Preprinting preparation is a complex process consisting of a number of inherent processes making it possible to bring to the point of printing the products you need. It includes design, makeup and delimitation of colors, color correction, color proof and film assembly. All these actions are performed before the document is sent to the printing house. Should there be any mistake made at one of these stages, it will inevitably show up during the printing stage, when it will be already impossible to correct anything. The quality of printing depends by 90% on the preprinting preparation.
Let us discuss some of the preprinting stages in a more detailed way.
Ñolor correction. Speaking in general, we can say that color correction of digital originals is a complex of measures, which make it possible to correctly convey the colors of the layout sheet. The need for color correction is caused by the fact that each operation of image processing is far from being ideal and causes its own distortions.
Prepress color proof means receiving control color image on the material base or on the color screen of the video display terminal. If the color of the printing copies is of principal importance for the customer, it is necessary to make a color proof or, which is even better, a proof impression, which is made on the printing press. The color proof makes it possible to precede the anticipated print. By convention, it is possible to single out several types of color proof. The simplest, cheapest and the most accessible one is screen color proof on the calibrated monitor. The digital color proof can be done on any color printer and makes it possible to approximately determine the colors and the mistakes that need to be corrected. The color proof obtained on the test press, i.e. an analog color proof, can be considered as the most exact one, i.e. the printing is done on the release print paper from the release image carrier. However, only a very limited number of printing houses has test presses, which, due to their operational inconvenience, are being gradually ousted by digital devices. The cost of such a service can be essential when printing a small number of booklets and practically gets “lost” in million-circulations.
Photographic readout is a process of acetate-overlay color separation, as well as make up and arrangement of all the elements of the page ribbon/printed sheet used for the manufacturing of printing forms. The photographic reduction services are offered by practically all large printing houses in the Republic. The photographic reduction can result in the appearance of “oblique images” in the process of printing that can turn a masterpiece of the design art into a poorly painted piece of paper. Specialists usually check the films at the photographic reduction stage; however, it is always useful for a customer to know some details regarding the photo forms. The most general and obvious parameters are as follows: layout of the text according to the output hardcopy, presence and superimposition of check crosses on all the plates, presence of cutting marks, control and measurement index plates. Films should have no spots, strips or calendar cuts!
For your order to be performed quickly, the print house of MONARCH sets a number of technical requirements to the inputs. Compliance with these requirements is a guarantee of excellent quality with the needed pace of work.
Requirements set to the layout sheets provided in the electronic form
1. The layout sheets should be presented on the magneto-optical disks with the capacity being 3.5 to 1.2 Gb, the Zip-diskettes – with the capacity of up to 250 Mb, CD-ROM disks and diskettes – 1.44 Mb. The CD-R (CD-RW) recorded in the UDF format (direct recording on the disk) shall not be accepted due to different interpretations of formats.
2. The verification printouts containing a full layout sheet including reserves (in case of spoilage) needs to be provided in a mandatory way (scaling is allowed).
3. The layout sheets shall be allowed in PageMaker 7 (and lower), FreeHand 10 (and lower), QuarkXPress 4.1 (and lower), Illustrator CS 2 (and lower), CorelDraw 12.0 (and lower) for the PC platform. Other variants for the submission of materials shall be stipulated separately.
4. The publication sizes, as well as the arrangement of all the elements of the layout sheet should be set strictly in conformity with the edging format of the finished publication.
5. All the raster objects should be provided as separate files in the CMYK-model, TIFF format or EPS (without using the JPG-compression) with the resolution being not less than 300 dpi by the 1:1 scale. It is forbidden to use OLE-objects (insert through the clip-board); the Import command should be used.
6. All the used fonts should be obligatorily provided.
7. All colors should be identified in the CMYK- model, except for the additional paints (specified by the Pantone scale). In order to simplify the work, it is recommended to define Pantone based on the standard palettes of the programs used.
8. In the multipage documents, all the repeating elements should repeat (completely), while the elements reaching the spine should reach it (completely) instead of continuing on the other page. Special attention should be paid to the folio, which should be symmetric relative to the spine.
9. The horizontal outreach beyond the cutting line should be not less than 2 mm, while for the multipage publication, it should be 4 mm. At the same time, all the significant elements should be located not closer than 2-4 mm from the cutting line.
10. All the non-standard overprints should be marked on the provided layout. The only standard is 100% black overprint.
11. We insistently do not recommend using overprint when printing on the metallic paints.
12. It is forbidden to use raster images in the EPS format with the included color sections recorded from the Photoshop (otherwise, the printing house shall bear no responsibility for the distortion of color in the delivery of films and further printing).
13. When using the Illustrator in files, it is necessary to flatten all the transparencies: with the Print command, there should appear no warning of the need for flattening.
14. It is necessary to remember that when stitching on the clamp, the size of the inside spread differs from the size of the cover by 1-4 mm depending on the volume of the publication and the paper used (i.e. thickness of the publication). It is not recommended to place significant elements of the publication close to the spine and the fore edge (outer margin of the page) simultaneously.
15. All the non-standard uses of colors (glaze, scoring, stamping, etc.) should be marked on the printouts.
16. Delimitation of colors should be done for the Ink colors Eurostandard. The ink spread on the loaded paper should be: by 40% - 14%, by 80% - 12%. The overall quantity of paint (total ink) should be not more than 300%. The quantity of the black in the half-tone images should not exceed 97%.
17. In the background flowing (flowing over big area) the raster percentage of at least one of the drawing paints (C, M, K) should be not less than 7%.
