Printing Questions...

Hey guys, I want to make a business card some day but I have a lot of printing questions… First, why we need to use CMYK ? Second, There’s a specific size of bleed? Third, can you tell me some other rules of printing? Thanks, Santiago.

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black) which is the actual colours printers use when printing. Even home printers use these colours and combine them to create the colours you need. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model

The ‘bleed’ edge is to allow the artwork to spill over the edge where it will be cut; usually this cut will be almost perfect but the bleed allows a margin of error in the print process so that you don’t get a sudden cut off colour should the blade be out by a bit (or the print out by a bit). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleed_(printing)

The only other ‘rule’ is to always use a minimum print resolution of 300 DPI (Dots Per Inch) – your monitor (and subsequently everything on the web) is in 72 DPI so don’t forget that when you start your print project. Print is basically capable of fitting many many more dots per inch onto something that a monitor is of displaying it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch

Might be wise to download someone else’s card and have a look to see how they have handled it. You can also look up CMYK , DPI and Bleed on wikipedia and it will give you all the details about it you could possibly want.

That’s about it!

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black) which is the actual colours printers use when printing. Even home printers use these colours and combine them to create the colours you need. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model

The ‘bleed’ edge is to allow the artwork to spill over the edge where it will be cut; usually this cut will be almost perfect but the bleed allows a margin of error in the print process so that you don’t get a sudden cut off colour should the blade be out by a bit (or the print out by a bit). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleed_(printing)

The only other ‘rule’ is to always use a minimum print resolution of 300 DPI (Dots Per Inch) – your monitor (and subsequently everything on the web) is in 72 DPI so don’t forget that when you start your print project. Print is basically capable of fitting many many more dots per inch onto something that a monitor is of displaying it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch

Might be wise to download someone else’s card and have a look to see how they have handled it. You can also look up CMYK , DPI and Bleed on wikipedia and it will give you all the details about it you could possibly want.

That’s about it!

Thanks a lot! I’ll take a look to all the Wikipedia link you gave me

A computer monitor displays images with light. It combines red, blue and green light in different intensities to display multicolored images. You add color light together to create colors. If you add all three colors at maximum intensity (255) it will create white.

A digital printer combines 4 plates of color to create an image. Namely Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black). It’s a subtractive color method because it starts with white (all the colors combined) and subtracts from that by adding in colored inks which cover up the white on the page.

A printer doesn’t understand what light is so if you give it an RGB image it will try it’s best to interpret the data and usually do a pretty garbage job so your colors will come out different shades, sometimes even different hues than what displayed on your monitor. Although a lot of modern printers now-a-days can automatically convert the data it is still a standard practice to always save you images for print in CMYK color mode.

No theres no specific universal size for bleed as far as I know but making it less than 3mm is basically defeating the point. You want to give the printing house some leeway when guillotining the item.

I suggest taking a look at this video to understand what overprinting is. It’s an important part of print. He explains what overprinting is, where to use it and how to proof your print. (http://www.russellviers.com/yabb/cinema3/overprinting.html)

A computer monitor displays images with light. It combines red, blue and green light in different intensities to display multicolored images. You add color light together to create colors. If you add all three colors at maximum intensity (255) it will create white.

A digital printer combines 4 plates of color to create an image. Namely Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black). It’s a subtractive color method because it starts with white (all the colors combined) and subtracts from that by adding in colored inks which cover up the white on the page.

A printer doesn’t understand what light is so if you give it an RGB image it will try it’s best to interpret the data and usually do a pretty garbage job so your colors will come out different shades, sometimes even different hues than what displayed on your monitor. Although a lot of modern printers now-a-days can automatically convert the data it is still a standard practice to always save you images for print in CMYK color mode.

No theres no specific universal size for bleed as far as I know but making it less than 3mm is basically defeating the point. You want to give the printing house some leeway when guillotining the item.

I suggest taking a look at this video to understand what overprinting is. It’s an important part of print. He explains what overprinting is, where to use it and how to proof your print. (http://www.russellviers.com/yabb/cinema3/overprinting.html)

Thanks Jin, I’ll watch the video.

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black) which is the actual colours printers use when printing. Even home printers use these colours and combine them to create the colours you need. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model

The ‘bleed’ edge is to allow the artwork to spill over the edge where it will be cut; usually this cut will be almost perfect but the bleed allows a margin of error in the print process so that you don’t get a sudden cut off colour should the blade be out by a bit (or the print out by a bit). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleed_(printing)

The only other ‘rule’ is to always use a minimum print resolution of 300 DPI (Dots Per Inch) – your monitor (and subsequently everything on the web) is in 72 DPI so don’t forget that when you start your print project. Print is basically capable of fitting many many more dots per inch onto something that a monitor is of displaying it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch

Might be wise to download someone else’s card and have a look to see how they have handled it. You can also look up CMYK , DPI and Bleed on wikipedia and it will give you all the details about it you could possibly want.

That’s about it!

A computer monitor displays images with light. It combines red, blue and green light in different intensities to display multicolored images. You add color light together to create colors. If you add all three colors at maximum intensity (255) it will create white.

A digital printer combines 4 plates of color to create an image. Namely Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (Black). It’s a subtractive color method because it starts with white (all the colors combined) and subtracts from that by adding in colored inks which cover up the white on the page.

A printer doesn’t understand what light is so if you give it an RGB image it will try it’s best to interpret the data and usually do a pretty garbage job so your colors will come out different shades, sometimes even different hues than what displayed on your monitor. Although a lot of modern printers now-a-days can automatically convert the data it is still a standard practice to always save you images for print in CMYK color mode.

No theres no specific universal size for bleed as far as I know but making it less than 3mm is basically defeating the point. You want to give the printing house some leeway when guillotining the item.

I suggest taking a look at this video to understand what overprinting is. It’s an important part of print. He explains what overprinting is, where to use it and how to proof your print. (http://www.russellviers.com/yabb/cinema3/overprinting.html)

Thats using a process called die cutting (http://www.toxel.com/design/2010/06/30/24-creative-die-cut-business-cards/)

You can use a registration color like 100 Yellow for example to mark the shape you want cut out of the business card. That’s called creating a die line. Not all printing houses have the ability to die cut because it requires a custom made guillotine blade. It’s also usually fairly expensive.

Thats using a process called die cutting (http://www.toxel.com/design/2010/06/30/24-creative-die-cut-business-cards/) You can use a registration color like 100 Yellow for example to mark the shape you want cut out of the business card. That’s called creating a die line. Not all printing houses have the ability to die cut because it requires a custom made guillotine blade. It’s also usually fairly expensive.

And another question, hehe, I’m making a business card in photoshop, how I can define the bleed size in photoshop? right now i just have a empty border. PS the link is incorrect. PSS your 4 styles is great! just bought it

Sorry the bracket just got caught in the link. Here it is: http://www.toxel.com/design/2010/06/30/24-creative-die-cut-business-cards/

Thanks, appreciate that. I was happy with the way 4 Elements turned out.

Back on topic. Using common A4 page size as an example; when you print on A4 I ’m sure you’ve noticed that the printer creates a thin white border around the printed area. Thats called the safe area. As far as I know there isn’t a printer in the world that can print flush with the edge of the page. This is where bleed and registration marks come into play.

If you want to print something with color right to the edge you must design it larger than the area you want it. In other words you must add on 5mm (or 3mm whatever you choose) to the document size. You then indicate the true document size with 4 thin black lines called registration marks. So going back to the A4 example, you would print it on A3 and chop it out. The printing house would cut the print along the registration marks.

For a business card the norm would be to design it about 3mm larger than print size and then use registration marks (little black lines) to indicate where you want the printer to cut it out for you.

Hope that makes sense. Photoshop is difficult to design in because you have to compensate for all these things yourself. That’s why InDesign in the preferred program for this kind of project.

Here’s are examples:

http://greatfx.interfirm.com/g/showStaticPage.do?page=broker/download_templates.html

Bleeds are set up as guides. The minimum is usually 1/8th ” or 3mm. Some printers require to add cut marks such as crosses.

GR authors have it more difficult in a way because you do not know who will be printing your file. Different printers have different demands. Here’s one example, different printers have different black formulas.

C: 0 M: 0 Y: 0 K: 100 will not lead to a rich black mixture, it will lead to a more gray type color. This is often advised if you are working with small type (8 pt and lower). Black formulas are all different, for instance C: 60 M:40 Y:40 K:100 is one of them. You can have “warm” black and “cold” black. Some people will say it makes no difference, others (read: type designers, especially TYPE designers) will kill you for using the wrong thing.

Then there’s the issue with text…printers often require outlined (converted to vector/raster) type. This is because fonts can jump if the font isn’t available.

At the end of the day it is one big giant mess.

Make sure to preflight your documents in PS (window > setup > proofing), make sure to proof your colors.

Sigh…there’s a reason why there are graphic designers and web designers

Btw, I suggest using indesign, that’s the software really intended for print.