Philippine Center for Creative Imaging

(Hands-on application of the principles is covered in the prepress companion workshop)

One-day lecture (for graphic artists and production personnel)

Graphic artists are experts at editing images, but don’t know how the highlights and shadows will survive on press. Some graphic artists don’t know about halftones, much less how to deal with them. Most don’t know, and don’t care, about ink limits. Some swear by their Pantone swatch book, not knowing its limitations. Some know only coated and uncoated paper. Many can’t tell an ICC profile from another.

Knowing little about print production processes is just half the problem. The other half is not knowing how all these variables impact the printed output, sometimes with unwanted results.

The more skilled we become in graphic programs, the more we overlook the first law of print production: The tail wags the dog. Meaning the output process at the end dictates the workflow methods at the beginning. No artist should pick up the mouse without knowing where and how the file is going to be printed.

What will be covered

• What to ask suppliers besides “how much”
• The critical processes involved in print production, with emphasis on how they can become problems or solutions
• Eight proofing methods, and the one method you should never accept
• What you don’t know about Pantone colors that will haunt you at press time
• Why we should control the amount of ink in our files, not on press
• Four common margin errors that can spoil the best layout
• Overview of the different printing processes
• Finishing processes from binding to varnish
• Setting up color management in Adobe CS3+ and CorelDRAW X5+
• Paper types and paper properties
• Folds and binding, imposition, crop and registration marks, target (striker) bars
• Mistaking bitmaps for vectors
• Overprinting and knockout, and when to override the settings
• Color separation essentials
• Prepress checklist before handing off to your printing press

Who will benefit

• Graphic artists, desktop publishers, layout artists, art directors
• Press supervisors and prepress staff
• All print production people from the old school who plan to work in a fully digital environment

Prerequisite

• Some exposure to print production, either as graphic artist, prepress provider, or press supervisor, or
• Some background either in computer graphics or traditional (film-based) production

The instructor

Edward Yap is a graphic artist and writer with extensive, real-world exposure to print production, from the time he worked in advertising and graphic design studios, including his own. When the press industry took its first steps in digital production, Ed kept abreast by learning the digital workflow equivalent of the traditional, cut-and-paste process. Many things he discusses in the class are actual problems he encountered as editor/art-director of three nationally distributed magazines and as creative director of his own design studio.