Realization Case

Realization Print Report

During this past semester, I have been going to a Printing Press in weekly basis and learning about certain techniques they use in the pre-press section, and about the sequence of their work flow, from the prepress, to the press and finally to the post press.

The principle and aim of the prepress is to focus on the productivity, quality, and reliability of the printing. The prepress automates data processing up to the plate output stage. In the prepress department, there are several employees who repeat operations the prepress workflows and monitoring steps on daily basis. These operations include, optimizing print data, impositioning the sheet layout, ripping and proofing, data trapping, consulting with customers, and preparing data for printing and prepress of CTP.

Prepress:

First of all, a CD from the client, with the design is received to the prepress department. When the CD is opened, what they fist do, is check the the fonts; whether embedded or not, in addition to the resolution of the images. The DPI (dot per inch) of the images should not be less 300 dpi; because then the sheet printed later on, would be pixilated because at the end of the day, the size of pictures can be decreased but not increased. If so occur, pixelization will happen, causing the picture to blur.

The design is opened on Adobe Illustrator, and the employees must make sure that everything in the design, whether, the type, photographs and illustrations are correctly detailed for printing and production. Several steps are done to the design, such as the trimming marks, bleed, and registration.

Trimming marks are like outline lines that help in the process of cutting away the waste stock around a design to form the final format once the job has been printed; they indicate where artwork is to be cut and trimmed after printing. Then secondly, comes the bleed; which is the term for printing that goes over the edge of the paper.

For example, in the image to the left, the trimming marks are the lines that are in the same level of the borders, both vertical and horizontal and the bleed is the extra green outside the borders. Using Illustrator, there are a couple of ways to set crop marks, the first is to go to Object Crop Area > Make. This will create a set of uneditable crop marks directly around the document edges. The second way, on the other hand, will create a set of editable crop marks according to the area specified. The advantage of this method is that crops can then be shortened if needed ( but they should at least be 4mm long ).

after these procedures are done, the registration is worked on, which is the exact alignment of two or more printed images with each other on the same stock and is used to align overlaying colours during each of two (or more) ink colour print runs. The registration is always two colours above each other; black and another colour from the CMY (cyan, magenta, or yellow) but in the colour bar, only the black is shown, because For example, the picture to the top right shows the registration marks.

Overprinting refers to the traditional process of printing and mixing one colour on top of another. Overprinting was the first thing I was shown in the prepress. This technique was used with Adobe Illustrator. The principle of overprinting is like a person standing under an umbrella; similarly, the colour that has gotten overprinted will not get affected. Overprints can be mixed to produce a different colour with different tones and they can also be used as part of creative designs. With CMYK colours, cyan can overprint all colours, while yellow can only overprint black. An example is shown to the top where the areas of intersection, between the cyan and the magenta created a purple colour, and an orange colour between the yellow and the magenta.

In addition, black is the only colour that doesn't get affected by the overprint, however, we should apply the overprint effect on it if there isn't so that it doesn't cause a gap in the colour below it. If we don't put an overprint on the black, it turns into white. On the other hand, when overprinting does not work, and the colour keeps its original ink, this is called a Knockout.

At some point, I was shown what a die cut is and how it is done. To start with, a die cut is a is a model or a template made of steel, at the shape of a specific design; where the steel is made sharp at the edges, to cut the extra unwanted pieces of the paper from the design. For example, a very commonly used example, are folders, whether normal or capacitated ones. To create a die cut the steel model is cut with laser at the wanted shape. However, it is hard to make pointy or cornered designs (at least in Jordan). Because then trying to fold the iron plate in this way is hard, so the design either have to change the design or go to another country and pay more to get it done.

To design a folder, at the computer, we use adobe illustrator, and the shape of it is mainly something like the one in the right. However, there are two types of folders, ones which are glued and ones that are not. The folder to the right fits an A4 paper (21 cm * 29.7cm); therefore we add a few cm from the height and in the width for separators sometimes, for the paper not to grind. For instance, if we made the height of the folder 33cm, we should make the height of the pocket 1/3 of the folder, so in this case; its 11cm. plus, the width, adds up to 21.5 - 25 cm. Besides that, we always leave from 0.5 - 2 cm at the intersection of the middle of the folder, so that it doesn't rip off while being cut. In the understanding, of the staff of the press, where there should be folding, the designer must put a dashed line. When a capacitated folder is ordered, the intersection in the middle is doubled. Die cuts can also be used for book cover and packages, plus other things.

When a file is worked on from a client, sometimes, images have to be edited, on Photoshop, therefore, the designer, must have made them a link. This means, that the original image can be edited, but a folder with the images in it, have to be placed with the illustrator file to be able for the image to be shown in printing. To know if an image is linked or not, it would have an ''X'' on it when selected. On the other hand, if an image is final, and it's sure and that you don't want to edit anything in it anymore, you embed the picture. That way, you don't have to put a folder with the images in it.

Impositioning is a process of printing multiple pages on a piece of paper in such a way that when folded or cut; they end up in proper order for readers.