Two color printing

[striker73]

I am entirely unfamiliar with creating Photoshop files for print media (I am much more familiar with web optimization), and I need a primer on creating an advertisement for print media. I would like to create a mailer, approximately 8.5 x 5.5 with color on something thicker than paper. As far as what that looks like exactly I'm not so sure.

I emailed the printer and he said they can print 2-3 colors in house or else they can ship it to someone else to print more colors. It sounds like the second option would be expensive, so I think I can limit my piece to two or three colors. Our logo is blue and we have used orange as an accent color in the past. Does orange count as two colors (red and yellow)?

What are the best settings to use in Photoshop (versions 6 or 7) for this kind of file? Obviously resolutions is going to be important, but I've read a little about CMYK(?) and color channels and all sorts of crazy print/graphics lingo. Can someone please help me out? Thanks!

 

[viol8ion]

From my experience, 4-color printing is generally cheapest since it requires the printer to do less set-up. 4-color is CMYK, and if you save your file as such, there would be nothing else for you to have to do. If your printer can't handle CMYK, then you might want to make a few phone calls to other printers.

Also there are many good (and many lousy) online printers that can give you good prices and service if you are limited to print shops in your neck of the woods.

When in doubt, deny all terms and defnitions.

http://www.wuli.com

 

[signal49]

Striker,

You've picked a pretty detailed question that doesn't have any quick, simple answers. There are a lot of variables and a lot of choices. You're getting into the basics of all offset printing and design all at once! I'll try to keep it short and simple. Keep in mind that I am skipping a LOT of information, so if you find something you don't understand, try searching this site... a lot of this is covered in detail elsewhere.

First of all, 4-color is not the least expensive... It all depends on what the printer is set up for and the quantity of your run. The printer you spoke to can do 2- or 3-color in house, so that would cost less than going through them for 4-color. If you find someone set up for 4-color (like whoever this printer would outsource to), it will cost less to go directly to them rather than through the middle-man. Also, most of your cost is in setting up the press. It's going to cost close to the same price for 100 as for 500 as for 1,000. The more you print, the better your price per piece; so print in the thousands if they won't go to waste.

Secondly, there are different ways to produce color on the press. The 2- or 3-color printing (spot printing) that the printer you talked to can do does not use the same process as 4-color (full color). 4-color is how you get full colored photographic prints. It uses the inks CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black). Each color is in an ink head on the press and the colors are printed in layers on the paper as it goes through to blend and create the thousands of colors you see in the finished piece. Spot printing uses colors that are mixed before put on the press; Pantone is the standard. So your "orange" will not be a combination of red and yellow on the press - it will be a specific orange spot color that you choose from the Pantone book that is mixed and then put on the press. You can spot colors in any shade from 100% to 0% to create some depth and variation.

Finally, and MOST importantly, Photoshop is NOT the program to use to create spot color work. It is perfect for full color, but it does not handle spots well. You should use Illustrator for colored graphics (which introduce new things to think about as far as spot printing goes), grayscale or bitmap tif files from Photoshop that you can then colorize in Quark, InDesign, PageMaker... whatever layout program you use. But you will have lots of problems trying to lay out a spot-printed ad in Photoshop and your printer will hate you! ;-)

As a prepress person, I'm more than happy to explain the printing process to you to save both you and your printer from headaches. The best thing to do is talk to your printer and their prepress person. They should be happy that you want to work with them to create a job that they can output correctly without major difficulties. If you have any more specific questions, feel free to ask! But do check out the other areas of this site... there's a lot of great information here.