid” papers do not reproduce large solids well. The toner needs a relatively smooth surface to adhere to uniformly. If the surface is uneven, a motley appearance may result. A lot of label stocks have difficulty, especially if they are formulated for ink jet printing.

As technology continues to evolve, we are able to offer an ever-growing inventory of papers. Some of the more interesting recent additions are: Window Decals, Magnetic Sheets, Pre-cut door hangers, CD tray cards and inserts, weatherproof plastic, non-tear sheets, metallic finishes, parchments and non-copyable security papers. Also available are carbonless forms in two or three part configurations, clear acetate (for overhead projections), tab dividers and pocket folders.

The world of digital printing offers the same quality, selection, and versatility of offset without the requisite numbers to make it cost effective. Making digital printing work for you requires some planning ahead and perhaps a few design compromises, but in today’s competitive marketplace the added value of quick turnaround in small quantities makes it a valuable tool for every graphic designer.

Next: Variable data: the “big gun” of digital printing

Making Digital Work For You: Part I

Posted by Michael at 2:05 PM

Apr 122011

Ain’t technology grand? Digital printing has certainly changed things. Few of our customers today know what rubylith is (or was), have ever seen a stat camera, or have come home at the end of the day with a few miscellaneous words stuck to their elbow like oversized flakes of dandruff.

But digital printing is a two-edged sword and it takes some special considerations to get the most out of it. Let’s begin with the most obvious one, color. At a traditional printer (ink on paper), each color you add will probably change the price of your job. At most digital printers (toner-based), there’s one price for color and one for black and white. At a traditional printer you may pay a bit more for a piece printed, say, all in blue. It will probably include the expense of a press wash, but it will still be a one-color project. At a digital printer, you will probably be charged the same price as if you were printing a full color photograph covering that page.

These are considerations that should probably be made at the the design level. Once you’ve designed the piece in one color, you’ve substantially diminished the likelihood of digital printing as an economical choice down the line. On the other hand, if you plan on using digital output, let your creative juices fly and take advantage of the power of color to make your point or sell your product. Don’t forget to add color photos wherever you can. This is an expensive process in traditional printing; you need scanning, 4-color separations, and careful alignment of the plates for it to work. Not so in digital printing; take the electronic file of the image and drop it in the layout. Done. Well, you might want to make sure the image is CMYK and not RGB.

Which brings me to difference between the color models. If you’ve ever gotten your digital prints back and noticed that the color photos looked a bit flat or off color, there’s a chance you may have used RGB files instrad of CMYK. Most digital cameras, by default, shoot in RGB. This is the Red-Green-Blue color model. Almost all the light that is emitted by natural sources (e.g the Sun) is in this color spectrum, as most probably is the monitor you are viewing this page. It is the spectrum of transmitted light. If you think way, way back to High School health class, you may vaguely remember something about “rods” and “cones.” Well, that’s the connection, we see by interpreting the RGB spectrum. If you do the math you find there’s nearly 17,000,000 colors you can make with this combination (there are 256 steps of each color that are possible on your RGB monitor). Turn on the red, green and blue lights full strength on you monitor (or in the Sun) and you have white.

CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) on the other hand, is what we see when most things are printed. It is a product of reflected light. Actually there are only three colors involved: Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow. Black is added because we live in an imperfect world. In theory, if you mix 100% Cyan, 100% Magenta and 100% Yellow, you should get Black. But you actually get a muddy reddish brown. Black is added both to achieve a real black and to replace some of the other colors in a process called Under Color Removal (UCR) or Grey Component Reduction (GCR). Maybe more about that at a later time. The CMYK spectrum only gets us about a million colors (100 steps of each of the three).

How and where an image is converted from RGB to CMYK is critical to how it will look when it’s printed. As you can see, the gamut (or range of colors) in RGB is substantially greater than that of CMYK. And since 100% of all the colors in one model equals white and in the other it equals black, you might guess there is more to converting between the two than meets the eye. The best plan is to convert the color in software designed for that purpose: PhotoShop. While most RIPs will do this conversion on the fly, some handle it much better than others. Making the conversion yourself in PhotoShop will at least let you know which colors, if any, will change.