You know how easy it is to print using your printer at home right? You just plug in your printer, connect it to your computer and hit the print button. Because of this you maybe tempted to think that dealing with a printing company would be no different. That’s here you are wrong. While printing your materials through a printing company is not that hard, you still need to know about certain terms and elements so as to have a completely trouble free printing experience.
To help you with this, here are some terms that you need to know about:
Digital and offset printing
A printing company will usually offer two different printing methods when creating your prints. There is a vast difference between the two printing methods so you might as well know which one to use during a specific situation. Digital printers are ideal for short run prints since they use a direct to printer method. This method allows digital printers to print their materials very fast and at a quick turn around. Offset printers on the other hand are the opposite. They specialize in large amounts or bulk orders and they can do it very efficiently. Also, keep in mind that when you print in offset and you double the amount of materials that you order, the cost of your orders will not be doubled - in fact, the cost per piece of your prints when you will be less.
RGB and CMYK color schemes
RGB stands for red, green, and blue and is used primarily in computer and LCD monitors. These devices display color in the RGB mode. On the other hand, CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. These four colors are used by printers to create images in full color. These four colors are combined in order to create different hues and shades. Because the CMYK color scheme uses four colors in order to print in full color, it is also called as four color printing. You should note that these two color schemes should never be interchanged. Doing so would result in the loss of color accuracy.
Image resolution difference
Another thing that you should note is that computer monitor and prints display images in different ways. There is also a very big difference in the resolution a medium needs in order to show your images in a clear and crisp way. For computer monitors, an image resolution of 72 dpi is enough. However, if you want to print images that are crisp and not fuzzy or blurred then you need to have images that are in 300 dpi. For large format materials, it is advisable to go and ask your printer about the required image resolution that you should use. Different sizes require different image resolutions so it is important to safe rather than be sorry.
Bleeds are important
Bleed is the area on the page that will be sliced off during cutting. Why is this important you ask? This is because sometimes cutters misalign and sometimes when your prints are cut the wrong way, you can see white borders on the edges of your prints. To avoid this, professional designers extend the design approximately 1 cm or .25" beyond the printable area of the page. The bleed will serve as an insurance policy when your cutter misaligns and it will cause no harm on your project.
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