printing colors primer

Let’s say the printer offers me the choice of 3 color or 4 color printing of my job (4 color being more expensive, of course). In this particular case, it’s printing on CDs, but that shouldn’t matter.

Is it true that when They (printers) refer to #-color printing, they’re exclusively talking about PMS colors?

They are talking about 3 or 4 colors of ink. Those colors of ink may be any colors you choose–PMS colors or primary (CMYK) colors.

If it’s PMS colors, what do we have to do in creating photoshop images to prepare for it?

You must use the Spot Channel command from the Channels flyout menu to create spot channels, then work in those channels. Note that you cannot work in layers in a spot channel.

Note also that Photoshop is absolutely the WRONG tool for this kind of job. Doing layout or design for a CD in Photoshop is like writing a letter to your Mom in Microsoft Excel–in theory it can be done, kind of, if you don’t mind doing a lot of extra work and getting inferior results. Use the right tool for the job–in this case, a vector illustratoin tool like Adobe Illustrator.

Or, do we do nothing and expect that
the money we’re paying them for setup includes the conversion of our artwork to PMS colors?

No. Absolutely, positively not. A Printer *will not* accept an RGB or CMYK image for output using spot color. A prepress technician can take your file and turn it into spot colors; I do this myself, sometimes. To give you an idea of what it costs–I charge $150/hr for this kind of work.

If it’s CMYK colors and excluding one or more of the channels, what kinds of manipulations are commonly used to get a decent 3-color (for instance) image?

Usually, you wouldn’t use three of the four CMYK colors for this sort of thing. You certainly can’t expect to reproduce a full-color photographic image with a wide tonal range using only three of the four subtractive primaries.

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Anonymoose wrote:

Is it true that when They (printers) refer to #-color printing, they’re exclusively talking about PMS colors?

Typically Pantone Spot (PMS) colors.

If it’s PMS colors, what do we have to do in creating photoshop images to prepare for it? Do we have to optimize to 4 colors (the results of which, seem pretty ugly, when I tried it)? Or, do we do nothing and expect that the money we’re paying them for setup includes the conversion of our artwork to PMS colors?

Call ’em and see. If you’re sending it to us (Disc Makers), we don’t charge extra for converting your images to spot colors, but at the same time we recommend that you do it yourself if you’re capable so you’re sending us files as you wish to have them printed (some adjustments are usually necessary due to the inherent limitations of the process, things that many designers do not realize about on-disc silkscreening).

That all having been said, Photoshop is not a layout application, and due to the low linescreen used for regular on-disc printing (100lpi) the on-disc printing will show more of the negatives of doing an entire layout in Photoshop (specifically when it comes to text). Additionally, because of the lower linescreen solid colors always look much better on-disc (as opposed to photographic images, or large tinted areas). Less-is-more is the way to go for the on-disc printing.

Finally, avoid gradients entirely, as the risk of banding during the on-disc silkscreen process is much higher than other printing methods.

If you must send Photoshop files it is always best to send both your flattened TIFFs as well as layered files (with all necessary fonts, of course) so we have the most flexibility in adjusting your files to fit our templates and output specifications.

If it’s CMYK colors and excluding one or more of the channels, what kinds of manipulations are commonly used to get a decent 3-color (for instance) image?

There are more "tricks" to converting 4/c images to spot colors than I could possibly get into here, unfortunately. Channel manipulations, careful selections, conversion of text layers to 1-bit 1200ppi TIFFs… I normally spend more time making CD images work for output than on any other portion of the job (and we are a value-added vendor, and generally spend a lot of time fixing client mistakes).

I’ll wrap this up by being brutally honest in the interest of hopefully saving you a lot of trouble:

If you’re not an experienced designer, and know little or nothing about the print production process, prepress, etc. I strongly recommend not doing your own design for a project that you’re going to be spending thousands of dollars on. I’ve seen more projects become delayed, cancelled or run significantly over budget due to problems with the artwork (as well as problems with the master, but that’s a topic for another NG). Most CD replicators (us included) offer design services that are very reasonable (and the designers understand the process), and there are plenty of freelancers and design firms to choose from as well.

I don’t advise using a project of this magnitude as a testing ground for your design and technical skills. I also do not mean to be insulting whatsoever, merely realistic – and you must be, too, of your capabilities to avoid wasting time and money (whjat’s a few hundred dollars in design fees vs. double that in lost time and CD sales, poor-quality product, etc.).

And if you are an experienced designer you may of course disregard this last bit!
8^)

Brian
(Electronic Prepress Manager, Disc Makers)

Is it true that when They (printers) refer to #-color printing, they’re exclusively talking about PMS colors?

After reading Tacit’s post I need to amend mine: when we talk about our standard 3-color on-disc printing that is Pantone spot inks; we can print up to 6 spot colors on-disc, as well as 4-color process (CMYK).

My apologies for the confusion – it’s been a long day and I’m beat! 8^)

Brian

Brian wrote in news:3FD10A62.40905
@nofreakinspam.com:

Is it true that when They (printers) refer to #-color printing, they’re exclusively talking about PMS colors?

After reading Tacit’s post I need to amend mine: when we talk about our standard 3-color on-disc printing that is Pantone spot inks; we can print up to 6 spot colors on-disc, as well as 4-color process (CMYK).
My apologies for the confusion – it’s been a long day and I’m beat! 8^)

Brian

Thanks to Tacit and Brian for the posts – very educational. I’ve always been a ‘do-it-yourself’ kind of guy, but have to learn when and why to let others do it for me. Brian, since you work in the business, can you rank the media and print media combinations in order of best results? I mean, printable CD (matte finish, white) and inkjet, silkscreen, laminated, thermal, etc, printings – and drawbacks of each. One of the reasons I like to do things myself, is that I hate to be sold something I don’t understand the differences of. My project is low-volume (probably never more than 1000) business-card CDs at a time.