Supplying Files to a Commercial Printer

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Supplying Files to a

Commercial Printer

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I n t r o d u c t i o n

O

ver the last twenty years or so the printing and graphic arts industry has witnessed many changes, none more so than the introduction of the computer into our everyday lives.

Without question, modern day technology has advanced

commercial printing to a point where many of the traditional skills once used (particularly in design and pre-press) are sadly no longer with us.

Certainly, it would be foolish for me to suggest that without those skills around today the printing trade would have gone into steep decline; that was never going to happen. But even with all the technical resources and wondrous software available today there still lies a lack of education on the subject of preparing files correctly to meet the demands of the commercial printing process.

Hopefully, over the next few pages you will become familiar with some of the issues which dog pre-press departments the world over and hopefully learn some of the techniques which will make your file preparation as trouble free as possible.

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CHAPTER

1 A B r i e f H i s t o r y L e s s o n

W

hen I first started my apprenticeship way back in the late 70’s as a finished artist/film planner, the process of producing a printed product was a fairly labour intensive procedure.

The client may have enlisted the services of a graphic designer to come up with concepts and designs, a copywriter to write text and maybe a professional photographer was hired to capture images.

Once all these elements were in place, up steps the finished artist and photo typesetters to convert the visual designs, copy and photography into camera ready artwork. At this point a camera operator would turn the artwork into negatives and a scanner operator would produce film separations from the photographs. The negatives and scans were meticulously combined using complex masking techniques ending up with final film which would eventually be used to produce the printing plates.

Not only was the pre-press industry more labour intensive then, but each and every stage of the process was handled by a skilled tradesperson with years of experience in their field. So by the time the presses started rolling all was well. Usually!

Skip forward a few years and you will now find that just about all those skills I mentioned have been put into the laps of a couple of people and a computer or two. Certainly, the graphic designer wears a multitude of hats to provide finished electronic files to the printer for output. In some cases, the graphic designer will be the copywriter, the photographer, the typesetter, the finished artist or even the scanner operator. I have even come across instances

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where all these skills have been performed (to the best of their ability) by the office secretary and a copy of Microsoft Word.

It soon became evident that even with the introduction of new computer technologies a massive hole was beginning to develop. A lack of knowledge and skills meant that electronic files were being sent to the printer either unsuitable to use or riddled with technical issues.

Clients would get frustrated when printers charged extra to correct their files or they simply refused to handle their work in its current format. This ultimately lead to the software developers making their products more intuitive to the demands of the

printing process and to even develop software to find and fix some of the issues with bad files.

All said and done, even today I still come in contact with problematic electronic artwork which fails the commercial printing process due to the lack of some very basic requirements.

Certainly, better education in file construction and a more comprehensive understanding of the printing process would go a long way to address these issues. Hopefully, this publication will help those of you new to desktop publishing and even seasoned graphic designers to achieve trouble free results.

I think it’s important to remember that when an electronic file is created, its creator is ultimately responsible for its accuracy and integrity, not anyone else.

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CHAPTER

2 C h o o s i n g S o f t w a r e

I

would like you to try something for me. Walk over to a white board and sign your name using a white board marker. The results should be pretty good. Now try to sign your name using a pencil, obviously the result is not as good. Why not? After all, a pencil is a perfectly good writing instrument, it’s been around for centuries.

The problem is, the pencil, in this instance, is not the right tool for the job. The same applies to the software you choose to create your desktop publishing files.

When you start producing electronic documents which are intended to be printed at a commercial printers you need to seriously consider how these files are produced and more importantly which software is best used to produce them.

Microsoft Applications

First of all, I would like to make one thing perfectly crystal clear, Microsoft applications are excellent products and used within an office environment will give 100% accurate results with minimal effort or training. In fact, just about all the text for this publication was initially set using Microsoft Word.

Unfortunately, applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, are totally inappropriate for use in the commercial printing process, especially when your documents contain colour, images or complex graphics.

Those of you who regularly use Word may ask “What is so wrong with Word that printers dislike it so much”? (And they do.)

Well, there are a number of reasons, one is document integrity and the other; how Word creates and uses colour. Let me explain.

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Document integrity

When I talk of document integrity I am referring to how a Word document looks on the creator’s screen and to how it opens on a computer used at your printers. You may think that a Word document will open the same on any other computer, in fact this is a very bad assumption to make.

The problem is Word documents don’t travel well. Open a Word document on any other computer other than the one it was created on and you run the risk of text reflow and font substitution.

Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint and even Publisher construct their documents using a certain amount of information gleaned from the network printer it is connected to. So, if you then open up the document on a third party computer, the document is reconstructed using slightly different information. This can cause margins to change or graphics to move without warning, causing unexpected results.

Font substitution

Imagine you have created a Word document using the following fonts; Garamond Roman, Gill Sans and Times. Give that document to your printer to open and they would naturally need to have those fonts resident on their computer to display the document faithfully. What if they don’t?

Unfortunately, unlike dedicated desktop publishing software, Word offers no warning that this is about to happen, a substitute font is simply used. The resulting document will not only use the incorrect font, but the text will reflow to the point where the page count could be different.

Colours in Word

Microsoft Word displays colour within its documents using a colour system known as RGB (I cover this in much more detail on page 31). All you really need to understand is unfortunately, this system of handling colour is completely alien to the commercial printing process. And although RGB colours can some of the time be converted to a more print friendly format this can be problematic and time consuming ending up with unforeseen costs.

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The Pantone Matching System

Have you ever visited the local hardware store to purchase paint? If you have, you probably used one of those sample swatch books to choose the colours you liked. Well, you may be surprised to learn that printers use a similar method to choose ink colour; its called the Pantone Matching System (PMS) and is a worldwide standard of selecting and using colour in the printing and publishing industry.

With this in mind it may now come as no surprise to learn that Microsoft Word does not support PMS colours or any of the other standard libraries of colour selection offered by dedicated desktop publishing software.

What if I have no other option but to use Microsoft Word?

If you are one of the many people who rely on Word to produce your documentation, then there is a solution to solve some of these issues, it’s PDF or Portable Document Format. I have dedicated a chapter to this (see page 57).

Dedicated Desktop Publishing Software

The last thing I wish to get into here is a debate over which software is better than another. The recommendations I offer here are my own personal ones based on my own experiences during my career.

First of all, if you are already using dedicated desktop

publishing software all well and good, if you have recently moved from Word for example, you should be commended on your excellent decision. If you are considering switching may I offer the following advice. Book yourself on one of the many training courses available, be patient and above all enjoy the experience, it can be very rewarding.

What you need

There is certainly a myriad of software available today associated with graphic arts and publishing, but they all fall generally into one or more of three categories; Page Layout, Drawing and Photo Manipulation.

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To be successful with desktop publishing you will need to have appropriate software from each of these three categories.

Page layout

The ability to arrange type and images on a page is an extremely important aspect of desktop publishing. Here all your ideas come to life right before your eyes. Of all the software to choose wisely a good page layout application is the one you need to get right.

The two main players today are Adobe InDesign and

QuarkXPress, both capable of excellent results. Other programs still used by some include Adobe PageMaker and Corel Draw.

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Adobe’s flagship page layout software promises a lot and certainly delivers on all of its promises. Feature packed and user friendly, InDesign has it all from its supercharged type features to its simple to use interface. Use InDesign and you will be in company with many of the worlds leading publishers and designers. Certainly, throughout Australia today, InDesign is by far the most widely used application.

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A few years ago QuarkXPress rightly claimed to be the worlds leading page layout application. Its only real

competition was the inferior and limited Adobe PageMaker. Unfortunately, Quark sat on its laurels and watched as Adobe developed InDesign to a point where (in my opinion) it surpassed Quark as a product and offered greater support and training.

I certainly found the switch from Quark to InDesign a painless and rewarding one.

Having said that, die hard Quark users still have an application which can deliver the goods and perform at an extremely high level.

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PageMaker was the first electronic application I ever used and back then it was cutting edge. I thought all my Christmas’s had come at once when I gazed upon the screen and witnessed type being manipulated and photographs

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being placed. Unfortunately, it never really developed successfully to compete with the superior QuarkXPress.

Adobe would later abandon further development of PageMaker and started from scratch with InDesign.

If you still use PageMaker can I strongly recommend you leave the dark side and invest in InDesign.

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I must confess to know very little about Corel Draw other than on the few occasions I have worked with it, it gave me problems. Maybe that had a lot to do with my lack of knowledge of the program or maybe I just refused to like it.

It would be extremely unfair of me to criticise a product I have little experience with, but what I can tell you is Corel Draw is not widely used by professional designers and printers, who both prefer InDesign or Quark.

Drawing

If I had to choose my favourite drawing program two or three years ago I would without hesitation have said Macromedia FreeHand. That was before Adobe bought Macromedia seemingly abandoning the future development of FreeHand and gave us the Creative Suite (read on for more about the Creative Suite).

Since then I opted to change my drawing application of choice to Adobe Illustrator, although I still have a fond place in my heart for FreeHand to this day.

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Illustrator nowadays has little competition in claiming to be the premier drawing application used today (Corel Draw users may argue).

It offers a huge selection of drawing tools and works seamlessly with its sister application InDesign. Use Illustrator to construct graphic elements which can later be imported into your page layout application, such as logo’s etc.

Also, Illustrator is ideal for creating print projects which are of an unusual shape such as folders or packaging. But don’t use Illustrator to construct book work, leave that to your page layout application, that’s what it’s designed to do.

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Photo manipulation

If you work with images from a digital camera or scanned from actual photographs, then you need to manage and manipulate those images. To do that there is one application which stands head and shoulders above all of its rivals, Adobe Photoshop.

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The world leader. Quite simply, with Photoshop you have all the tools you will ever need to create and manage digital images. Without an image manipulation application you can not produce successful electronic files for print. Please, invest in a copy of Photoshop, you won’t be disappointed.

The Creative Suite

It’s probably clear to you by now, the applications which I think are most suited for producing trouble free desktop publishing are Adobe one’s.

The best thing is; you can get them all in one package. For those of you who don’t already know, those clever marketing people at Adobe have put InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and the PDF application Acrobat all together as the Adobe Creative Suite. You buy one product and get everything you will ever need to become a desktop publishing master.

Take time to compare the price of the latest version of

QuarkXPress (which has no drawing, PDF or photo manipulation application) to a the Creative Suite, and you may be surprised at the cost difference.

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CHAPTER

3 B l e e d

B

y far, the two most common errors that prepress departments have to deal with are low resolution images and missing bleed. Low resolution images I will deal with a little later, bleed we will take a look at now.

So what exactly is bleed?

Fortunately, nothing to do with blood. It’s simply an allowance made on the artwork to assist the final trimming procedure. In just about all cases printed matter is produced on oversize stock and trimmed to final size later.

Here’s a simple demonstration to highlight why bleed needs to be applied to your artwork. Take a piece of paper and draw a rectangle about the size of a playing card with a thick black marker. Now take a pair of scissors and try to cut out the rectangle around its outside edge without leaving any small amounts of white paper showing and without cutting into the black line, you should find this just about impossible.

This scenario is exactly the same as an object or image running to the very edge of a page. If the image simply stopped there, then the guillotine operator would stand no chance of trimming the final job without leaving an unsightly white line of paper.

To compensate for this all you need to do is extend the image area at least 3mm past the final trim size of the page. This will ensure that the guillotine operator has an amount of tolerance to play with when the job is cut to final size, eliminating the possibility of the unsightly white line problem. Take for example figure 3.1 on the next page. The green panel and the image of the parrot actually extended past the page edge by 3mm.

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It’s worth pointing out here that Microsoft Word and other similar products do NOT allow you to do this.

Points to remember when working with bleed.

Remember that the bleed area is intended to be trimmed off, so don’t include important image information such as someone’s face into it. Allow extra background image area on photographs to handle this.

Because bleed only effects the outside edges of a page where it is trimmed, there is no need to apply bleed to the spine of a saddle stitched job. However, if your booklet is produced using a loose leaf binding method such as wiro, spiral or comb binding, then

BIRDLIFE

FIGURE 3.1

The blue keyline indicates your page size and the trimmed size of the job

This 3mm area extending past the kOJTIFEUSJNTJ[FJTLOPXOBTUIF bleed area Trim marks /PUJDFIPXUIF image of the parrot extends 3mm past the trim area

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you need to apply bleed to all four edges as there is technically no spine.

As you are probably aware, you cannot add bleed to the spine edge using a facing page document. To achieve this, simply set up your document with facing pages turned off in your page setup, so you work with a single stream document (see figure 3.2).

3

2

/PUJDFXIFOA'BDJOH1BHFT is selected you are unable to add bleed on the spine edge, ZPVXPVMEBDUVBMMZCFBEEJOH image to the opposite page.

3FNFNCFSXJUIMPPTFMFBG XPSLUIFQBHFTOFFEUPCF trimmed on all four edges not just the top, bottom and outside edge 'BDJOH1BHFTJTOPUTFMFDUFE XIFOQSFQBSJOHBkMFXIJDI is to be loose leaf or spiral bound. FIGURE 3.2

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Other times to use bleed

As well as book work, posters and leaflets, you also have to incorporate bleed onto products such as folders or anything which is an unusual shape. Usually these products are not trimmed on a guillotine, they are actually cut out using a specially made cutting die. With this kind of work I prefer to add 5mm bleed allowance (see figure 3.3).

$VUUJOHHVJEFJOEJDBUJOHXIFSF UIFGPMEFSXJMMCFDVUPVU

5mm bleed extending past the cutting guide

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CHAPTER

4 C r e e p

What is creep?

T

o fully understand what creep is and to how it affects a printed booklet try this simple demonstration.

Take approximately 10 sheets of A4 copier paper and fold them one sheet at a time, exactly in half. Now insert each folded piece of paper inside one another. In essence you have created a small A5 booklet which would normally be saddle stitched (stapled) through the spine.

Look closely at the leading edge of the folded booklet you created. You will notice that as the pages get closer to the centre of the booklet the pages progressively begin to stick out further and further, this unavoidable effect is commonly known in the printing trade as creep. The actual distance that the pages creep is determined by two factors; the number of pages and the thickness or weight of the paper.

Generally, creep only effects saddle stitched books but in some instances it can effect perfect, burst or section sewn books.

What are the issues caused by creep?

The effect of creep is highlighted when the finished book is trimmed to its final size. Since the final trimming will be

performed to the trim marks on the outside pages (the first and last pages) the other pages will progressively, as you move towards the centre spread, have more image area trimmed off.

Obviously, this could have drastic results if elements such as page folios or blocks of text are close to the outside edge. The chance of cutting into them is a real possibility (see figure 4.1).

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Can creep be compensated for by the printer?

The simple answer is yes! But it is very important to understand that the effects of creep like many other factors in the printing process, can be minimised by some careful consideration at the design stage. For instance, by keeping items such as page folios a safe distance away from the outside edge.

When a pre-press department prepares a multipage document for printing it rearranges the pages in a special order, in line with the folding procedure. This process is called ‘Imposition’. During this process each individual page can be moved progressively closer to the spine to negate the effects of creep. The centre spread will need to be moved the most.

As an example a 64 page booklet printed on 100gsm paper will need to have approximately 3mm creep allowance built into the imposition process. This means, the outside pages 1, 2, 63, and 64 will not move at all, but progressively towards the centre of the book the rest of the pages will begin to move towards the spine until the centre spread has moved a total of 3mm.

The negative side of the creep process.

There is a negative side of applying creep to a booklet. Since pages are moved closer to the spine, ask yourself what happens to the lost image area? In most cases the missing image area will not This graphics highlights

the effects of creep after the trimming process. /PUJDFIPXUIFQBHF folios on the centre TQSFBEBSFOPX dangerously close to the edge of the page

210mm 205mm 2 40 40 41 1st leaf Centre spread FIGURE 4.1

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be noticed, if its just white space for example. But what if two adjacent pages have a block of type matter stretching across both the left and right hand pages?

If, whilst compensating for creep, the left page lost 3mm of image area near the spine and likewise the right hand page, then you are effectively missing 6mm of image area, obviously unacceptable if a block of type or even a photograph is effected (see figure 4.2).

This is even more obvious if an image crosses the spine on an angle, not only do you lose image area, but you also get a pronounced step or misalignment where the two halves of the image meet (see figure 4.3).

To cook the beef, a moderate oven CBTUJOHXJUIUIFS every 15 minutes 4FSWFXJUIHBSMJD and seasonal veg For an extra speci :PSLTIJSF1VEEJO OFYUDIBQUFSDPWF of onion gravy. imply roast in or 45 minutes, TFSWFENBSJOBUF NBTIFEQPUBUPFT tables. l treat make the TTIPXOJOUIF FEXJUIMBTIJOHT Notice the missing image area

on the block of type and on the kangaroo picture FIGURE 4.2

Spine of book

Images on an angle are most effected by creep

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How can I prevent this happening?

The first thing I would suggest when preparing a multipage document is to have a chat with your printer. They will advise you on how best to handle your particular job.

In my experience, by far the best way to compensate for the effects of creep is to design the work with creep in mind. You can do two things; design the job so when creep is applied the image area close to the spine is not an issue. Or, alternatively, design the job so there is no need to apply creep at all (i.e. keep page elements such as page numbers and text well away from the outside edge).

I have come across instances where creep is applied to all pages except the centre spread, here page numbers on the centre spread are moved towards the spine within InDesign (or even removed altogether) to allow for the lack of creep compensation.

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CHAPTER

5 C u t t i n g & C r e a s i n g G u i d e s

I

f you’ve ever created a piece of artwork such as a folder or anything of an unusual shape, then you will have most likely had to draw a Cutting and Creasing Guide, sometimes called a Keyline. The purpose of this guide is to provide the maker of the cutting and creasing die with an exact final shape of your job. In fact, the die makers will use an image of your cutting guide as a template.

Creating the actual guide in InDesign or Illustrator is a fairly simple process, but here are a few tips to remember.

• Don’t make the thickness of the line too thin or too thick, about 1pt or 0.5mm is ideal.

• Colour the line a bright colour which stands out against the background so it is easily seen.

• Define the colour of the line as new spot colour and name it accordingly, ‘Cutting Guide’.

• Ensure the cutting guide is set to Overprint within the Attributes Pallet, this will make sure it does not knockout of the background.

• It is best to use a separate layer for the cutting guide. This way the file can be viewed and printed with ease with or without the guide on display.

• Ensure your artwork bleeds (extends) past the cutting guide by at least 3mm (5mm recommended).

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About 1pt or 0.5mm is ideal for the stroke XFJHIUPGBDVUUJOHHVJEF

Give the cutting guide its PXOMBZFSBOEOBNFJU A$VUUJOH(VJEF

*OUIF"UUSJCVUFT1BMFUUF select Overprint Stroke. This XJMMFOTVSFUIFDVUUJOHHVJEF does nor knock out of base BSUXPSL

%FkOFUIFDPMPVSPGUIFMJOFBTOFX spot colour and name it accordingly, Cutting Guide.

*UTCFTUUPNBLFUIF cutting guide in a colour XIJDITUBOETPVUXFMMGSPN UIFCBTFBSUXPSL

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CHAPTER

6 D o c u m e n t C o n s t r u c t i o n

A

lthough the printing and pre-press process can often make allowances for slight indiscretions in artwork construction, generally it relies on 100% accuracy on behalf of the document’s creator.

All of the desktop publishing programs used today offer a number of tools allowing you to do this. But often, just some common sense and a greater understanding of the printing and binding process will help you construct trouble-free accurate artwork and ensure the final job is printed as you expected.

The techniques shown in this chapter I used well before computers entered the workplace and even nowadays the same principles and guidelines still apply today with the construction of electronic files.

Brochures with page tuck-ins

DL roll-folded brochures

One of the most common products printed today would have to be the 6 page DL brochure. Then it may come as a bit of a surprise to find out that they often give printers the odd headache or two.

Why? I hear you say. “Is it not as simple as an A4 sheet folded into thirds?”

NO, it is NOT - far from it!

The problems start when page sizes are not correct and elements which are meant to sit exactly on the fold - don’t. With these kind of jobs the artwork MUST be created 100% accurate, near enough is not good enough!

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Before we look more closely at how to prepare artwork for a DL brochure, we need to establish exactly what size DL actually is. For those of you who are not sure, it’s a third of an A4 sheet; 210mm x 99mm. Remember, 210mm x 99mm.

The most obvious way to construct this would be to create an A4 document and divide it into three panels of 99mm (see figure 6.1). The problem doing this is the panel that tucks inside the other two needs to be slightly narrower (about 2 to 3mm) to allow the brochure to lie completely flat when folded.

You may think that simply adjusting the measurements to 100mm, 100mm and 97mm would solve the problem and to a

certain extent you would be right. However, the new problem you have created here is; the finished size of the brochure is no longer true DL.

If this is OK with you, you should let your printer know before they try and fold it to the correct size.

Another incorrect method I come across regularly is to create a 3 page facing pages document (see figure 6.2). The obvious problem here is, currently in InDesign you cannot define a document with different page sizes, so the tuck in page cannot be narrower.

The solution is very straightforward; often the best solutions are. Simply create your document 295mm x 210mm and divide it into 3 panels of 99mm, 99mm and 97mm. This way you allow 2mm for the tuck-in and the finished folded size is 210mm x 99mm; true DL (see figure 6.3). Remember the opposite side is a mirror image.

The same principle applies if the brochure has eight or more pages, in each instance where pages tuck-in, they MUST be narrower than the pages they tuck inside of (see figure 6.4).

If you follow this advice and are accurate with your artwork construction then the results will be exactly as you expect.

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Remember, the opposite side of a folded brochure or any other printed product JTBNJSSPSJNBHFPGJUTGSPOU*GZPVSOBSSPXFSQBOFMJTPOUIFMFGUIBOETJEFPO UIFGSPOUPGBCSPDIVSF JUXJMMCFPOUIFPQQPTJUFTJEF SJHIUPOUIFJOTJEF

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297mm

99mm 99mm 99mm In this example, 3 separate

InDesign facing pages have been created, the same problem as above arises

FIGURE 6.2 Here a single A4 page has

CFFODSFBUFE NNY NNUIFO XJUIUIFVTFPG guides, divided into 3 equal panels. 5IJTXJMMOPUBMMPXUIF CSPDIVSFUPMJFlBUXIFO folded to these dimensions

FIGURE 6.1

297mm

99mm 99mm 99mm

2

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5IJTJTCZGBS UIFCFTUXBZ to create a DL brochure. Just remember, on the opposite side of the brochure the OBSSPXFSQBOFM NNXJMM be on the right hand side

FIGURE 6.3 295mm 97mm 99mm 99mm

3

295mm 95mm 97mm 99mm 99mm /PUJDFIFSFXJUIUIJTQBHF CSPDIVSF IPXUIFMBTUQBOFM POUIFMFGUJTFWFOOBSSPXFS than the one on the right. 5IJTBMMPXTUIFMBTUQBHFUP

tuck inside the pages that already tuck inside. 5IJTJTTIPXODMFBSMZPOUIF OFYUQBHF kHVSF FIGURE 6.4

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99mm 99mm 95mm 99mm 99mm 97mm 95mm 4FFIPXUIFQBHFTUIBUUVDLJO BSFOBSSPXFSUIBOUIFQBHFT they tuck inside

FIGURE 6.5

Concertina brochures

Although brochures which fold in a concertina configuration (see figure 6.6), are very similar to roll-fold brochures there is one important difference. Since there are no pages tucking in, there is no need to alter the width of any pages.

The exception to this rule would be a brochure which happened to be a mixture of both roll-fold and concertina-fold. In a case like this you would still make the pages that tuck-in narrower (see figure 6.7).

Concertina fold; all page XJEUITTIPVMESFNBJOUIF same FIGURE 6.6 *GBDPODFSUJOBGPMEFECSPDIVSF BMTPDPOUBJOTBQBHFUIBUUVDLT JO JUTIPVMECFOBSSPXFSUIBO the other pages

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Folders

All of the techniques and allowances mentioned for the construction of small folded brochures apply equally to large folders. After all, they are basically the same - just bigger!

Again, don’t use the ‘Facing Pages’ option to construct your artwork, (see figure 6.8). It’s much easier and accurate to create a single page document (see figure 6.9).

Remember, the other side of the document will be a mirror image of this side.

2

3

210mm 210mm 210mm NN NN 210mm 210mm %POUVTFGBDJOHQBHFTUP construct a folder '*(63&

A one page document XJMMBMMPXZPVUPDSFBUFB OBSSPXFSQBHFGPSUIFUVDLJO

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When is a cover not a cover?

When it’s a ‘Self-cover’.

Understanding the difference between a cover and a self-cover will help you immensely to layout your documents correctly.

Basically, if the cover of a publication is printed on the same stock as the inside or text pages, the publication is said to have a self-cover. Whereas, if the cover of a publication is printed on different stock to the inside, it is then known as a separate cover. Both should be laid out separately in InDesign.

Laying out a self-cover publication

Since both the cover and the text pages are to be printed on the same stock the printer will treat them both as one job. There is no need to supply the cover and text pages as separate files. Simply create one facing pages document (see figure 6.10).

Laying out a separate cover and text publication

Here a slightly different approach is necessary. When the cover is printed on a different stock to the text pages, it’s then considered to be a completely separate print job. With this in mind you should take the same approach and create two separate documents.

I’ve found the easiest way to create a front and back cover is to make a single-page document rather than two facing pages. For example, with an A4 size book you would create an A3 page for the front and back, and a second A3 page for the inside front and inside back (if necessary) (see figure 6.11).

Front cover FIGURE 6.10

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FIGURE 6.11 Front and back cover Inside front and inside back cover

Front and back cover

Inside front and inside back cover

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When you create a multipage document there is an important rule of

UZQPHSBQIZZPVTIPVMETUSJDUMZBEIFSFUP0EEQBHFGPMJPTTIPVMEBMXBZTGBMMPO a right hand page and even ones on the left.

A separate text document should be set up in the OPSNBMXBZVTJOHGBDJOH pages

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CHAPTER

7 Wo r k i n g w i t h C o l o u r

Colour models

O

nce you begin working with colour and coloured images in your desktop publishing projects, you will need to understand the differences between RGB and CYMK colours. Both these colour models are designed for different purposes, one for displaying colour electronically i.e. your television, computer or on the Web, the other to prepare colour for the commercial printing process.

RGB

RGB is an acronym for Red, Green and Blue and is how colour is displayed on your computer screen using various amounts of red, green and blue light. This process is known as ‘Additive Colour’, because you actually create pure white light by adding red, green and blue light (see figure 7.1). Black would be created by the total absence of all light.

FIGURE 7.1

This graphic represents IPXWBSJPVTBNPVOUTPG red, green and blue light simulate the process colours cyan, magenta BOEZFMMPX Red Blue Green Yellow Cyan Magenta White

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You will find your digital camera will shoot its images in the RGB colour model, after all a digital camera uses light not ink to create its images. Because much more of the colour spectrum is visible to the human eye in RGB, performing colour correction in Photoshop is best done whilst in the RGB colour model. But at some point you must convert RGB images into CMYK (for colour) or Grayscale (for black and white) to make them suitable for the commercial printing process.

CMYK

CMYK is an acronym for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, the four process colours used in the commercial printing process to reproduce full colour photographs. ‘K’ is used to describe black because using a ‘B’ could be confused as blue.

CMYK colours are said to be ‘Subtractive Colours’, which means that colours become darker as light is subtracted by the density of the printing inks before travelling to the eye. In this case a total saturation of the three process colours would result in a brownish black (see figure 7.2). Because of this, black ink is added to the three other process colours to give density and detail.

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FIGURE 7.2

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Remember, use the RGB colour model if you intend to reproduce your images on the Web and the CMYK colour model if you intend to send them to a commercial printer.

You can easily change the colour NPEFMPGBOJNBHFXJUIJO1IPUPTIPQ

(34)

Just about all the colours in the printable spectrum can be reproduced using various overlapping tints of the process colours.

Please note: colours such as metallics and fluorescents are

extremely difficult to reproduce successfully from the process colour set (see page 34 on spot colours).

Grayscale

If you intend to reproduce your photographic images in black and white (or any other single spot-colour) then you need to convert your RGB or CMYK images to Grayscale.

Grayscale images are made up of 256 levels of gray; 0 being pure white and 255 being pure black (see figure 7.3).

Bitmap

The bitmap colour model basically saves an image in either black or white pixels. So, it is the best colour model to use for line work such as signatures or line drawings with no tonal value.

Duotones

If your project is printed in two colours (black and blue for example), then you could utilise the use of duotones for your images.

A duotone is basically a grayscale image which also contains a certain amount of a secondary colour to add more interest to the design (see figure 7.4). I have often seen old images use this technique to replicate a sepia tone using black and a light brown

Grayscale images are made up of individual pixels representing 256 levels of gray

(35)

Spot colours v CMYK

T

he standard commercial printing process allows you to print colour in basically three ways; CMYK, spot-colour or a combination of both. There are some other less common methods of printing colour, but for the sake of sanity and less confusion lets concentrate on the main ones.

CMYK printing

Pick up a colour magazine from the newsagents and it’s more than likely it was printed using the CMYK printing process. As discussed earlier in the section on ‘colour models’, CMYK is the acronym used to describe the four process colours; cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This is where the term ‘four-colour printing’ is derived from.

Basically, all the elements which make up a full colour project are separated into various tints of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. A separate printing plate is then produced for each colour, when these are printed in perfect register, one on top of each other, a full colour image materialises (see figure 7.5).

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(36)

Cyan plate Magenta plate

:FMMPXQMBUF Black plate

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Spot colour printing

This process is mainly used for one, two or three colour work. Spot- colour printing uses the exact colour ink needed to reproduce the image.

Printers are able to purchase any colour ink from the ‘Pantone Matching System’ guide or mix any colour from a standard range of base colours (just like buying paint).

A two-colour letterhead for example, will have two printing plates made (one for each colour) and the printing press will have the two different colour inks loaded onto the ink units.

A combination of both

There are many occasions when you will find it necessary not only to work in CMYK, but also use spot-colour/s in the same job. When this happens the spot colours are known as 5th, 6th ... etc. ‘printers’. In other words. spot-colour plates are in addition to the four-process colours.

You may ask the question. “Why would you go to the expense of adding additional colours to your print job, if you are able to create most colours from the four process colours”?

There are a number of reasons for this, here are a couple; • It is just about impossible to create some colours from the

four process colours. For example; metallic or fluorescent colours.

• Colour consistency. Although reproducing colour using process colours can be very accurate, keeping colour consistency from press to press or printer to printer can be difficult. If a client strongly advises that their corporate colours are to be reproduced exactly the same, any time, anywhere on any printing press, then the best way to achieve this is by using the correct coloured ink rather than out of CMYK. A single spot-colour ink is much easier to colour match and keep consistent than a colour made out of the process-colours. To be able to print jobs using the standard four CMYK inks and other spot-colours, printing presses are available with multiple printing units to accommodate all the different inks.

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Overprints and knockouts

Once you start working with colour you need to fully understand the concept of overprints and knockouts and how they effect the final printed product.

The basic concept is fairly simple, a colour that prints directly on top of another colour is said to ‘overprint’. For example black type usually overprints its underlying background colour.

Knockout colours on the other hand, don’t print on top of the underlying background, they print directly onto the paper itself. The effect is rather like cutting a hole through the background with a cookie cutter.

Normally, all colours (even white), in desktop publishing applications will automatically knockout of any background. This is a normal default setting. Black however, will normally overprint. This is the correct usual behaviour you would expect.

You may well ask. “If these are the default settings of the application, why would I need to be concerned”?

Because there may be a time when you need to adjust the default settings for a special effect for instance. To do this you would use the Overprint Fill settings in the Attributes Palette.

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(39)

Rich blacks

B

efore we look closely into what rich blacks are and how they are used effectively in printing, we need to establish one fact; black printing ink is not totally 100% black. Well, yes, technically it is, but it could be blacker.

I can hear some of you say, “You can’t have a colour blacker than black”. Well actually, yes you can, it’s called a rich black.

Try this easy little experiment, it just about highlights exactly what I mean.

Take a piece of white paper and with a thick black marker pen draw and colour in a square about 50mm x 50mm. The resulting image should be a black square - no arguments there.

Now, take a blue or a red marker and draw a thick cross through the square, even though you have drawn the cross on top of a solid black image you still should be able to clearly see the cross where it passes through the black.

Why? Because you’ve just simulated the effects of a rich black. Because the marker pens are transparent just like printing inks, the second colour makes the black denser or ‘richer’.

Printing inks act very similar to watercolour paints, lay one colour on top of another colour (blue and yellow for instance) and you get green, lay any colour on top or underneath black and you get a darker or richer black.

How and when to use rich blacks?

There are a couple of situations in printing when using rich blacks instead of a flat black is highly recommended, so learning the following techniques is a powerful tool to master.

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Remember, printing inks are transparent, with this in mind take a look at figure 7.7. In this example the black letter ‘S’ and the ‘black panel’ are both made of 100% black and both overprint (print on top) of the underlying image.

Look closely, you should be able to notice that where the two black elements overlap the background, the black is darker or denser due to the underlying colour showing through.

(40)

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FIGURE 7.7

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Obviously, not having a consistent flat coverage of the black ink may make the final printed image look slightly strange, (sort of washed out in some places and darker in others).

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In this instance the black is the normal default 100% Black in the 4XBUDIFT1BMFUUF

(41)

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To make a black element print dense and completely flat, simply create a ‘Rich Black’ in the Swatches Palette (see figure 7.9). In the case of a four-colour process job this would be done using 100% black and 50% cyan. If your job was black and another spot-colour then you would use 100% and 50% of the second colour (see figure 7.10).

InDesign sees this rich black colour as a unique stand alone colour and accordingly does not try to overprint it on top of its background. The end result is the black is dense and unaffected by whatever lies underneath.

If you look at figure 7.11, this highlights how the underlying colour is effected by the use of a rich black.

Create a rich black by NJYJOHBOFXDPMPVS TXBUDINBEFVQPG black and 50% cyan

FIGURE 7.9

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(42)

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Magenta separation only

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(43)

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Take a look at figure 7.12, a simple black poster with some coloured images. This example is a prime candidate to make the black solid - a rich black, it will look great made up of 100% black, 50% cyan.

But, there is another good reason to utilise the rich black technique... to help the printer.

Printing a flat solid black requires the printer to run the black ink at a higher strength than they would normally prefer. The down side to this is; other elements using black (such as the three animal images) will reproduce darker than expected. In fact the images may appear dirty.

To avoid this happening, the use of a rich black for the solid will allow the printer to run the black at normal density and the images will print perfectly.

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(44)

Working with colour libraries

All professional desktop publishing applications offer a wide selection of colour libraries to choose colour swatches from and it can be a little confusing to the newcomer.

Fortunately, there is only a small selection of these libraries which you normally need to be concerned with.

Pantone solid coated & uncoated

These are the two libraries you will use most often.

The first thing you need to understand is; there is no such thing as coated ink or uncoated ink, the same tin of Pantone 295 for instance is used whichever colour library is selected. The difference is how the colour appears on the paper it is printed on.

There are thousands of different types of paper (or stock), but they all generally fall under two main categories; coated or uncoated. Coated stock has a finish applied to the surface such as glossy stocks for example, whereas uncoated stocks such as standard photocopier paper is unfinished.

Each type of stock accepts ink differently, on uncoated stock the ink will generally appear darker than the same ink printed on a coated stock. This is why we are offered two different colour libraries within InDesign. Each library tries to replicate on screen how the colour will appear on the stock you are printing on.

The point to remember here is; unless your monitor is calibrated correctly to display colour it really does not matter which library you choose to work from. Just choose one and stick with it.

If on the other hand your monitor has been calibrated correctly to display colour, then you need to firstly; identify the stock your project is to be printed on and use the appropriate colour library.

Metallics and pastel libraries

As I mentioned earlier, metallic, pastel and fluorescent inks are notoriously difficult to reproduce using the four-process colours. If you select a colour from one of these libraries, then be prepared to print it as a spot-colour for the desired effect.

Please note: that metallic inks are the only lithographic inks

(45)

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Making the most of two colours

When you are working with a limited palette of only a couple of colours, here’s a tip to extend your design possibilities.

InDesign allows you create other colours by mixing various amounts of the base colours you have in your swatches palette.

**A.JYFE*OL4XBUDIFT**

In this example (figure 7.13) the file is created using two base colours, black and Pantone 185 Red. By selecting ‘New Mixed Ink Swatch’ from the Swatch Palette’s drop down menu, you can then define another colour to be made by mixing different amounts of black and the red.

In this example I have created a Dark Red by mixing 100% Pantone 185 and 40% Black. The new colour will be added to the Swatch Palette ready-to-use and will separate accordingly with the black and red separations.

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CHAPTER

8 F i l e F o r m a t s

W

hen you work with desktop publishing applications such as InDesign, Illustrator or QuarkXPress you will at some point find it necessary to import images or graphics created in another application such as Photoshop or Illustrator.

All of these images and graphics can be saved in various file formats, all of which have a specific purpose. The question is, “Which format is best for the task I am performing”?

Let’s see if I can make this easier for you.

Photographic images

Whether your photographic images are taken from a digital camera or scanned from hard copy the final format you save your images in remains the same.

There are a few file formats I would like to bring to your attention, all of them suitable for your desktop publishing projects (although some more suitable than others).

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format

TIFF files are supported by all major desktop publishing

applications and will, on the whole, give you no problems. Just one thing to keep in mind, some applications will not support transparency features used by TIFFs in Photoshop.

PSD - Photoshop Document

PSD is Adobe Photoshop’s native file format. In my opinion this is the best format to save your images in. All of Photoshop and InDesign’s transparency features are fully supported.

(47)

JPEG - Joint Photographers Expert Group

If you own a digital camera you will probably be aware this is the format that is most often used to capture the image.

The JPEG file format serves a particular purpose, the file is compressed to make it smaller. In fact, JPEG images can be tiny compared to TIFFs or PSDs.

Generally, it is fine to use JPEGs, but be aware! Since the whole point of a JPEG is to compress the file there is a price to pay. JPEG is said to be a ‘lossy file format’. In other words once you save an image as a JPEG you will lose some quality. Re-save the same file and you lose more quality, and so on.

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Stay well away from these two file formats, they work well with images to be used on the Web, but are unsuitable in a desktop publishing environment.

Vector-based graphics

Vector based graphics are those which were created in a drawing program such as Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. They differ from photographic images in they are not generated from pixels, they use lines and curves produced mathematically.

Generally, if you save your vector-based graphics as .eps files they will be fine. However, if you intend to place then into InDesign then I suggest you save them in Adobe’s native Illustrator .ai format. This way they can take advantage of more of InDesign’s editing features.

The main advantage of using vactor based graphics is the graphic can be scaled at any size without any loss of quality in the final output.

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CHAPTER

9 T h e D i g i t a l C a m e r a &

M a n a g i n g R e s o l u t i o n

I

think everyone will agree that over the past few years the digital camera revolution has changed the way we all handle our photography dramatically. No more so than in the printing and graphic arts industry. Whereas once, all photography was supplied to a printer as hard copy photos or transparencies to be scanned by a professional scanner operator, nowadays many images are supplied directly from a digital camera.

My intention in this section is not to compare the virtues of traditional photography with digital photography, nor is it to compare the results of using a professional photographer over the images amateurs produce. It is rather to explain the complexities and misconceptions of resolution and how to successfully manage your digital files.

Your Digital Camera

If you use a digital camera you need to sit down and read the manual that came with it. There should be a section on Quality Settings. The lower the quality setting you choose the more images you can store on the memory chip. The higher the setting the less images you can store on the memory chip.

Basically, what’s happening here is the lower quality images contain less pixels, where the higher quality images are made up of many more pixels. I would strongly advise that you set your camera to operate at the highest quality possible. From here the image and its resolution can be managed accordingly.

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What is resolution and how is it

measured?

Basically, resolution is the amount of digital information contained within an electronic image. When you take a digital photograph or scan an image, you actually convert the subject into a series of very small squares of colour known as pixels (short for picture elements). Each individual pixel is made of one flat colour and the amount of pixels contained within an image determines the quality of the print output.

The amount of resolution within an image is referred to as ‘pixels per inch’ or ppi. Some people actually refer to the resolution of an image as ‘dots per inch’ or dpi, which in fact relates to the output resolution of a printing device. A small tip – please refrain from trying to convert ppi into pixels per centimetre, this can be very confusing as using the imperial inch for measuring resolution is a worldwide standard.

What is the correct resolution to use?

This depends on what you intend to do with the final image, for instance, an image intended to be printed on a printing press needs much more resolution (300ppi) than an image intended for use on the web (72ppi).

Before we get into this subject, there is one extremely important piece of information you need to understand. The resolution of an image in pixels, and the physical size of the image (width and height in millimetres) work hand in hand with each other.

When an image is placed into a document and scaled up by a factor of 200% you effectively half its resolution. When an image is placed into a document and scaled down by 50% you effectively double its resolution.

To explain this further take a look at the chess board graphic (figure 9.1) and imagine that it is 1 inch x 1 inch and each square is a pixel, you actually have 8 pixels per linear inch. Double the size of the chess board and you only have 4 pixels per inch. Half the size, and you double the amount of pixels to 16 per inch.

(50)

Understand this concept and you will be well on your way to understanding resolution.

Managing the resolution of images from a digital camera

Before you can use the images downloaded from your digital camera there are a number of issues you must address. For instance, the images need to be converted into the correct file format and correct colour model. This would normally mean converting the images from RGB JPEG’s to CMYK (or Grayscale) TIFFs or PSD files.

Once that part of the process is complete it’s time to look at the important issue of resolution.

Most digital cameras normally shoot pictures at 72ppi which is considered to be low resolution. But, the other factor to consider here is, the actual physical size (width and height in centimetres) of the image.

My own camera at its highest setting produces an image

1 inch 1 inch

1 inch FIGURE 9.1

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By reducing the image 50% you effectively have UXJDFBTNBOZQJYFMTUPUIF inch. So you are doubling the resolution to 16 pixels per inch

By enlarging the image by 200% you effectively have half as many pixels to the inch. So you are halving the resolution to 4 pixels per inch

100%

50%

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DNT

60.11cms

14.8mb

Adjusting the resolution to 300ppi

I must make one point perfectly clear here. You CANNOT take a low resolution image, wave a magic wand and suddenly pull a high resolution image out of a hat - it doesn’t work like that.

To adjust your original camera images from 72ppi to 300ppi you have to make a compromise, there’s a price you have to pay.

Remember in the chessboard example from the previous page, reducing the physical size by 50% effectively doubled the resolution i.e. doubled the number of pixels per inch, this is how we increase the resolution of an original 72ppi image.

The compromise we have to make is the image will have to reduce in size to gain the necessary resolution.

This picture of the tiger has been taken directly from the camera. The only thing I have done is DIBOHFJUTGPSNBUUP14% and its colour model to CMYK.

Please note: to get the

image on the page I have IBEUPTDBMFJUEPXO XJUIJO*O%FTJHO

FIGURE 9.2

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19.24cms

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You just have to follow a couple of simple steps. 1. Open the original image to be altered in Photoshop. 2. Open the ‘Image Size’ palette.

3. De-select the ‘Resample Image’ option (notice how the Height, Width and Resolution options are now all commonly connected. 4. Change the resolution from 72ppi to 300ppi - now notice how the height and width are reduced accordingly. This new height and width is effectively the maximum size this image can be reproduced using the commercial printing process

Notice the size in megabytes has remained unchanged. After all, you have not removed any information, you simply made a compromise.

FIGURE 9.3 Changing the resolution

to 300ppi changes the QIZTJDBMIFJHIUBOEXJEUI of the image. /PUFIPXUIFA3FTBNQMF *NBHFCPYJTEFTFMFDUFE

Supplying Files to a Commercial Printer