Printing & Copying

So what exactly is a Digital Press anyway?

The word "digital" has been bandied about to such an extent in the printing industry, that I'm not sure it has any meaning whatsoever anymore. In the broadest sense, digital printing could be described as any print process that begins with a computer file and ends up on some sort of imaged substrate. This runs the gamut from the $80 Canon inkjet on your desktop (that rapidly consumes ink cartridges worth their weight in gold) to the most sophisticated devices made by Xerox, HP/Indigo or a host of others.

The phrase "digital press" is definitely in. Many of the manufacturers dub their higher end production machines with this moniker. Easily 95% of the digital presses in the marketplace today simply aren't. Let me explain that . . . they are digital, they aren't presses. The "press" part of the nomenclature comes from the root word "pressure." In the case of an offset press, there is actually pressure between the blanket cylinder and the impression cylinder that causes ink to set off (ergo "offset") onto the paper. Not so with the digital press. For the most part, digital presses are toner devices. Mechanically, they are more akin to a copy machine than a press.

Poor Richard is, admittedly, a reformed offset press snob. For a long while, I referred to our color machines as "color copiers on steroids." We started with a beast from Canon. It was digital in the sense that you could send a file to it. It worked on the principal of a rotating drum. Each sheet of paper went around the drum 4 times with a different color toner applied each revolution. The result was usually fairly consistently horrendous from one sheet to the next and absolutely unpredictable on consecutive days or if the weather changed. It would run 24# bond at the astounding rate of 6 sheets/minute.

But times have changed. The Xerox monster we have today runs almost any smooth stock at 10 times the rated speed of the Canon beast. Unlike it's predecessors, it is very receptive to all kinds of files and color modes (RGB, CMYK, Spot). Ever so grudgingly, I even have to admit that the quality is every bit as good as offset. Maybe it's even a little bit better.

Today I spent a half hour scoring and folding one of the prettiest digital press pieces we have ever produced. A trifold on 100# text with heavy ink coverage, it was designed by one of our university customers. The design was beautiful, but it would have been a bear to print on a press. The front featured a heavy orange solid that had to match up to the reverse. This is the kind of stuff that causes pressmen to go cross-eyed bonkers. We would have wasted 1000 sheets of paper to produce the 1000 brochures that were ordered. As it was, we ran 40 extras digitally for binding waste. The results were spectacular.

With all that said, there are still a few elements that need to be taken into consideration when designing for digital printing. Here are Poor Richard's tips:

1. Watch the solids. Big solids that can be a problem on press can also be a problem when they are printed digitally. Depending on the device, solids can fade, stripe, or ghost. The Xerox monster we're running now really does a wonderful job on solids and is operator-friendly enough so that we can change a belt or drum when a problem occurs. This isn't the case with all of the digital presses on the market or with all of the human beings that operate them.
2. Watch the gradients. This problem is sporadic, but there is a more pronounced tendency for gradients to show banding when they are printed digitally. Light screens may also occasionally print unpredictably.
3. Use a consistent color model. I really like the color gamut that our monster produces from RGB files. It is bright and the color pops. It isn't color accurate, though. Most of the toner devices are CMYK and (if calibrated properly) will emulate a spot color as closely as process color on a press. Beware:  combinations of CMYK and RGB may yield some very surprising results. And WYSIWYG still isn't . . . I'm sure that the photograph of the local news team that was sent to us for their Christmas Card looked wonderful on the monitor at the station, but they were all mellow yellow when they printed on our digital press. Be conscious of this and correct color just like you would for offset.
4. About Color. Color accuracy on digital devices is still a little hit and miss and calibration is as much art as science. One disadvantage to digital presses is the "tweaking" of color. Unlike offset, there are no ink keys that can be used to dial in by eye. That said, if your printer manages and monitors color on their digital machines, colors should be pretty consistent (but not exact) from one project to the next.
   Remember that calibrations and color profiles for digital presses are specific to both device and paper substrate and it is totally impractical for a printer to calibrate to every paper in existence. This means that color will shift slightly between paper stocks. Color may also shift slightly from day to day due to the peculiarities of the machine, even if it is calibrated regularly.
5. Ask for a hard copy proof. One of the wonderful aspects of digital printing is that you can produce just one copy to look at. It's not instantaneous, but it is possible. If your project is color sensitive, ask for a hard copy proof on the paper specified for the job.Don't expect your printer to produce this for free, though. There is time and overhead involved every time a file is opened or transmitted to a device. Printers should and do charge for this.
6. Think Downstream. If you're printing a flat sheet, you're safe. But if the printed piece you design will be folded, this might be a problem. As stated above, most digital presses are toner-based devices. The toner adheres to the paper, but "piles up" on the surface to a much greater extent than does offset ink. When folded, the toner tends to crack, producing a ragged edge at the fold. Ask your printer about this before you design. If they don't have scoring equipment that is designed for digital printing, you probably need to adapt your design so that no solids will cross a fold line.

What's Coming:

Rickie, our pressman, who's had nearly 30 years running offset presses of some sort will occasionally pick up an aberration produced by our Xerox monster, wave it in the air, and yell for all the world to hear, "Job Security!" He then heads off to his press and wastes 300 sheets to dial in color for the next run. He has job security, but only because he's cross-trained.

There will be a place for offset for the forseeable future. My generation likes to read stuff on paper and we're not dead yet. Offset is extremely cost-effective for medium and long runs of a static product. There is no replacement for offset on the horizon when it comes to producing magazines, programs, books, etc.

But offset will never be able to produce variable data or images (the subject of a future post) or meet the economies of scale needed for the short and quick color runs that are required in today's business environment. Digital quality continues to improve. The next digital press we buy will probably use a liquid toner and be able to print on textured substrates . . . the technology to do this is already available.

I love my offset presses, but to quote scripture, "Mene, Mene, tekel, parsin." (Daniel 5:25) The writing is on the wall.

Chateau Roux have launched a new range of deep v-neck T-shirts. In the usual ultra soft modal fabrics they're available in black, white and khaki, with both standard fabric options, and in line with the Shotguns in Soho graphics there is also a heavy distress effect. Soft fabrics need light textured screen printing, so October have used water based inks and have also printed a very lightweight foil - even where this is applied over the v-neck detail, texture has been kept to a minimum, making this a very wearable T.

www.october.co.uk
t shirt printing, embroidery, screen printing

Introducing 'Filthy Riche', the first t-shirt collection from new London label 'Zev Couture'. Printed on quality vintage cut/washed tees, zev's designs are socially & politically switched-on with a cheeky sense of humour.  The collection grabs inpiration from the past & translates it into a forward driven fashion passion for the present! At the time of writing, the range is exclusively available on-line & Portobello Market as of Saturday 8th December... But watch out for Zev on a high street near you, come the New Year! www.zevcouture.com

www.october.co.uk
t shirt printing, screen printing, embroidery

Imagine that every time you printed a document, it automatically included a secret code that could be used to identify the printer - and potentially, the person who used it. Sounds like something from an episode of "Alias," right?

Unfortunately, the scenario isn't fictional. In a purported effort to identify counterfeiters, the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent, an act you assume is private could become public. A communication tool you're using in everyday life could become a tool for government surveillance. And what's worse, there are no laws to prevent abuse.

The ACLU recently issued a report revealing that the FBI has amassed more than 1,100 pages of documents on the organization since 2001, as well as documents concerning other non-violent groups, including Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice. In the current political climate, it's not hard to imagine the government using the ability to determine who may have printed what document for purposes other than identifying counterfeiters.

Yet there are no laws to stop the Secret Service from using printer codes to secretly trace the origin of non-currency documents; only the privacy policy of your printer manufacturer currently protects you (if indeed such a policy exists). And no law regulates what sort of documents the Secret Service or any other domestic or foreign government agency is permitted to request for identification, not to mention how such a forensics tool could be developed and implemented in printers in the first place.

With no laws on the books, there's nothing to stop the privacy violations this technology enables. For this reason, EFF is gathering information about what printers are revealing and how - a necessary precursor to any legal challenge or new legislation to protect your privacy. And we could use your help.

In the preliminary research paper linked below, we explain what we've observed so far, briefly explore the privacy implications, and ask you to print and send us test sheets from your color laser printer and/or a color laser printer at your local print shop. That way, we can watch the watchers and ensure that your privacy isn't compromised in ways that harm your fundamental consitutional rights.

In addition to documenting what printers are revealing, EFF has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and we will keep you updated on what we discover. In the meantime, we urge you to participate and pass the word along about this research project. Thank you for your support!

This is a story of my personal inability to reason. Grab onto something.

My gocco printer has been sitting in the closet for nigh on 4 months now, waiting patiently for me to put it to work. I have been loving it from across the room all this time, dreaming and making plans for its employment, sending flirtatious glances its way, but I have been procrastinating. Yes! Procrastinating on actually printing something with it. Why?

I think part of the reason was that I didn't want to screw up. Or waste paper. I wanted that first project to be perfect, and wonderful, and beautiful, and I was afraid that if it sucked I would have wasted a screen and 2 bulbs and however many pieces of paper I printed. I also had grand plans. I wanted to do something with multiple screens, 2 or 3 color overprints, and everything I had ideas for seemed inadequate.

Finally, I made the commitment to print our moving announcement/change of address cards with her. I designed and designed, getting the double sided card laid out just the way I wanted. I chose and cut a favorite paper that I had lots of extra laying around. Then this weekend, I set the gocco printing in motion. I set everything up, ready to go, and after pumping myself up a little bit with a nervous knot in my stomach, irrationally afraid that I might start the house on fire, pressed the machine down to expose the screen.

And nothing happened.

No flash of light, no crackling bulbs, no exposed screen.

I checked to make sure the screen and image were aligned correctly, that the bulbs and housing were positioned. I went online looking for help, and verified that the safety switch was indeed set off. I even emailed Leslie to seek her advice. I was baffled.

Four hours later, I was still completely confused, when I removed a little panel to discover the place where the BATTERIES go. Batteries, people. It's amazing that anyone trusts me with anything.

I have no idea why it never occurred to me that the thing would require some sort of voltage to do its job, but it didn't. Maybe I thought it all worked through some mysterious Japanese magic, or perhaps there were fairies that came to flash the bulbs. It seems so obvious now. Of course, after I sheepishly placed the batteries in the gocco, it worked exactly as it should.

But, now I finally understand how darn fun this little printer is! It's so low tech, and it shows, in the uneven and unpredictable ink distribution, but I love that. I learned that the printable area is smaller than I had thought it would be, as the bulbs didn't expose the entire image as I designed it, so on the far long sides and corners of the cards the image didn't print exactly as I intended. But I don't mind. If I had wanted it to be perfect, I would have printed it from the computer. I love the handmade-ness, and the unexpected accidents that occur with any type of hand printing. I love how each print is slightly different from the others.

After printing both sides, I still felt like it needed something, so I tried my hand at an overprint of a second color, filling in the "HARK" in red, to give it a little more of a Christmassy feel {since we are moving just in time for Christmas}. No pictures at the moment due to the darn winter darkness. I didn't register the first run very well, so the red field didn't register exactly with the outline of the work on each card, but again, I sort of like that unpredictability. I often try to experiment with this off-register effect in other digital design, so it's fun when it happens naturally.

I did a few on-purpose misprints also, printing both the front and back images on the same area, to see what would happen, and I think I might frame one of them and hang it with the other art and photography in the new house. I would show you the whole piece, but it has our address on it, and I don't feel the need to share that with the whole internets. But you get the jist.

The Husband was facinated by this whole process, his favorite part is blowing the bulbs to expose the screen. I have to pack it all up now to move, but I cannot wait to have another go at printing something new!

Current advances in technology – including the online presence of commercial printing services – has thoroughly democratized the business of printing.  All it takes nowadays is Internet access and diligent Google search skills to be able to come up with a set of printing quotes for careful comparison.

Printing quotes are a necessary feature or service provided by printing companies to give you a working figure for your printing project. Be it a business or a postcard. Such printing quotes can easily be obtained through emails, phone calls or a simple online visit where a price generator would instantly show you the printing quote for your specified set of product specifications.

You can easily obtain this and more with online printing. Yes, printing has definitely gone a long since it has taken the plunge to make itself more accessible to almost everyone.  Looking back, how has it gone that printing - once the exclusive domain of the learned clergy - has become accessible to Joe and Jane Q. Public?

Quotes on Printing (Really, it is different from the term printing quotes)
Here are a number of quotes taken from widely diverse sources about the sociological impact of printing.

"The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, one sometimes forgets which" - J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie, Scottish writer best known for giving the world the green-clad, eternally youthful Peter Pan and his adventures with hook-handed pirates, mermaids and Red Indians.

"The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing" - Jonathan Swift, Irish writer and satirist best known for giving the world Lemuel Gulliver and his exploits with the Lilliputians, Brobdingagians and Yahoos.

"The printing press was at first mistaken for an engine of immortality by everybody except Shakespeare." - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian sociologist noted for his pioneering studies on media theory as well as coining the phrases "the medium is the message" and "global village".

"What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind." - Wendell Phillips, American activist, champion of social rights for Native Americans and African Americans.

"Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years." - Henry David Thoreau, American writer and philosopher whose works were influential in the civil rights and environmental movements.

“The three great elements of modern civilization - gunpowder, printing, and the Protestant religion.” - Thomas Carlyle, Scottish philosopher whose major work, "Sartor Resartus" has been acknowledged as a unique masterpiece that anticipated the Existential and Postmodern movements among others.

"The printing press is either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse of modern times, sometimes one forgets which it is." - E. F. Schumacher, German-born British economist and author of the book "Small is Beautiful" best known for his advocacy of human-scale, decentralized and appropriate technologies as well as his espousal of wholistic Buddhist philosophies on Western economic models.
"Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few." - John Masefield, British poet laureate from 1930 to 1967.

A messy studio is a happy studio:

Decided to get down and dirty tonight and make some holiday gocco prints. Despite a rough start, stepping in ink, and getting a bit sleepy, I made it through the night in true college style- frozen pizza, beer (pumpkin beer to be exact), late night, messy studio, and a result. Not too happy about the translucent white against the green. In normal silk screening it would have been more opaque, not I am not quite used to the consistency of the gocco inks or the gocco itself- these will have to do. There will be a second color of gold added to the top, but I will have to think about it. I may try to see if I can add a little more - punch, pop, and pull to it.

...with that, goodnight. It's been a late one and the morning alarm will go off in a few hours!

Printing is another important topic that has been on my todo list from the day one of this blog. However, since printing is something we do right at the end of the (post-)processing chain, the subject has been delayed until now.

Let's dive into it today, with one of these several never-ending series of entries which have become this blog's trademark. Today, we will cover an introduction to printing, with questions like: home printer or not, printing technologies (dye or pigment based) and papers. Read the rest of this entry »

I watched Hollyoaks today, like most days, and Mercedes had an abortion. I thought I'd discuss this topic in depth and express my opinions and evaluate them...for some reason I feel like I'm writing an essay. Haha. Anyway, I'll talk about what happened in Hollyoaks first. Not much happened really. Kris blatantly knows that Jess slept with Darren. Warren hired Malachy to reconstruct Evissa. Nancy is a crappy teacher and she dresses like she's in the 6th form. It wasn't that funny really. And erm, Mercy had her abortion.

I also noticed during Hollyoaks that lots of things happen in the background. Like when Jake and Nancy were cuddling on the sofa, in the background there's a photo frame of Jake and Becca on their wedding day. Also, when Mercedes was about to leave the house to have her abortion, the statue of the virgin Mary was behind her. Oooo, very symbolic.

Anyway, apart from that nothing else happened in Hollyoaks.

So let's talk about abortion. I'm not sure what my opinion on it is. I suppose it depends under the circumstances. I assume most women have abortions as their lifestyle isn't really suited for a child or they just don't think they could ever be a mother or something. Most people are really against abortion but I think they say that because they don't understand the circumstances that some women are in. People are always like, "But you're killing something that's living inside of you!". Well I believe you find in the first couple of weeks the embryo has yet to develop and it's just tissue, therefore the child is not yet living. That's not my point, I thought I'd just mention it. I know a person who absolutely hates abortion, but I know that if she got pregnant there's absolutely no way she'd keep it. Luckily for her she's not having sex. LOLOL. Sorry, thought I'd add some light humour to the topic. I don't think abortion is the best way to go around anything but I suppose if there was no other way then it would be acceptable.

Let's move off the topic and go onto something nicer. It's Nathan's birthday tomorrow!! YEH! He's having a driving lesson then too! Everyone stay off the roads, it's just too dangerous! Lol. So let's all wish Nate a very happy 17th birthday! Wooo!

School was boring today. I have some rather amusing photo's of Jack and Sam 'taming the beast', who is Tom. It's quite funny. I would post them up but they're not on my computer yet so too bad. Generally lessons were really boring. Computing was good, I got work done which was a first, haha. Erm, what else is there to say? Josh is apparently 100% ambidextrious, which so isn't true. First time he was about....78%? Luca was only 56% or something. I beat them all because I'm 82%. LOLOL. I'm just too damn awesome.

Young Enterprise tomorrow. Always something to look forward too. Ahem. Hopefully the meeting won't go awfully and that we'll get something done. I haven't received quotes off the companies I've called so I have no idea what to do! Tres mauvais but I'll just have to live with it.

Me and Calum are gunna go Christmas shopping on Thursday! YAY! and OMG! McFly is on Sunday!!! Can't wait! XD! Eeeeeeee! It's gunna be sexy.

Anyway, this post has been really long now. Later skaters.
♥

Shooting Hoops: A Miniature Basketball Court
Somewhere In the Middle of a Very Large Football Field

The visible light spectrum can contain up to 16,777,216 colors. I say "can contain" because the human eye can detect at most several hundred thousand colors. This is the wide and wonderful world of RGB. By comparison, the 4-color printing space is only about 13,000 colors.

While at the Workbook, I used the analogy of basketball court/football field to describe the difference in the respective CMYK/RGB color spaces. Even those proportions are somewhat misleading, but I had to answer questions very concisely—I worked for a publishing firm, not a help desk.

The Color "F-Chart"

Behold the Color "F-Chart", which will help you trouble-shoot color issues in the CMYK color space.

The "F" in "F-Chart" euphemistically refers to "tamper, alter, distort" and so on. Use your imagination.

The primary colors are Yellow, Magenta and Cyan. The secondary colors (Green, Orange and Purple) are created from the primaries, as shown by the circular arrows. Black is not shown on this chart, as it controls contrast and shadow.

The main arrows in the center show where contamination occurs.

• Yellow dirties Purple
• Magenta contaminates Green
• Cyan contaminates Orange

Understanding these three things will solve most color issues in the proof stage. Eternal thanks to the Kiwi who gave it to my boss, who gave it to me.

While we're here, there are several situations you will rarely see done well in 4-color printing:

• A clean orange
• Pure turquoise
• Iridescent lime green
• A neutral 4-color grayscale image. You're better off controlling it as a rich-black, (ie 20C and 100K). Otherwise it will most likely be greenish.
  But people still try it, with predictably uneven results.

Out Of Gamut, Out Of Mind?

Sadly, no. Michael Kieran defines gamut as "The total range of colors produced by a device, system or storage medium. A color is described being out of gamut when its position in one device's color space cannot be mapped into the the color space of another device". Now we both know.

Common RGB Profiles

Here are some common RGB profiles. I've seen documents using all of these profiles—Quark, Photoshop, Indesign and Illustrator. Changing the profiles in your monitor, source application (Photoshop for instance) and in your layout program will have a noticeable difference in how color is treated.

• Apple 1998 is the smallest. However its range is considerably less than Adobe RGB (1998)
• Adobe RGB (1998) is in the middle. Consider it the convertible currency of color management—it produces good results with most RGB recorders and plays well in the CMYK translation.
• sRGB was dsigned for low-end consumer color scanners, digital cameras and inkjet printes. It is inadvisable for high-qulaity color production because of clipping in the blue-green part of the spectrum. Don't use it if you are planning on printing it. Or you're feeling foolishly lucky.
• Monitor RGB tailors color to the monitor, instead of the other way around. It makes sense in a web application, as it forces the RGB colors in Photoshop to match those in web-design programs like Dreamweaver. Again, this observation is from Michael Keiran. Since the bulk of my experience has been in print production, I cannot verify this absolutely. But I included it as an example of the spectrum of choices in color management.

In conclusion, color is a highly subjective experience. Customers sent target proofs ranging from the workmanlike to the surreal. I saw proofs on everything from cold bright white proofing stock (excellent), through warm off-white Arches paper (love that 5% yellow gain), on down to 24lb Walmart inkjet bond (they were out of paper towels that day). Never mind the sizes. I guess the ReadMe/FAQ was optional. But they all want Perfect Color.

Go figure.