Prepress – Page 3

June 30, 2014

Upgrading to Adobe CC 2014 for Print – The Designer’s Not-Quite-Definitive Guide

The Adobe suite of Creative Cloud programs continues to expand, encompassing far more than the standard prepress desktop publishing tools to which many graphic designers and printers have become accustomed. In addition to our graphic design/print trifecta of InDesign, PhotoShop and Illustrator, CC includes over a dozen separate industry-leading programs for website and mobile app development, video and audio editing, and additional perks like Bridge, TypeKit and Behance. The entire bundle – as well as the upkeep of consistent fixes and updates – can seem a daunting beast to contain.

So… after getting settled in with the Adobe cloud-based versions and their new subscription service last year, the introduction of CC 2014 seemed to come around pretty suddenly. With all new stand-alone installations of InDesign, PhotoShop and Illustrator – didn’t we just do this? – the rapidity of updates might seem a little unsettling. Luckily, Adobe has made the change this time as painless as possible. While I in no way pretend to be up on all the latest tech improvements and cutting-edge changes in the Creative Cloud suite (the website says there are “hundreds”), I can tell you some of the perks we encountered installing the new programs that take the edge off the change and even got us excited about the new improvements.

First, Acrobat has not changed in the 2014 update. Acrobat is essential for file transfer between graphic designers and printers, so new updates can often impact standard procedures in unexpected ways! In our printshop, we use some very specific third-party plug-ins for Acrobat XI Pro that are essential to our prepress workflow – imposition, preflighting, repurposing, etc. Traditionally, when Acrobat upgrades to an entirely new version, we have to wait a while for all the plug-ins to release compatible updates. That won’t be a problem for you this time around.

To be clear, InDesign, PhotoShop and Illustrator CC 2014 are all new versions. You can leave your previous CC and CS versions installed and running, and choose to uninstall them at a later time if you desire. You will, however, have to reinstall any plug-ins to your new 2014 versions in order to access them.

Adobe did a GREAT job in creating a seamless transition experience for InDesign users. Updating to InDesign CC 2014 will automatically migrate your presets and settings from the previous version to your 2014 joint. No jarring initial view that bears little resemblance to the InDesign interface you have grown to love – your workspaces, preferences, and keyboard shortcuts are all automatically transferred. The “What’s New” introductory pop-up window includes access to easy-to-view videos of the 5 major enhancements as well a link to the Adobe website with more information on all 11 of the important changes. The videos will introduce you to:

The aforementioned seamless update to customize your interface just like you had it before. (Even our plug-in for Ajar’s HTML5 export installed – wasn’t expecting that.)
A new EPUB fixed layouts export definition. It does a better job of handling illustrations and photography when exporting to EPUB, as well as creating your Table of Contents and handling interactive video and audio.
An awesome new feature that allows you to move rows and columns in Tables with just a click and drag.
The handy ability to group colors within your swatches palette.
Enhancements to the Search feature: you can now search forward and backward using “Find Previous” as well as “Find Next.”

PhotoShop and Illustrator have some great new features for designers preparing files for print, also. Illustrator’s new attractions are a newly rebuilt pencil tool, the ability to reshape path segments, Live Shapes, Live Corners and integration with Typekit. The “Welcome” screen does a good job of introducing all of the new features. PhotoShop includes new Path and Shape Blur Effects, Typekit, new Smart Guide features, and selection of an area based on what is in focus. Installing the new versions did not automatically import my old workspace and preferences, unfortunately.

Overall, don’t fear the change of an update to CC 2014 – the new perks are worth the effort and the transition for us went hitch-free. With that behind you, you’ll be ready for the next one coming down the line.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

June 3, 2014

Career Path Tips for Creative Designers

As technology continues to advance and people use the internet more and more for everything from shopping and research to staying in touch with friends and family, careers in graphic design – and especially web design – seem certain to remain in high demand for the foreseeable future and beyond. For highly creative people who dream of designing eye-catching, successful marketing and web pages for businesses and individuals, the following tips can help them achieve the career of their dreams.

Learn all you can… and learn how to code

Yes, you are brimming with creative ideas, but you also have to know how to properly create them on the back end. Employers are often wary of the learning gap between the creative skills gained in school and the practical, industry-savvy skills needed to successfully perform many jobs in the graphics and web design marketplace. Learn all you can about the software and technical procedures of graphic design, printing, mobile apps, SEO, direct mail and integrated marketing. Strive to continually familiarize yourself with the latest news and developments through creative, cutting-edge blogs, publications and relevant trade associations. More specifically, for all designers with an eye on the future, learn as much about coding as you can, including CSS, JavaScript, HTML, WordPress and more. As Rasmussen College says, web designers need to learn how to create sites that are universally device-friendly, so educate yourself by taking classes or spending time to research how to design a site that will look just as good on a smartphone screen as it will on a mid-sized tablet or laptop.

Create an amazing portfolio

Before you even think about applying for a job or even an internship, you need an incredible portfolio that shows off your skills. Besides including your best projects from college, you should also add examples of design that you’re interested in. For example, if you dream of designing web pages that are full of emotion-evoking graphics and videos, look into stock video websites that feature all kinds of footage from clouds moving across the sky to kids running through idyllic fields. In addition to supplying potential employers a printed out portfolio of screen shots and other projects, make a digital version of the portfolio that features links to your design work as well as your resume and contact information.

Get an internship

Although you might feel ready to start working for a major company right away, one of the best ways to get a feel of what to expect is to nail down an internship. If possible, find an internship while you’re still in school–or you can apply for one after graduation. While the concept of an unpaid internship might sound unappealing to you and your pile of monthly bills, remember that the professional, in-house experience will provide you with priceless real world know-how that most new designers don’t have.

Start out as a freelancer

Consider freelancing before going for a permanent position. This will give you the opportunity to work for a bunch of clients at once, rather than just one. You can also start out slow with one or two projects and—as the word gets out about your skills in design—you can take on more and more. If you decide to go the freelance route, hire an experienced accountant who knows how to handle 1099 info and other specialized tax forms; working from home can be difficult, but freelancing has a ton of benefits when it comes to tax write-offs.

Rely on your local printer for support whether you direct a company’s marketing budget or freelance. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

May 12, 2014

Use Layers to Keep Auto Page Numbers on Top in InDesign

A frequent InDesign question from designers for our prepress department concerns how to keep Master Page page numbering on top when design elements on individual pages cover that area. By default, the Master Page items will lie below any other page elements in the document. Our easy solution is achieved with the Layers palette. The InDesign Layers palette works just like it does in PhotoShop or Illustrator, and can easily solve the problem of disappearing page numbering.

Auto Page Numbering is set up on your master pages. Yet, by default, these numbers will be covered up by any page element in your document that crosses over that area. To work around this fact, create a new layer (while still on your Master Pages layout) and give it a name you will understand, such as “Top Master Items” or “Page Numbers.” With this layer highlighted, set up auto page numbering, and any other master items that you want to always be visible above any other elements. Just be sure to keep that layer on TOP, and to work on the OTHER lower layer(s) for all placement of text and graphics as you create your document.

This is a very simple set-up using Layers. However getting use to managing page numbers this way can help introduce you to the functions of the Layers palette and help you begin considering the more advanced ways it can assist your workflow. Layers can allow you to “version” your document – creating multiple, coexisting editions of your document using different languages, images or copy. For example, if you set up all your text on one layer separate from any other graphic elements, you could then create additional layers of text in Spanish and French. By toggling these layers on and off you have 3 separate language versions within the same document, all using the same imagery and design. When exporting to pdf, be sure to turn on and off the desired layers for that output.

As with most projects, having a clear plan in the beginning can sidestep a lot of annoying roadblocks later. A good idea for beginning a print project in InDesign is to plan out the scope of your design with a few answers first: the size and number of pages, margins and bleed area, facing or non-facing pages, section and page numbering and how you will use Layers to help organize your work. Of course, all of these can be altered or added after the design begins but often you will save time and work by being organized at the start.

Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

April 25, 2014February 15, 2023

Retro Gizmo: Artifacts from the Pre-Digital PrePress Department

Last year we featured a blogpost on an antique piece of bindery equipment still being used in our print shop. Today, we’re thinking about a few other vintage relics that have been gathering dust in the art department. The pre-digital days in prepress were not all that long ago – extending into the 1990s. The print industry was an early adopter of computer technology with digital imaging technologies, workflow and of course design software from the early days of Adobe, Quark, Corel, Aldus and others. Early Macs were the industry leader in digital typesetting, page layout and graphics. Both the design process and the photographic techniques used to image plates for offset printing underwent a rapid transition just before the new millennium.

The 90s saw the tail end of prepress imaging techniques that had evolved over decades. Design skills included “paste-up” – manually positioning type and graphics onto each master sheet for printing. You’ll really appreciate a straight tool line once you paste on a piece of tool-line tape by hand! For graphic elements and photographs, anything other than 100% black had to be rasterized by imagesetters into “dots” to create grayscale halftones. Full color printing required four separate pieces of developed film, “stripped” into exact position with a hand-trimmed mask. Large print shops had many full-time employees whose job was to “strip” plates for the press, usually at light tables like the one seen at the top of this post. Below are some relics from those days when graphic design was as much craft as art:

Scale for enlargements — Resizing graphics and text was often done photographically before desktop publishing – requiring some math skills for percentages of enlargement or reduction. This handy tool was invaluable.

Pre-Digital Artroom Supplies — Paste-up: manually creating a master of the printed page. Red Litho Tape was used to block any light shining through a stripping sheet. “Cold Type” supplies included decorative tool lines in the form of tape. E-rulers were handy for measuring point size of imaged type.

Art Room Supplies — Strippers were small metal tabs used to keep film in perfect alignment for processing plates. It was also the name for the folks who handled that entire process. The orange sheet here is a stripping sheet, where printable areas would be opened up (masked) to allow photographic imaging of the press plates.

T-Square and grayscale or color targets — Manual skills and a steady hand were essential skills for paste-up. The T-square and other tools helped. Also, much of the imaging process relied on traditional photographic techniques to achieve proper color and grayscale output.

The skill and craft of fine printing and effective marketing is more alive today in the digital world than ever before. Strive to buy your print locally! A community printer will understand communication and design, with a special emphasis on your local market. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

February 25, 2014

Can Your Logo Multitask? Design With Versatility in Mind.

The story may be true or may be apocryphal, but either way it illustrates a good point: The logo below was Apple’s logo until the day Steve Jobs decided they needed to order embroidered polo shirts.

That logo would never work well stitched at a small size onto your work shirt. Is your logo up to the demands of integrated marketing? Does it fly as well in print as online, stitched onto clothing, 10 feet wide on outdoor signage? While your goal is one unified brand image, that does not necessarily mean you will only have one logo for all purposes.

The logo design you tweaked and approved back on day one is really put to test when you begin to market across different media. Initially, many folks think of their logo only in terms of how it will appear on a card, letterhead or envelope – or perhaps how it will appear in full RBG color on their website home page. But when you begin to explore other marketing needs, the very design of that logo may prove to be limited, to not carry the same impact. For instance, a logo design may look great in full color, but when the day comes you need a solid white logo reversed out on a dark background as an awning over the front doorway entrance, the limitations of the design become apparent. Many times, more complex designs look great at a large scale but then don’t work well if you try to imprint them onto small promotional objects or on websites. Balance is also important – a logo with one oversized element may look fine onscreen, but when printed at a small scale the type can be illegible due to the difference in size with the larger element. The logo that looks great in full color on your website will need to work just as well embroidered on company uniforms, imprinted onto promotional keychains or ink pens, and embossed onto a formal letterhead. That initial design process needs to include the logo in all its variations.

Many brand images are designed with some built in variety to accommodate varying layouts and usage needs: for instance, your designer should offer you a “wide” version, a “tall” or “stacked” version, a version with and without a tagline or company “motto”. This set of logos will allow versatility in your marketing without altering the impact and unity of your brand image. Likewise, your designer can create your logo in the necessary range of color combinations: all black, reversed out as all white on a black or colored background, spot color versions using one or more defined PMS colors, and a full color version as both CMYK and RGB.

Famous brands like Coca-Cola employ a variety of type-styles, logos and brand images to differentiate their products and campaigns.

And the simplest part is often the one forgotten: once finalized, you will definitely want to have control of your brand by having possession of your actual logo… er, logos! Even if you do not have the software necessary to edit or change your logo, you will want to have the digital files in hand and a basic understanding of what file types you need for different outputs. Your designer and printer should be happy to supply you with these files.

Files… because there is never just one file that works for all occasions. While it is certainly not mandatory, a logo that begins it’s life as a vector is a happy logo! It can be edited, scaled, redesigned, converted, and proves to be the most conveniently versatile file type. Vector logos can be saved as a native .ai file or an .eps file. These can then be easily converted to other common file types such as .tiff, .jpg, .gif or .png. While you do not have to know all the mechanics behind each of these file extensions, you may be asked to provide specific ones. Your web designer may need a .gif or .png while your t-shirt vendor may ask for a vector file in two spot colors. With just the options mentioned in this post, your final logo set would consist of 30 separate digital files!

So, saving or exporting your logo to exist as different file types is not so difficult (well, if it begins as a vector file!) A well-designed logo will work well in spot colors, full color, reversed or as black and white. A logo that is created as part of a design package including a style manual will have its usage already thought out — work with your designer to ensure the versatility of your logo and brand, and once finalized to understand your different file types for marketing usage.

ImageSmith is proud to be a printer in an exciting era of digital communication. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

January 8, 2014

9 on Design: Websites and Blogs to Inspire You

So many rich, inspirational, informative websites and blogs are now online that help keep us here at ImageSmith up to date. We have many favorites, and want to share a few in this post with the hope you find and bookmark a new resource to fire up your imagination. They are a true mixture, but one common denominator is they always help to provide inspiration and insight for design and marketing ideas.

In no certain order:

inkondapaper.com

“All things PRINT all the time.” Now with that tagline, you know we love this site. The proud creation of Chicago-based Brian Szubinski and Jason Shudy, inkondapaper is full of the latest news on print, design, direct mail, technology and more. A great resource for anyone working in or relying on the creativity and innovation of the print world.

mediabistro.com

With their tagline “the pulse of media”, media bistro is an expansive site hosting many different blogs all serving as an international resource for media professionals. Keep up with news from a variety of fields you may not have time to otherwise be an expert on such as 3D printing, mobile apps, job searches, public relations, advertising, semantic web and broadcast news.

Studiodaas Magazine or www.dnjg.be

Based in Rotterdam, this site with the cute green housefly logo is rich with stories, links, downloads and information about “design, web design, typography, web development, graphic design, photography and more…” Browse around and discover great links to tutorials on innovative typography, print projects, free font downloads. The site is well curated and geared for the progressive designer.

flavorwire.com

Live from New York, Flavorwire is a slick, up-to-the-minute website that features original reporting and critique on global cultural news. Their Twitter profile says that includes: “art, books, music, and pop culture the world over. Highbrow, lowbrow, and everything in between.” Click over on the right to the Design section for great news and inspiration about the field of graphic design.

rebento.com.pt

The blog of graphic designer Visco Duque from Lisbon, Portugal – Rebento never fails to feature innovative, fresh, cutting edge designs, photography and illustrations that are an inspiration. It feels like a world market of design, a great place to browse.

Inspirationhut.com

Modern magazine redesigns, world’s biggest sand artwork, engraved typography, paintings for the blind…. just a sample of the wonderful mixture of current articles on Inspirationhut. This online art and design “magazine” focuses on talent and inspiration, and also offers frequent font, psd, texture and other downloads that designers love to find.

youthedesigner.com

A “graphic design lifestyle blog,” youthedesigner’s focus is the design professional – so expect to find practical inspirational spotlights and interviews, news on competitions, workshops, and technology as well as freebies, contests, print templates, info graphics, and the like.

trüfblog.com

The blog of Trüf creative, an award winning design firm in Santa Monica, CA – “A Creative Studio Obsessed with Designing Better Brands.” Great sense of style and color, this blog always inspires and informs.

messynessychic.com

“Blogging on the offbeat, the unique and the chic” – articles here on fashion, culture and inspiration feel like a great find in neat corner shop. Another great place to browse.

ImageSmith is proud to be a printer in an exciting era of digital communication. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

January 3, 2014

Bleeding Edge: How to Properly Create Bleed Area for Print

We’ve written at ImageBlog before about how to create proper bleed area for your print files. Missing or insufficient bleed area and crop marks rank in the top three of prepress problems along with color separations and font issues. Interestingly, thanks to improved pdf creation in desktop publishing applications and the more forgiving nature of a digital printing workflow, those latter two problems are increasingly a thing of the past. But not for the old missing bleed area problem!

Bleed is any printed area that extends off the edge of the page. Presses do not print to the very edge of a sheet, so files with bleeding elements must be larger than the desired finished size and printed on larger sizes of paper, then cut down. Knowing that ahead of time, you can easily create files and export pdfs that will trim out exactly as you expect.

You might be surprised, but many folks think their printer can add a workable bleed area to most any file. In reality, some printers will attempt to make a non-bleeding file “work” without telling you the customer, in an effort to save the extra time and hassle. A file can be printed slightly larger than 100%, which will allow a slight trim area. Also, some printers will cut a file slightly smaller than the finished size – a risky move if done without your consent, but one that also will create a finished bleed edge. If the bleed is a solid color, the file can be imposed on top of a bleed area of the same color. All of these work-arounds are less than ideal solutions, and you could be charged more in prepress costs for the fix. Here’s how to create the bleed you need in your layout program.

Remember, the bleed area you define upon originally opening your new document is only the bleed area that appears on your screen as you work on your file. It IS NOT (necessarily) the bleed area that automatically ends up in the pdf file you output for print.

InDesign

InDesign makes this very simple. Set up your new document size, and at this step give yourself as much Bleed Area to work with as you want. Some folks put in 1/8″ because the actual pieces of artwork or color rarely need to extend any further off the page than that small amount. However, when you export your final pdf, go to the Marks and Bleeds Tab, choose only crop marks, then at this step add .5″ of Bleed Area to the pdf file on each of the four sides. Do NOT check the box “Use Document Bleed Settings”.

Marks and Bleed Area — Crop Marks and 1/2 inch Bleed Area

If you do, the final pdf will try to size itself to include the bleed area you put in at document setup. If that is insufficient to hold the crop marks, the pdf will auto-enlarge to accommodate the crop marks and the finished size will be something odd like 8.821 x 9.415 – not so easy to work with when imposition time comes. Keeping the math simple, if you put in .5″ at export as your bleed area, your 8.5″ x 11″ document will create a pdf that is 9.5″ x 12″ wide. Perfect for a bleed.

PhotoShop

If you design entirely in Photoshop, you need to initially create your document LARGER than the finished size. Again, keep the math simple by using .5″ extra on each side: a finished piece at 9″ x 5″ would be a PhotoShop document of 10″ x 6″. You can add the crop marks yourself, or simply tell your printer that the bleed area is there and let them add the correct crop marks for final cutting. The important part is to have the actual bleed area on there!

Illustrator

If you work in Illustrator to create your final print files or pdfs, simply choose File – Save As and then choose pdf/x-1A. Just like in InDesign, go to the Marks and Bleeds tab, turn on crop marks and allow a .5″ bleed on all four sides of the finished pdf file. If you submit a native Illustrator file or eps, you can also add crop marks around an object by choosing Object – Create Trim Marks. Just be sure your Artboard is large enough to accommodate those marks.

ImageSmith is proud to be a printer in an exciting era of digital communication. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

August 5, 2013

Online Help To Identify an Unknown Font or Typeface

Common problem: a client wants you to recreate a previously printed piece, match their corporate style, or shows you a photo or scan of some typography they like. How can you fulfill their request when you have no clue what font they are referencing?

I remember over 15 years ago, one of the most tedious, time consuming and inaccurate tasks in the prepress department involved trying to “match” or identify a customer’s typeface when resetting or designing their print jobs. Then as now, many print buyers do not necessarily know the name of the font family used for their brand. Now back in the day, we kept a print out of “Line Showings” for all the fonts to which we had access at our shop. My memory has never been anywhere near encyclopedic, so while sometimes I could luck up and recognize the correct font match, or ask a coworker to take a look, usually I had to leaf through page after page of line showings hoping to see an “a” with exactly the right terminal or a lowercase “y” with the correct tail. Needless to say this was not always successful and could eat up a lot of time. Just as Arial and Helvetica look an awful lot alike, many other typefaces closely resemble each other. I distinctly recall wishing out loud for “some kind of tool that could scan a printed font and tell you it’s name!”

Well there are several such tools out there now, and we have found them to be extremely helpful. Here are just a few that have served us well:

Whatfontis.com

This site has saved several jobs for us by correctly identifying a scan of a client’s printed words. Submit a clear, straight scan of text and after typing in the letters below each piece of the scan (as seen at the right above), the site provides a list of “matches.” In the sample we submitted, the font was very close to one named MuseoSans, but the J was not right and the O not quite round enough. Whatfontis returned a long list of possible answers, and after scanning down the list (seen below) I was able to see an exact match in Novecento Wide Light. The site provides links to founderies where the font can be purchased or if it is a free typeface, to where it can be downloaded. You can submit up to 10 samples per day at no charge, or opt to upgrade membership for a small fee and submit as many as you like. Problem solved. We look great to the client, and are confident we will provide an exact match for their branded style.

Whatthefont.com

This webtool over at Myfonts.com works very similarly to Whatfontis.com, whereby you submit a scan then are presented with possible matches. As a test, I tried the same scan I submitted to the previous site. Whatthefont returned five possible matches: all very close but none were an exact match of Novecento. This one sample, however, in no way shows which tool is most effective. Use them both as a resource for font identification. Often, a close match is all that is needed when a client is seeking a similar look rather than an exact match that might require you to purchase the new font.

Typophile.com

A different approach: crowdsourcing your question to a community of font experts! On this site for all things typographic, just quickly set up your user account, navigate to the Type ID Board page and post your scan. Check back to read your responses and even an ensuing discussion about your font from people who share a knowledge, experience and love of typography. You can also join in the discussion and share your knowledge. Judging by the timeline, a lot of folks would welcome your help!

You may find other useful online tools to identify your unknown typefaces. These are just a small sampling of ones that have worked for us at ImageSmith. With all your marketing issues, your printer should be able to provide you the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail and integrated marketing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

July 30, 2013

Quick Photoshop Tip: Seperate Layer Effects Onto Their Own Layer for Editing

Simple tips are often the most useful. In Photoshop, I’ve found this one to be very handy for editing Layer Effects in the Layers palette. Finding it is not the most accessible or intuitive – so hopefully this can be helpful.

Layers in a Photoshop file allow us to manipulate and edit different parts of the image individually, using transparency, masks, blends and filters to alter and manage how the finished photo will appear. The Layer Style palette allows you to add different effects to that specific layer: drop shadow, bevel and emboss, Outer Glow, Gradient Overlays, etc. But often, designers find a need to edit the Layer Effects seperately, beyond the controls within the Layer Style window. I often find a need to adjust the drop shadow independently of the layer to which it is married, reshaping it in order to give the desired perspective.

Photoshop of course provides a way to do this, but it isn’t a simple function listed under the Layer Style drop-down palette: from the top menu bar, choose Layer – Layer Style – Create Layer. Notice in your Layers palette that the effect has now moved onto it’s own layer and can be manipulated individually from its Master layer. Photoshop also conveniently names the new layer after the effect you applied. Some effects, such as Bevel, require multiple layers to be created in order to maintain the effect. You can then edit as needed. In this sample we distorted the drop shadow down into a shape that appears to be a more realistic cast shadow from a standing zebra.

Photoshop is constantly changing, but Adobe provides great tutorials online to help you learn new tips and techniques. Also, stay abreast of latest news and inspiration from industry insiders at the photoshop.com blog.

Printers understand communication and design. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

May 17, 2013

Gradient Banding in Wide Format Printing: Can You Prevent It?

A quick check online convinces me that a lot of folk – designers, artists and printers – are frustrated with gradients that print with banding, or clearly dileneated “steps” of color visible in both digital and offset printing and which can be even more dramatic in wide format output. The bottom line is that those sweet gradient tools in your design software do not come with warning labels to prepare you for the resulting output in print. Gradients will normally (but not always) look good onscreen, but the technology to print them with similar ease falls short. The current best solution is to apply PhotoShop effects to minimize or hide the banding. The drawback is just like a great medication with a not-so-great side effect, this can produce unwanted results: colors can shift and the image may print “grainier” than originally planned.

A radial gradient should ideally look smooth, like a sunburst. The sample below, however, shows how it generally prints like the Looney Tunes logo.

There is no fix for the banding problem when saving your Illustrator files. We’ve often searched for that magic button, with no luck. Below are a few photos from a recent experiment where a stubborn orange-to-yellow gradient in a client’s wide format pop-up display printed with visible, distracting banding regardless of file type, compression or other options used. Saving the file as eps, pdf, opening in PhotoShop, increasing resolution, optimizing with PitStop…. no luck. Each resulted in the same diagonal “steps” in color.

The reason these efforts fail lies in mathematics and the physics of print, and I will admit to having only a shady understanding of these technical causes. For the scope of this post, let’s just point out that there are only so many “shades” or steps between one color and the next that are renderable in print. Your goal is to make a smooth transition from one color to the next, and the CS software makes that very easy in the design phase. However, the factors at play when you try to print your creation are the size or amount of space over which that transition occurs on the printed piece, the colors you have chosen to blend, and the resolution of the printer. Mathematically, at some point the printer has to go from one “step” to the next – and often the result to the human eye are bands or lines at which those changes occur. If you have chosen colors that are close together, you have even fewer “steps” between them with which to work. While PhotoShop, Illustrator and InDesign generally render smooth gradients onscreen, the science behind image rasterization and both offset and digital printing is not so forgiving to the viewer.

The fix for our wide format print in this case was to take the gradient portion of the job into Photoshop (it was originally created in Illustrator, we think!) Step one: we applied a Gausian Blur. The amount? Well that completely depends on the image. I just decide visually, bearing in mind whether or not the image I am working on is viewed at full-size onscreen or will be enlarged when printed out. A small grain visible now will be twice as large if printed at 200%. Next we created a layer with the mode set to Overlay and checked the box “Fill with Overlay-neutral color (50% gray).” To this layer we added Noise. Again – I decide visually how much noise to use (that’s an odd statement if you think about it!). Unfortunately, it is a guessing game, but with experience you will know best how much “graininess” or added texture will be acceptable without being enough to distract or compromise the output image.

The result here was a minor shift in colors and a slight visible texture or graininess that wasn’t there before. But both served to hide the banding problem! Both were acceptable results as the overall appearance of the gradient was smooth and pleasing.

Tips to prevent or minimize banding in gradients are easy to find online, but often your individual design is built in such a way that many of the tips seem unworkable. Like ours, the most common banding-buster tips require you create (or recreate) your gradient in PhotoShop as we did above, and then add noise to the image. However, you might have other elements in your design such as type, vectors or other effects applied in either Illustrator or InDesign which prevent you from moving the entire file into PhotoShop. If the file has been received from another person or client, then you might not have access to the individual pieces of the file and would be stuck trying to put the entire document into PhotoShop as an image in order to play around with possible filters. Apparently there is no “one size fits all” fix for this frustrating problem. Designers should be aware that gradients present difficulties and often require cooperation with your printer ahead of time to avoid unpleasing results.

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.