color – ImageBlog

January 27, 2017May 12, 2022

Transparency & PMS Spot Colors – How to Solve the Conflict for Print

We discussed the conflict between transparency and spot colors, and the ensuing print problems, in a previous blog post. That content is included below, but in addition we added some more information on how to resolve this conflict if you have already created your files in InDesign or Illustrator and either been contacted by your printer for file revisions, or worse, received a print job with “unexpected results.”

Using a spot or PMS color in a layout often makes sense to the designer – after all, we all want to ensure correct color output across our brand. But when you place a spot color logo, for example, in a project bound for CMYK process printing, you may be setting up a conflict that can ruin your print output. When you go to save or output your file to pdf, you may see the above warning – and it is an important one! If you have used a spot or PMS color in your InDesign, Quark or Illustrator layout and then applied some type of transparency effect — drop shadows, blending modes, gradients, feathering, etc — then this warning is telling you that your file will NOT print correctly. Your file will look fine on screen, and often even when printed from a desktop printer, but high quality print output will be compromised. Controlling your Swatches palette and color usage, and understanding color definitions, can prevent this problem. First a little background…

Times have changed since then and Postscript level 3 processors and pdf workflows effectively manage the flattening of transparent files at the correct time to produce accurate output. But the conflict between spot or PMS colors and transparency lives on. Saving your file as a PDF/X-1a doesn’t prevent the problem either as the X-1a definition allows for both spot and cmyk color definitions.

If your InDesign or Illustrator color palette is using nothing but CMYK (or RGB and LAB) colors, you can use transparency with no problems. If you place, for example, your logo or a piece of art with a predefined PMS or spot color into your layout, then you have imported that color into your Swatches palette. In turn, if you apply that swatch to color text or graphics and use a transparency effect on them, a high resolution output from offset or digital printing will result in the object printing as a blank or with an unintended color. Your print provider will most likely NOT be able to convert the spot color to process and retain the correct transparency effect. You must convert the spot color to process in your native file(s) and re-export to pdf.

The PMS Green with a transparency effect added will appear correctly on screen (left), but print as a solid (right).

The Fix: Keep Strict Control Over the Colors & Color Definitions in Your Swatches Palette

If you place your Spot Color logo into InDesign, that PMS color shows up in your Swatches palette and can not be removed or edited. (Deleting the logo will allow you to remove the swatch or change it.) So the simplest way to avoid any problems – and save time and prepress charges – is to create a CMYK version of your Spot Color logo for use in all projects bound for CMYK output, and to keep a close eye on all the colors that show up in your palette.

If you have already designed your project with spot colors brought in from placed artwork, getting rid of or redefining all those colors can be difficult. Replacing the artwork with CMYK versions is the first step. Once you have done that, the palette will allow you to delete and replace any UNUSED PMS swatches, or to redefine them to CMYK. This weeding out process can be complex, depending on how many colors have been created. In InDesign, you can delete color swatches tied only to native InDesign elements (i.e., not originating in any placed artwork) and be prompted to choose another color for all those elements currently using the one you are deleting. The final test is to choose “Remove all Unused Colors” from the pop-out menu on the Swatches Palette. If any PMS color swatches still remain, that color is being used somewhere in your layout. If it doesn’t interact in any way with a transparency effect, that will be fine. But if it does, you will get those dreaded “unexpected results.”

The Swatches Palette can quickly become a swamp of colors with conflicting names and definitions.

Obviously, the easiest fix is to be aware as you build your file of the colors in your palette, and notice how they change with each piece of artwork you place. If you see a PMS color show up, you know that last placed logo or element is bringing in that color. If you then use that color for a drop shadow, gradient, or transparent effect, it will not output correctly. Learn to control your swatches by experimenting with editing, changing and deleting them – getting an understanding of the differences in CMYK, LAB, RGB and spot color modes.

Why is “Transparency” Creating Trouble?

Before being “flattened”, transparency is considered “live” and exists as an optical effect onscreen and in video. It must be flattened in order to print. At this stage, the tranparent region is broken up into smaller non-transparent sections that can then be translated by the RIP (raster image processor) into a printable image. It is, however, a complex process and trouble spots arise from the use of spot colors as discussed above, where text or vector objects overlap pixel-based objects, and possibly with the overlapping of RGB and CMYK images. You can read Adobe’s Designers Guide for Transparency and Print at this link for further reference.

Rely on your printer for advice and direction with any questions you have when designing files that use transparency. They should be able to provide you with the time and money saving technical advice, and work with you on file preparation and submission. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer. The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Shop our full ImageSmith catalog online here. We can work with you to find the best option to suit your needs. Please note, prices in online catalog do not include decoration, but call us for a quote 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 marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

October 18, 2016

The Campus Arboretum of HCC Celebrates First 50 Years with Beautiful Print Exhibit

Celebrating the beauty of a “living laboratory” calls for a beautiful exhibit. The Haywood Community College Foundation in Clyde, NC is doing just that for the anniversary of the HCC Campus Arboretum and “First Fifty Years of Stewardship” in their exhibit Forest, Farm + Garden, 1966 – 2016. Through a mix of print, mounting and lighting techniques, the exhibited historical information and images combine to engage and inform visitors in a museum-quality experience. Visiting is a great way to learn more about local landscapes and horticulture – as well as check out in person some quality print examples, substrates and display ideas.

The landscape, gardens and collections of Haywood Community College and its Campus Arboretum are recognized as “one of the most beautifully landscaped areas in Haywood County.” The current exhibit honors the original vision of landscape architect Doan Ogden as well as the years of continued stewardship over the campus and its collections: greenhouses, a dahlia garden, orchard, working vegetable gardens, rhododendron garden, mill pond and grist mill. The HCC campus today stands as a “tapestry of landscapes that together capture the heritage of he Southern Appalachian Mountains and its people.” This HCC display is made possible through generous gifts from the Charitable Foundation of the International Dendrology Society and individual society members. Proceeds from the sale of exhibit catalog, photos and posters will be used to further education, outreach and stewardship of the Campus Arboretum.

HCC Mill Pond — Photo by Benjamin Porter

The exhibit is located in the Mary Cornwell Gallery of the Creative Arts Building on the HCC campus, and will be open from October 1 through November 19, 2016.

Forest, Farm + Garden, 1966 – 2016 employs a blend of different print, mounting and display techniques to tell the story of 50 years of stewardship on the HCC campus. New photographs by Benjamin Porter as well as historic plans, photos and maps from the founding director John Palmer’s records bring to life the history and achievements. Check out below some of the print techniques that can be used for any permanent or temporary display to engage viewers.

Dye-Sublimation Fabric Printing – colorful graphics and text come alive on the rich texture of fabrics through a process known as dye-sublimation, or “Dye Diffusion Thermal Transfer Printering.” This “soft signage” preserves the drape and texture of fabric, and has the bonus of being lighter in weight and less expensive to ship than heavier traditional signage.

Mounted, Adhesive Vinyl, Wide Format Prints – sharp photographic quality prints on glossy vinyl are great for any large-scale display. The adhesive vinyl substrate provides high quality, colorfast output with vibrant colors. Mounting the finished prints onto foam core, corrugated plastic, or PVC backing provides depth and relief to a wall-mounted display in the same way traditional framing does, but without the expense or hardware.

Flatbed UV Printing – signage can also be printed directly onto substrates up to 6 inches in depth on a flatbed printer, eliminating the need for mounting. UV print bonds directly to the surface of the substrate and provides clear, full-color output in one step. Print pre-mounted plastic, wood or metal surfaces or even pre-stretched canvases for a stand-out wall display.

Contour Cut Vinyl Lettering – for a great visual display of the written word, contour cut vinyl lettering combines great typography with mountable adhesive for an exhibit with a museum-quality finish. Letters are laser cut from any color of adhesive vinyl, the excess areas “weeded” away, and the text can then be mounted directly on a wall or display. Printed in reverse, the letters can be mounted on the back of glass or other clear substrates for a see-through effect as well.

Talk to your printer about these and more great ideas to create your own one-of-a-kind exhibit or display for everything from an event or opening to a tradeshow or retail window or lobby display.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we 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 environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Personalization – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

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 11, 2016October 14, 2021

Asheville Blues: Color Choice in Local Branding

Color is one of the foundational elements of graphic design and visual marketing both in print or online. Pondering color choice in the brands that surround us and the possible reasons behind those choices can be enlightening – so over a few occasional blog posts we will take a quick look at the local Asheville area and check out who feels blue, wants you to see red, and so on. Now about blue…

Blue is a winner worldwide in the “what is your favorite color” category. And while colors can shift meanings across cultures (blue in America can mean sad, while in Germany, drunk and in Russia, gay), the color of the sky and the sea is so integral to life on earth that it’s popularity in logo design is no surprise. Generally speaking, dark blue can represent trust, authority, stability, intelligence – while lighter shades evoke feelings of peace, spirituality, infinity and calm.

Whose brand invests in blue on an international scale? Well the tech world certainly embraced this color: Twitter, Facebook, Pandora, Skype, LinkedIn, Google Earth, intel, IBM, HewlettPackard, Samsung… whew! The list goes on. AT&T, WalMart, Ford, and Boeing are also a few traditional powerhouses who have dressed in blue for many years.

As we discussed in our quick look at the color red in Part 1: the challenge for marketers is to choose appropriate colors to work within the context of the larger message they hope to create and the product or service that represents. It is never as simple as “blue = trust.” Blue doesn’t draw more customers then red to trust one company over another. But blue, when used in the appropriate context, can help successfully attach specific feelings and energy to the experience of a brand. (For a clearer, more thorough discussion on that, here’s a great article about the importance and complexity of color in marketing.)

All this can begin to sound like a lot of psychological hoo-ha (a technical term) except for the fact that as humans we react emotionally to color, and we recall a set of connoted meanings attached to that visual experience. Smart marketing uses this to advantage through consistent branding, establishing a positive connection and memory through color.

So who chose blue in the Asheville area to speak for their business or organization? A lot of successful folks rely on the cleanliness, coolness and dignity of beautiful blue:

It’s no secret that Asheville itself has been a desirable destination both for tourists and new residents, and the city itself is branded with blue. In print media, PMS 661 is Asheville’s color – a dark, rich blue that leans toward the royal side. Blue is an obvious fit for an area nicknamed “Land of the Sky” and located at the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Two things that definitely say “Asheville” are beer and Tourists’ baseball. Both brand with blue. The Asheville Brewers Alliance promotes craft beer and breweries in Western North Carolina, representing by my count 36 local breweries! The Asheville Tourists are the local minor league baseball team, a farm team of the Colorado Rockies. They’ve been a part of Asheville as far back as 1897.

Education in our local area thrives on the blues! The Bulldogs of UNC Asheville brand with PMS 654. But other shades are also used for the Asheville School, Montreat College, Warren Wilson in Swannanoa, Mars Hill in nearby Madison County and South College Asheville. Blue clearly must stand for fine education and a commitment to scholarship.

When blue is part of your name, it’s pretty obvious that blue stands a good chance of being in some, if not all, of your logo and branding. The Blue Ridge Mountains themselves lend both their name and color to local professional enterprises like Blue Ridge Orthodontics, Blue Ridge Bone & Joint, and many other medical and dental practices. Another example, the Blue Dream Curry House is a natural for blue. The downtown high-rise Hotel Indigo uses a whole palette of colors in their stylish branding, but with a name like Indigo, it includes a deep blue as well.

Blue works across the gamut of businesses in successful branding: from the popular eatery Sunny Point Cafe in West Asheville to the pro bono legal experts at Pisgah Legal Services. Asheville Savings Bank, first chartered in 1936, uses trustworthy blue as well.

And of course, we’re a fan of blue around here, too – specifically PMS 549.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we 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 environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Personalization – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeap.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

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.

September 28, 2015

Seeing Red in Asheville – Color Choice in Logo Design

Color is one of the foundational elements of graphic design and visual marketing both in print or online. Pondering color choice in the brands that surround us and the possible reasons behind those choices can be enlightening – so over the next few blog posts we will take a quick look at the local Asheville area and check out who feels blue and who wants you to see red. Speaking of red…

Why choose red? Major corporations spend millions branding themselves, and you can bet the color of their logo is no random choice. Target, Coca-Cola, Adobe, Nike, Xerox and a host of other international enterprises look to the color red to identify and represent their essence in our minds. What is the message of red?

The current consensus on what red “means” traces back to the common experience we all share from nature of the color: fire and blood. Emotions associated with those two elemental red sightings center around, at least in western cultures, love, passion, intensity, aggressiveness, emotion, excitement, urgency and power. At the same time, marketers have to consider that every positive reflects its opposite or negative interpretation. For red, that includes danger, warning, injury and, from our experience in traffic, the need to STOP!

Subtle changes in the color can build new meanings: a shift toward burgundy can symbolize more warmth, experience, tradition or calmness; a lean toward light red and the emphasis shifts toward the attributes of pink, which include femininity, playfulness, affection or joy. Combinations with other colors increase and fragment the experience in increasingly creative ways.

All this can begin to sound like a lot of psychological hoo-ha (a technical term, no doubt) except for the fact that as humans we react emotionally to color, and we recall a set of connoted meanings attached to that visual experience. Smart marketing uses that to advantage through consistent branding, establishing a positive connection and memory through color.

So how does a brand call upon one perception of a color and not others, bearing in mind each consumer has individual tastes and preferences? The challenge for marketers is to choose appropriate colors to work within the context of the larger message they hope to create and the product or service that represents. It is never as simple as “red = power.” Red doesn’t sell more widgets than blue. But red, when used in the appropriate context, can help successfully attach specific feelings and energy to the experience of a brand.

So who chose red in the Asheville area to represent their business or organization? A lot of successful folks let red stand up for them with all its passion, intensity and aggression:

Different shades of red, but all making a strong statement: cyclist advocacy group Asheville on Bikes, Chef Anthony Cerratos’ Strada Italiano restaurant, Architect Robert M Todd’s Red House Architecture, Lexington Avenue eatery Mela Indian Restaurant, the world’s largest self-pour bar Pour Taproom, the Citizen-Times’ Asheville Scene website and publication, and the downtown institution Tops for Shoes. Aggressiveness, intensity, love, passion, excitement… all in line with the natural properties of how we experience red.

Red shares an equal spotlight with black in these well-known local brands: Asheville’s own 12 Bones Smokehouse, ABYSA – the Asheville Buncombe Youth Soccer Association, the Asheville Grown Business Alliance of independent businesses, and Loving Food Resources, the food pantry for persons living with HIV/AIDS or in hospice care.

Combining red with yellow or orange is an analogous color combination that further uses the palette of colors from fire. This combo calls to mind warmth, the sun, the hearth. It is a popular combo locally: New Belgium, the original Barley’s Taproom & Pizzeria, Mamacita’s Mexican Grill, Asheville Brewing Company pub, restaurant and theater, and Haywood Road’s West End Bakery.

Straying away from the regular PMS 185 or 486 reds are a few other local brands that tend more toward burgundy or a wine color: Brother Wolf Animal Rescue, East Asheville’s The Social bar and restaurant, AB Tech Community College and the home of local hard-hitting journalism, The Asheville Blade.

Need some more red inspiration? Here’s a great list of over 70 new, creative logos that prove the marketing power of red. We will follow up with an eye out for another local color in our next blog post.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we 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 environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

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.

October 14, 2014

Kuler is now Color! Plus, the New Color Theme Tool in Adobe InDesign CC 2014

The latest update for Adobe InDesign CC 2014 gives you a great new tool for creating a beautiful matching color palette based on the images and artwork already in your layout. The Color Theme tool will create for you 5 different 5-swatch palettes or themes of color with a simple click based on the objects you have selected on your page, which you can then add to your swatches palette or export to Adobe Color (formerly Kuler – will get to that in a moment) for use in other applications and on other devices.

If you have a photograph placed on your page, select the new tool then click the photo. The Color Theme tool will select a range or palette of colors based on that image. It will also work on a vector object, shape or a selected area of your layout including several different objects. A main 5-swatch color theme shows up automatically. By clicking on the down arrow you will see four additional “themes”: Colorful, Bright, Dark and Muted. These will give you variations of the basic theme from which to choose.

A button to the right allows you to add any or all of the themes to your Swatches palette. Option clicking that button will allow you to add just an individual color. The colors are by default defined according to your “document intent.” If you hadn’t noticed, whenever you create a new InDesign document, there is a drop-down menu called Intent where you choose if your creation is heading for the Print world, for the Web or for Digital Publishing (e-Pubs). By double clicking the actual Color Theme tool in the toolbar, you can choose to leave your colors “defined as per document intent” or go ahead and decide for yourself to have the colors rendered as CMYK or RGB. In the prepress department here, we were hoping the tool would include the magic of matching the closest PMS color to the selected sample, but no such luck…..yet.

Now here’s another new feature. Adobe Kuler is now Adobe Color. You can access your Creative Cloud Color account directly in InDesign by going to Window – Color – Adobe Color Themes. In the panel that opens, you can access all your previously defined Kuler… er, Color themes, explore the themes of others just as you did with the mobile app or online, or create new ones from scratch. Any themes you create in PhotoShop or Illustrator are also here to share. Adobe has integrated the favorite advancements of its former Kuler app directly into the Creative Cloud applications in a very seamless, easy to use way.

You can watch a couple of very brief overviews of these new features from Adobe by going to Help – What’s New… These new features are very intuitive and a great tool for your color inspiration. The integration of Adobe Color directly into the Creative Cloud apps is very handy and will be welcomed by the Kuler/Color community, though I’m already finding it difficult to stop calling it Kuler.

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 environmentally 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.

September 20, 2013

Pin Up Your Marketing with a Bulletin Board Test

So what looks good for lunch today?

This is our breakroom bulletin board – your workplace might have a similar one. While scanning the take-out menus and ads for various local eateries, think of that bulletin board as a little microcosm of a larger marketing environment: each piece hangs there hoping to catch attention, influence behavior, provide information. Some use mouth-watering photos of their meals; others provide detailed descriptions of their menu choices while still others rely on the familiarity of their logo and brand to catch your eye. They come in all sizes and colors. Each local eatery, vying for your daily lunchtime dollar, wants to outshine the others.

Now think of your marketing material on a bulletin board among those of your competitors. Will they stand out? Would you stop and take notice, feel drawn in by the imagery or design? Which one will make you decide to eat – or shop or invest… and why? If you saw a Pinterest page with a screenshot of your website alongside others in the same line of work, how would you feel about what that homepage says about you? Consider those “bulletin boards” as your marketing litmus test.

Back to Basics: Design & Message

If simply designing with eye-catching color was all that was necessary to get noticed, then most marketing would be a neon, day-glo mess. Yet color choice remains central to making design stand out. Consider if your colors are consistent with your branding and company image, if use of an out-of-the-ordinary color would be efficient, or if even black and white or a minimalist design might give you the desired effect. Keep up with the print and digital advertising of your competitors in the marketplace – the more you understand their efforts the better you can craft your own message to stand out.

With print marketing, shape – whether in terms of scale or geometric shape – can be very important. This is true whether you are printing a flyer, direct mail piece, handout or poster. Over-sized pieces draw attention, yet at times an unusually small piece might stand out from the herd. Die-cuts add an extra step in production but often create a very unique and memorable end product. Your information might fit onto the front of one sheet, or you might need to expand into a folded piece or multiple page publication – all basic and important decisions.

How is your message unique? In other words, what does your business do better than anyone else? Does your marketing simply repeat the same claims all of your competitors are making, or does it reveal why a potential customer is missing out by not discovering what your enterprise has to offer?

The bulletin board test can bring forward some of the most basic questions about your marketing efforts through a simple, real-time comparison. Taking the time to do that comparison can lead you toward finding more productive strategies for success.

Consider the ways you can use inspired graphic design to market your small business. 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.

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.

February 1, 2013

WARNING: When spot colors are used with transparency…

The above warning is an important one! If you have used a spot or PMS color in your InDesign, Quark or Illustrator layout and then applied some type of transparency effect — drop shadows, blending modes, feathering, etc — then this warning is telling you that your file will NOT print correctly. Ignoring it can derail your print project bound for offset or digital output. You can avoid this complication with a little understanding of color definitions and conversion.

With the release of InDesign 2.0 back in 2001, Adobe integrated transparency effects directly into its layout program. New tools allowed us to apply editable transparency effects to text, graphics, and images, the result being a greatly enhanced set of design tools. PDF 1.4 debuted in Acrobat 5 at this time as the first version of PDF that supported transparency. The only catch was that most printer’s RIPs at the time were not ready to handle the transparency effects. Havoc ensued. Times have changed since then and Postscript level 3 processors and pdf workflows effectively manage the flattening of transparent files at the correct time to produce accurate output. But the conflict between spot or PMS colors and transparency lives on.

If your InDesign or Illustrator color palette is using nothing but CMYK colors, you can use transparency with no problems. If you bring in, for example, your logo or a piece of art with a predefined PMS or spot color into your layout, then you have imported that color into your palette. In turn, if you apply that to color text or graphics and use a transparency effect on them, a high resolution output from offset or digital printing will result in the object printing as a blank or with an unintended color. To further confuse the matter, the job may print fine off a desktop printer or create a pdf file that appears fine on screen. However, if you ignore the warning (seen above) that Adobe gives you when you try to save the file, your print provider will most likely NOT be able to convert the spot color to process and retain the correct transparency effect. You must convert the spot color to process in your native file and re-export to pdf.

So How Do I Fix My Files?

We’ve updated this blogpost with some tips on best practices and how to avoid the cost, delay and disappointment of files that print in an unacceptable way. Read it here!

Shop our full ImageSmith catalog online here. We can work with you to find the best option to suit your needs. Please note, prices in online catalog do not include decoration, but call us for a quote 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 marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

January 4, 2013

InDesign Quick Tip: Remove Unwanted or Unused Colors from the Swatches Palette

This is the first in a series of quick, explanatory posts about easy tricks in InDesign that could save time and the expense of prepress charges. First the tip… then some explanation if you want to read further.

To check for and remove unwanted color swatches in your file: click the upper right corner of the Swatches palette, and choose Select All Unused, then click the trash can to delete. If you have swatches left that you do not want in your file, some element within your document is using that color. Click on that swatch and try to delete it as well. If you have no embedded or linked files in your document that brought in that swatch, you will be prompted to change the color (which is being used somewhere in your document) to one of the remaining colors in your palette and problem solved! If the swatch is not able to be trashed, it has arrived in your palette from a “placed” item. You will have to go into that linked logo, artwork or photo in it’s native application to redefine the color to the one you need in your job. Once relinked, that swatch will be freed up to be deleted from your palette.

We see a lot of files with color conflicts come through the art department on their way from design to print. Many seemingly perfect files run into roadblocks at the prepress stage because of colorspace issues: unwanted spot colors, RGB to CMYK color shifts and so on. For the record, this is not a “beginner’s” stumbling block! The fact that files show up with serious color definition issues from seasoned and degreed designers as often as from busy small business owners just trying to save on desktop design expenses tells me that the color palette can be a tricky pitfall. But it need not be difficult if you know the final intent of your file and the color definitions that process will require. (If you are creating a file that will be repurposed for many uses, it is probably best to stay within the CMYK gamut with all elements of the file.)

The Swatches Palette Basics:

As a starting point, you will need a clear understanding of the RGB and CMYK color gamuts – if you need to, check out this link. Window–Color–Swatches will pull up your palette, and by default it is set to the CMYK gamut of colors. The first four in the list cannot be removed from the palette. They are:

None: a means of removing an assigned color from an object
Paper: a nonprinting preview of your page used to simulate the color of paper you will be printing on (usually set, by default, to white)
Black: pure 100% black with no other colors added (see other definitions and uses for black – there are many! – here)
Registration: defined as 100% cyan, 100%% magenta, 100% yellow and 100% black. It will show up on every separation when the file is output and is used to color necessary printing or guide marks such as crop marks, file information, registration bullets, etc..

Think of the other colors you see in this initial palette as a beginning sample of colors you can start playing with. They are all predefined as CMYK. Double-click any of them to tweak or completely redefine the color. You can define new colors by clicking the upper right corner of the palette and choosing from the drop down menu. From here, you can access the Pantone spot color libraries as well. Just remember, keep an eye on this palette as you work and maintain control over any colors that “show up” as you place linked objects into your document.

Spot Color vs. Process Color vs. RGB color

The icons next to your colors will go a long way in visually helping to keep control of the colors defined in your final files. The column on the right shows whether the swatch is defined as CMYK , RGB or even LAB. The column to the left of this will present a circle if the color is a spot color. Will you be printing with spot color inks? Offset in 4-color process? Digitally? Being aware of this as you work and place photos, logos, or other graphic elements into your InDesign file will allow you to see if what you are creating will separate correctly, if needed, at the print stage. While you can define and control the colors of any objects or type created within InDesign, once you place elements created in other applications into your document – such as eps or ai files from Illustrator or jpg and tif files from PhotoShop (or even the dreaded gif files stolen from a website!) – they may bring in predefined colors with them that you cannot override from the InDesign color palette.

If your intent is digital or CMYK process printing, often your printer can redefine spot colors from your pdf at the prepress stage. However, you may be charged extra for this file manipulation. If your intent is a two-color or spot color printing job, then having elements defined as CMYK, RGB, or with extraneous spot colors will render your file unprintable as desired. “Separating” the digital file into the correct plates to carry the spot inks your job requires will produce multiple unneeded plates. While your printer MAY be able to redefine or correctly designate these colors at this stage, chances are they will be calling you to either request the original root files (including all the fonts, links, etc.) or asking you to correct the color conflicts and resubmit your job all over again.

Rely on your printer for advice and direction with any questions you have in designing your marketing materials. They should be able to provide you with the latest information, technical advice, and innovative ideas for print, signage, apparel and integrated marketing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Shop our full ImageSmith catalog online here. We can work with you to find the best option to suit your needs. Please note, prices in online catalog do not include decoration, but call us for a quote 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 marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

May 14, 2012

10 Tips for a Great Multipurpose Newsletter

In a steady, pervasive way, our economy has shifted from one where the greatest value is produced in the manufacture of goods and services to one where the greatest value is mined from data, ideas and knowledge. In such an information age, being generous with your knowledge and expertise carries a great reward. Get that information, advice, data and news out to your public with a newsletter – one that is printed, mailed and cross-purposed into an e-mail resource. You can compile the newsletter from your online blog content, or work in reverse… build your blog with the information you have gathered for your newsletter communications. While information about sales, new product lines and commerce is important, the talent and technical education you and your staff have in your field is perhaps even more valuable to your clients. Sharing it with them will make you trusted and remembered.

Content is king

For sure, all of this can be time-consuming. As small business owners, that time is precious and often scarce both for you and your staff. To help, below are some helpful tips for gathering and preparing great newsletter content.

Name your newsletter. You don’t have to be overly catchy or clever, but think of your newsletter as your own magazine, with a unique title and a clear editorial focus. A suitable, memorable name will allow it to stand out and be recognized once you have loyal readers.
Share your personality. No matter how clinical or technical your field, relay your excitement and interest in what you do for a living in a human voice. Inject your personality into the copy and let readers feel there is a person behind what is being written. Consider including a photo of yourself or your staff as well to establish that human connection with your readers.
Write what you know – use who you know. The information you already possess in running your successful business is your richest source for content. Write about your company’s mission, goals, decision making process, failures and successes. And be sure to rely on your staff as well. Every employee is a source for topic ideas and stories based on their unique experience and knowledge within the company. At the very least, require each employee to submit one story idea a month. Make contacts with other industry blogs online and ask to “guest-blog” an article for them in exchange for one of their own.
Take lots of photos – use them wisely. While stock photography serves a great purpose, nothing is more authentic than photographs you have taken yourself of relevant scenes, people, and products. Since you most likely have a great camera in your smartphone, remember to use it throught your work day. They can be used to illustrate your articles.
Establish serialized columns. Familiarity is an asset when you are vying for a reader’s time. Set up one or two features that appear in every issue of your newsletter. For instance, “FAQ’s” or “Did You Know….” or “Ask an Expert” are all regular column ideas that people are comfortable with and can easily browse.
Write smart headlines. To catch someone’s eye, headlines and graphics are at the top of the list. But remember a good headline also needs to accurately describes the topic of the article. I notice many publications rely on an incessant use of puns, song and movie titles or catchy “plays on words” as headlines. For instance, a story wind velocity and roof repair gets called “Gone With the Wind.” Is it really that funny? No. Does it explain what the article is about? Well, beyond the fact that it involves wind, no. It’s clear an editorial choice has been made that requires each article use this device as a headline. It becomes tiresome and misleading. A great pun can work well as a headline – feel free to get creative – but straight talk can also do the job.
Be accessbile. Use your newsletter to provide as many ways as possible for someone to reach you: phone numbers, web addresses and links, maps to your locations both online and in the real world. Let people know you want them to be in touch.
Do not think of your newsletter as a piece of paper. Yes, you will want to print, mail and distribute physical copies of your newsletters to employees, current clients and the public. But begin to think of the newsletter as the information itself. It will take the form of a printed piece, but can also be repurposed into blog posts, e-newsletters, and website information. Just be sure to learn the rules for email marketing and don’t let yourself inadvertently run afoul of the CAN-SPAM act.
Employ social media and the internet. Staying in touch with your industry peers online through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and relevant trade association or industry websites provides you with a wealth of topic information and inspiration for your content, as well as serving as an avenue to promote your newsletter/blog/website. Check out exmples of other newsletters and a plethora of blog posts like this one giving advice on how to write, design and distribute your newsletters. Stay connected.
Be consistent. If you plan to publish a monthly newsletter, stick to your schedule. Do not miss a month, especially early on when you are hoping to gain reader loyalty. Also, be consistent in your editorial approach.

Rely on your printer for advice and direction in creating and distributing your newsletters, by mail or online. They should be able to provide you with everything from encouragement all the way to the complete design, layout, copywriting, production, multi-purposing and distribution of your periodic marketing outreach. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

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