Commercial Printing Company

I would appreciate the names of some Commercial Printing Companies which do a nice job with printing large digital files. I have some landscapes which I edited to look like paintings...I don't know which DPI would be best for printing...180, 200, 300 DPI?

On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 16:17:33 -0800, [email protected] wrote in
<[email protected]>:
>I would appreciate the names of some Commercial Printing Companies
>which do a nice job with printing large digital files. I have some
>landscapes which I edited to look like paintings...I don't know which
>DPI would be best for printing...180, 200, 300 DPI?
DPI needed depends on viewing distance. For images viewed close up, 300
DPI or more might be advisable. For images viewed from a distance, even
less than 180 DPI might be fine.
Commercial companies:
* http://www.printrunner.com/
* http://www.elcocolor.com/poster_special.htm
Best regards, Be sure to check for answers to your questions at
John Navas http://help.adobe.com/en_US/PhotoshopElements/6.0/

Similar Messages

Should the print company I use be able to change a file to spot color for me?

I recently sent a document in to a major print company to have a folder printed. The document was created in Illustrator using only two colors. They said they could not print it because it was still more than two colors and that I needed to change it to a two color document using Pantone Spot Color.
I've never had to do that for a print company before but I've also never had a two color project before. I opened the file back up and selected my objects and "recolored" the work and deleted all the swatches aside from the two colors I needed that were now Pantone Spot Color (HSB). It literally took me 2 minutes.
The reason I am asking is because they pretty much said that I don't know what I'm doing, which to a designer is completely insulting. We all do new things from time to time but that is an insult. Shouldn't they, a large print company with years of experience, know how to do this for me? They had the original design file.. Maybe they don't know what they are doing?
Any clarity on as to why I needed to do it and not them is greatly appreciated. Also.. any direction as the best way to use spot color over cmyk is appreciated too.

...which to a designer is completely insulting...
What's so special about "a designer"?
Prior to the mid 1980s, designers could get away with prima Donna attitudes, because they (or their employers) were paying pre-press "color houses" around $350 per hour to tweak colors to sooth their oh-so-erudite discernment and hyper-developed color sensitivities, and to gain reimbursement for the $100 per plate lunches on proof-check days.
That all changed when designers (and their employers) got tired of paying those fees and took on the responsibility for the technical side of assembling their designs into something printable. That was the so-called "desktop revolution" and "revolution" was not a bad word for it. It turned a huge industry on its head. Color houses which didn't adopt PostScript devices and workflows were soon dropping like flies--and so were designers who didn't climb down off their lofty pedestals and buckle down to learning the technical realities of what they were doing.
Don't be insulted, but the simple fact is, you still don't know what you're doing if you think converting any given process color job to a two-spot job is "just a couple of minutes' work." Only in the very simplest designs would it be as simple as re-defining a couple of process Swatches as spot color Swatches.
In Illustrator in particular, doing so won't even work if the original Swatches were not originally defined as Global Swatches.
If those two process Swatches were used in any Blends, converting them to spot will likely not update the intermediate steps of the Blend. In earlier versions of Illustrator, the same problem applied to grads.
You can often get away with not having properly trapped the file with process swatches, because there are potentially four component inks which may be shared between adjacent different-color objects. Spot inks are not so forgiving. Trapping is essential if the two spot colors touch.
So you really expect a printer to just have a policy to do that for you? And thereby bear responsibility for anything they may misinterpret or overlook that may cause a registration sliver on press and thereby loose every bit of profit on the printing (which these days is cut-throat competitive)?
No. It's your responsibility to build the file correctly. The printing houses I use know better. They know I would have a coniption fit if I ever caught them modifying one of my files. They know they are to return any problem file to me for correction.
JET

Color assistance needed for commercial printer

Hi there,
We're a board game publisher about to send our first game to an overseas manufacturer. The game is composed of hundreds of cards with detailed, fantasy art, and we're excited to get this game finally out the door.
We sent the raw, packaged indesign (CS6) files to a local printer to see how everything would look before we have 3,000 copies of the game made overseas. The local printer used the same process that the overseas printer will, a 4 color high-end printer that is certainly impressive to people new to the industry such as ourselves. The sample cards they printed came out with fantastic clarity, but the colors are very muted. It's not a subtle change in color like I might see when toggling RGB to CMYK in photoshop for example. Instead, the colors on the print out look like someone slid a color saturation slider on the entire indesign file down by 25%.
When we print on our low-end inket at the office, the resolution is obviously poor, but the colors look great and match our calibrated monitors. When we export to PDF using "Press Quality", everything looks perfect on multiple computers here and at other locations away from the office. It's only the most important step, printing on a full-blown, commercial printer that the colors look so muted.
Here are some crude photos I took on my phone to help show the difference.
These photos have our office, inkjet printer cards are more colorful and the high-quality commercial printer cards are muted (sorry for the strange alignment, this forum is rotating the images for some reason):
http://www.watchtowergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/photo-1.jpg
http://www.watchtowergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/photo-2.jpg
http://www.watchtowergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/photo-3.jpg
Different cards here:
http://www.watchtowergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/photo-1b.jpg
http://www.watchtowergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/photo-2b.jpg
I've researched about swatches and color profiles, but all my experimenting hasn't produced any difference on my end. Therein lies the challenge, as I cannot duplicate the problem here at the office. The colors look great in indesign, great in exported PDFs, and great on our inkjet printed cards. Only when we pay a decent amount of money to the local commercial printer do we get these muted colors in our samples. And the local printer says their setup is exactly the same as our overseas manufacturer, which is terrifying. We've spent 17 months agonizing over all the details of the look of our cards for aesthetic purposes and game play so that players can quickly identify each card type by color. These muted colors will really mess the game up. We're pulling our hair out over here.
The local printer has offered to provide a color correction service for us, but at $100 an hour, that sounds like a lot for a new business like ours.
Is there some setting inside indesign that we are missing? Is there a way to replicate the muted colors on our end so we can at least troubleshoot this? Is there a method to turn up the saturation, if you will, for 4 color printing? Should we bite the bullet and pay the local printer an arm and a leg to color correct this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Tom
P.S. Also, if it helps, when we had the local printer digitally print a sample, everything looked far too dark, which they said was a side effect of the digital print process.

Thanks for the response, Rob.
We talked with a local printer as they assured us that their setup was the same standard that the overseas printer uses. They said the sample sheet they printed for us had marks on the edges. Supposedly, once we had everything matching up right with the local printer, we could mail the printed sheet here to the overseas printer and their system would put in the sheet with its colors on the edges and know exactly what we wanted. Heck, if I know. I'm picking this up as I go along.
By your post, it sounds like we have introduced an unnecessary variable (this local printer) and should just cut them out of the process and deal directly with the overseas printer. The challenge is that the next step is for them to make a sample game for us, and at $1,000 a sample game, it's going to get crazy expensive if we have to go through several samples. I'll see if they can just run a single sheet of cards as a test run like you suggested.
If the overseas printer sheet or sample game comes up with the muted color problem still, what steps happen next. I ask because I'm used to solving the issues and don't understand how to solve this one if it comes up again. Do I just tell them to "make it more vibrant" and they work their magic as professional printers, or is the expectation that I'm to go through each of our many illustrations and graphic designs and over-saturate them myself? I suppose we can cross that bridge when we get to it. It's just hard to work for 18 months on this game getting everything just right and now see this color issue that is out my hands that I cannot solve.
For color space, I think I understand you. Most of our art is RGB.Our Proof Setup is "CMYK - US SWOP v2".
Thanks again for the information.
Tom

Need advice on Pages for commercially printed publications.

Here is my situation. I have created a publication (a buy/sell classified magazine) using Pages.
Pages was recommended to me as opposed to Indesign or Quark as it has some great placeholder options for text and photos and would set up nicely as an easy template. So I spent 100s of hours setting up this document and getting it perfect and then off to the printer we go!
Firstly I should mention we are using cold set printing for those who are familiar with it... anyhoo... publication came back with VERY dark photos and even the text was not crisp.
Has anyone had cold set printing done from a publication or document done in Pages? Is the problem with the conversion to PDF? Any suggestions to fix the problem? Is lightening the pictures significantly going to work?
Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Have you asked your printer about how they handle PDFs? Or, for that matter, what they thought went wrong with the file you sent them? As far as I know, there is nothing special about the PDF output of Pages, and any printer that can utilize PDFs properly should be able to use Pages output (at least as far as the text is concerned -- images may very well take some tweaking). This sounds like a matter you should address directly with your printer -- if they are any good, they should be willing to discuss this with you.
For the most part the commercial printing we've done from Pages was for digitally printed jobs, since we generally don't do large runs (1000+), but I have never had any problem with our printer services handling the PDF or producing less than acceptable results.
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Cs6 Save file for Printer company

Question on AI master Parent file, or art brought into another AI file to send to printer?
I've created a flyer (2.83x11) that I can now add 3 to an 8.5x11 sheet to get 3 flyers per sheet. When I save the master flyer (the 2.83x11) I've flattened my text to outlines at 1200 dpi then Rasterized my art to 400 DPi and then saved the file. OK
I then open a new art board 8.625 x 11.13 (for bleed) as I am printing to the edge (border less) I then place my Flyer 3 times across my artboard and when I go to save this to send to Printer here in-lies my question(s)
1. When I save a new artboard with a linked Parent file will that linked info save to the file so that when my (Commercial Printer) opens that AI file. Do I need to bring the linked Parent file with it too on my USB stick? Or will that artboard save all outlines and rasterized art on that 8.65x11 artboard?
Bringing me to a second question
2. When I go to save that new flyer artboard of 8.5x11. I am asked or warned of 72 dpi rasterization of the newly placed flyer which should be saved and then placed at the 1200 and 400 dpi's as mentioned above. Yet I think I should go Effect>Rasterization> High or Other (fill in DPI)
Here is the question if I save that placed Parent, or linked file and then rasterize, choosing 1200 as is the text from the first saved file, it errors and tells me not large enough to rasterize that 1200 dpi. IF I rasterize to say 400 dpi does this NOW affect that sharp text I saved in the linked Parent file of 1200? In other words how do you save that file as it is saved in the master or parent Flyer when placing on an artboard for a commercial printer?
CS6 AI not Cloud.

I'm going to take a stab at answering some if not all of your questions...
Question on AI master Parent file, or art brought into another AI file to send to printer?
-OK, so far.
I've created a flyer (2.83x11) that I can now add 3 to an 8.5x11 sheet to get 3 flyers per sheet. When I save the master flyer (the 2.83x11) I've flattened my text to outlines at 1200 dpi then Rasterized my art to 400 DPi and then saved the file. OK
- Not OK. As already mentioned, there is absolutely no reason to rasterize. Instead, create a file, the 2 x 11 size ( if you want, but not necessary ) and then copy and paste that onto an 8.5x11 and add bleed there. Leave everything live.
I then open a new art board 8.625 x 11.13 (for bleed) as I am printing to the edge (border less) I then place my Flyer 3 times across my artboard and when I go to save this to send to Printer here in-lies my question(s)
1. When I save a new artboard with a linked Parent file will that linked info save to the file so that when my (Commercial Printer) opens that AI file. Do I need to bring the linked Parent file with it too on my USB stick? Or will that artboard save all outlines and rasterized art on that 8.65x11 artboard?
- If there are bitmapped images that are not embedded, then you'd have to forward those onto the printer. Otherwise, the new artboard will have its own raster resolution setting which, in your case, should be set to High Res ( 300ppi ).
Bringing me to a second question
2. When I go to save that new flyer artboard of 8.5x11. I am asked or warned of 72 dpi rasterization of the newly placed flyer which should be saved and then placed at the 1200 and 400 dpi's as mentioned above. Yet I think I should go Effect>Rasterization> High or Other (fill in DPI)
Here is the question if I save that placed Parent, or linked file and then rasterize, choosing 1200 as is the text from the first saved file, it errors and tells me not large enough to rasterize that 1200 dpi. IF I rasterize to say 400 dpi does this NOW affect that sharp text I saved in the linked Parent file of 1200? In other words how do you save that file as it is saved in the master or parent Flyer when placing on an artboard for a commercial printer?
- The final resolution is what you set your "Exported" raster file to. But, as previously mentioned, all of this additional effort is for naught. Your approach is setting up for prepress disaster(s). Who gave you these file prep parameters?
CS6 AI not Cloud.
- Doesn't matter what version you use. Doesn't make any difference. I recommend you get Adobe's Print Publishing Guide. It explains a lot of the information and procedures you will need to know before you proceed any further. Not sure why you did the project the way you did? Explain further.

I have problems with uploading images to my printing company have the images have been manipulated through CS6 i have saved images as jpeg but the printer company tell me they are not j peg, they will not upload images save from a camera are fine

I have problems with uploading images to my internet printing company when the images have been manipulated through CS6 and i have saved images as jpeg the printer company tell me they are not j peg,
but images saved from my phone or camera images that have not been manipulated upload fine, What am i doing wrong?

Save/Export them as JPG. Photoshop defaults to PSD, so make sure you select JPG and not just rename the file to .jpg.
There are two ways to save them as JPG: Regular Save as option or Save for Web & Devices
Take your pick.

Using Commercial Printer Profiles in LR4

this question might belong in the color management section, but since it deals with Lightroom I'll post it here.
I am having trouble using commercial printer profiles in LR4. I import all images as RAW files from the camera, and save them as DNG files when done editing. Generally, the printing services I use want to see JPG files, and I am unsure how and when to apply the printer profiles as I move from a DNG to a JPG, in preparation for sending the job to the printer.
I'm sure the good folks ad Adobe have thought this through, but I'm stuck.
Thanks!
Jeff Zens
Salem, OR.

I called back and spoke to a manager who let me know that the profiles are, in fact, RGB profiles. So I believe that I should be able to print to JPEG rather than an attached printer, so long as I have the correct printer/paper combination selected in the print dialog. Do I have this right?
Thanks....
Jeff

Printing Company Name

I can't print company name to labels using address book. I've tried and tried. I've tried for hours! It prints contact name and address but not company name. Very frustrated! Anyone have a fix. Thanks very much for your help! Matt

I know it's only a kludgy workaround, but I also put the company name as the first line of the address. At least that way it prints.
--Colleen

Use Pages for template to commercial printer

I created a 20 page, 7x7", perfect bound book in Blurb.com which is primarily pictures with a small amount of text. It has generated a lot of interest since it is very specific to the area in which I live. A local business wants to stock it and claims it can sell "tons" which is appealing. The problem I have is getting the unit price down to a reasonable amount. Even buying in bulk from Blurb I am paying about $8 a unit. I'm exploring commercial printers and if the pricing seems reasonable I will need to transfer the book to a non-proprietary software. Pages is an obvious contender but I'm wondering if folks can share their experiences using Pages for this type of project. I have Photoshop Elements but that seems cumbersome.
Any comments are appreciated. Thanks.

To print your book commercially you will need to reproduce the color faithfully and with all bitmap elements at 300dpi.
Frankly that is difficult to do from Pages which is designed to print to a users' desktop printers and renders certain parts of the output at 72dpi when exported to pdf which is the usual format for commercial printers.
1. See if you can find a commercial printer who will accept a Pages file to run through their RIP directly
2. Always talk to your printer about what they require and what is achievable
3. Commercial offset works off a different price structure than digital printing. Much of the cost is up front and the greater the print run the more the price comes down. Find out how many books you'll have to print before you beat the $8 you have been quoted by blurb.
4. As compensation commercial offset, when done correctly, is markedly better quality than digital
5. Please please please don't use Photoshop Elements or Photoshop they are not DTP software and rendering all your vector objects and text as bitmaps is such a bad idea that of course everyone is doing it now
Peter

Color Settings CS3 Mac for CMYK Commercial Print

Can somebody advise me as too what I should be setting my color settings to so they will be the same across the suite and when I send my files to commercial print that prints CMYK sheet fed coated.
I've read so much I'm confused. I'm new to CS3 and the Mac ... In the past my work has come back perfect in color and matched to my monitor. Now on CS3 on the Mac I'm not sure what to do.
If anyone can help it would be most appreciated.

Charlene wrote:
> Marco ... I read your post on rGB / CMYK conversion
Which one was that, if you could remind me?
>I work through a print broker that prints CMYK and the only thing he can tell me is that they print CMYK and on sheet fed coated.
Well, yes, print is always CMYK. As for "sheetfed coated", I would assume that they intend a color space like the one described by the U.S. Sheetfed Coated v2 profile (though it could possibly be the GRACoL2006_Coated1v2 profile). You may want to ask them to confirm one or the other, to be safer.
>So my question is di turn everything to CMYK on my monitor and change to sheet fed coated in the settings?
To make sure I understand your question, I think you are asking me whether you should turn your image file(s) to a chosen CMYK output profile. Yes and no. You should do your color and tonal correction work
b in RGB
, and convert to the intended CMYK output profile
b only as a last step
, just before you deliver the files to the print provider or the prepress specialists.
Do
b not
convert your files to the intended CMYK output profile in the beginning and correct them in CMYK. Do not do that. That is not the most desirable way to work.
The default working spaces in Photoshop's Color Settings are important, but not essential. Yes, you should set the default RGB profile to AdobeRGB (if not ProPhoto RGB, though you may wish to hold off on that one until you have more experience with the application), and the CMYK default profile to U.S. Sheetfed Coated v2.
But, as long as your chosen color management policies are to "Preserve Embedded Profiles", and as long as the image files you work on are tagged with the appropriate profile, then the default profile in Color Settings is no longer relevant.

Commercial printing of pictures processed with Aperture

I first processed my pictures with Iphoto, and now Aperture 2.1.1. - when my pictures are ready for printing, I transfer them to a folder on my desktop, burn a CD or a DVD depending on how many I have and take them to a photo processing place to have them printed (I have tried kodak, and Fuji). My pictures always come back several shades darker than what I see on my LCD screen (please don't tell me that I have to adjust the color on my screen)
I used to have the same problem with my home printer and after reading several forum recommendations I resolved this issue by selecting the "colorsync profile" of my printer in Aperture, and setting the "color handling profile" in photoshop Elements to "printer manages color".
Do you have any suggestions of what can be done to obtain correctly exposed Aperture prints from a commercial printer ( After getting some very awful prints, I now specify that prints modified in Aperture be printed as they are). I suspect that this problem has to do with different colorsync profiles but, I do not know how to resolve it and it is getting quite expensive and time consuming to print hundreds of pictures at home. Your suggestions will be appreciated.

A few different things to try. Once you use the
Print command (Command+P) hit the "Printer Settings"
button. Chose your printer and in the third drop
down (the one under "presets" make sure that you turn
colour management off. For my printer, (Epson) there
is an option labelled just that - it may be different
for others, but check every box.
Yes, I have done that. The choice in my case is labeled 'Application managed',
meaning color profile is managed by Aperture, and not by the printer color
profile. It does not produce any significant improvement.
Once that's been done, back to the Aperture print
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the "Output Type" selection. Then print and see if
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Again, I found this in the Aperture print dialogue. I selected
the printer/paper type, "HP PS ... C7100 - Premium Paper".
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Fonts appear in color when emailing to a commercial printer

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When I open the file and convert it to cymk, the type is in 4 color also. See in your file if you can color all they type black only. In most programs on PC's the default black is in a combination of color.
You might have to make a new spot color black so that the type will separate as black only on my side.
Is there an easy way to make this fix???

Hi emquad46
Welcome to the forum.
+Menu > View > Show Colors > click on 2nd tab (sliders) > Grey Scale Slider > left most swatch is 100% black > drag that down to the samples grid below+
Click in the text and *Select All* +(command a),+ then click on the black swatch.
Resave any Styles you have used to make sure this is now the default color.
Pages is not ideal for commercial printing as you have found out. Too much of this is manual and/or hidden from you.
Peter

Why would a commercial printer ask for Illustrator native files instead of InDesign files?

Why would a commercial printer ask for Illustrator native files instead of InDesign files?
For example, We create 32 hang tags for the same brand. Each hang tag looks identical except for a color bar calling out the different fits. We set the files up in InDesign with a Master Page congaing all the similar artwork. This process saves us a lot of time when making changes to the entire package of hang tags. So my question is... why can't the printer use InDesign. They are saying they convert our InDesign files to Illustrator before printing.

A printer who insists on native files but can't take InDesign is not properly equipped. It suggests they haven't updated their capabilities in 15 years.

Commercial Printer Recommendations?

I hope this is not an inappropriate question for this forum. I apologize in advance if it is (and if so, and an administrator is welcome to remove this post).
I need to send (8) 8.5X11 final trim, 4/4 brochures to an offset printing press. There will be Four 4-pagers and Four 8-pagers. I'll also want full flood aqueous coating. I plan on placing all 8 jobs with a single commercial printer at the same time, so a large format press is probably the way to go. This ought to help keep setup costs lower by combining jobs, where possible. My customer is located in the Baltimore area, though the printer doesn't need to be, but I'd prefer somebody reasonably close to keep transportation reasonable and quick. The client only wants 1000 each (8000 brochures total).
My client is VERY cost conscious (pronounced CHEAP), so I am looking for a printer who is very competitive, but one with good quality and good control over color. I'm not located in that area, so I could use some guidance.If they implement a full color managed workflow, all the better, but it's not absolutely necessary.
I've tried a few low cost, online "gang printers" before, but I wasn't overly thrilled with the results or the ability to converse with the right people (or get the right information).
If anybody can offer some recommendations that fit the above, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks,
Lou

Thanks, Peter…you forgot "hungry", which many printers are these days, but your point is well taken. For this job, I'll sacrifice a little service and speed for quality and price.
I'd be interested in knowing who your printer is for possible future projects where I am not working for Ebenezer Scrooge.

Identifying which Layer is a template from Printing Company?

I've taken over a graphic design position, and am having a it of trouble with something simple. For a 28 page catalog, the printing company has told me that my predecessor's uploaded files (PDF's exported from .indd) contains their (the printing company's) template guidelines (rules for bleed, trim etc.). It looks like the standard procedure before I took over was to download the rule/guideline template from the company and simply apply it on our own InDesign file as a layer. They have told me that one of the layers in my InDesign file still contains the template guidelines, which show when printing. My predecessor thinks that the culprit layer is in the Master page, and while the two layers on the Master are there (one titled "Rule Border" one titled "Mask-1") one is a small blank box (moveable) and the other is a large (page size, locked) blank box. When I hide these layers or deselect the "Print Layer" or "Show Layer" options, artwork/content is deleted from multiple pages. Is there any way to identify which layer is which, or to view the properties/contents of each individual layer (specifically these blank boxes on the Master page)? OR is there a better solution? PLEASE HELP

Often when printing companies have a template for people to download it is usually not an InDesign template file.
Is is often a graphic; an EPS, PDF,Tif, or Jpg that can be placed on a layer to make sure elements are placed correctly.
Since this is probably one of these, try looking in the Links Manager for something with an unusual name that might be the template.
The Links Manager can tell you on which page it resides.
If you select the linked file in the list and click the page # to the right or the Go to Link icon at the bottom (Page icon with an arrow) it will go directly to the page and the item will be selected.
We don't know how it was originally placed, it might not even be on a Master Page. It might have been placed on Document pages, maybe even more than once.
Once you have determined where it is, the quickest way to hide this is to create a completely new layer and call it something like "Template - HIDE THIS!"
Drag the selected template image (and only the template image) to the new layer in the layers panel. As Joel Cherney has show above. the highlighted item on the page will have a colored dot to the right in the layer.
Drag this dot to the Template layer and the linked item will be moved there. You can then hide or delete the template layer.
It is also a good idea to LOCK any template layer since locking it will prevent you from accidently placing or moving elements onto this template layer!

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