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Here are a few tips to help your print design process go smoothly. Some of these tips may be elementary to seasoned designers, but they will defiantly help anyone who is plunging into the print design realm.

TRAPPING COLORS
BLEEDING YOUR WORK
CORRECT COLOR

Trapping
After you have designed your piece and before you take it to be output to film, make sure that you have trapped appropriately. Trapping is the porches of slightly overlapping inks where two solid colors meet. This technique helps to compensate for any paper shrink or movement on the press that may cause slight misregistration. If you do not trap, and there is any mis-registration, then you may see tiny white lines where the inks did not match up properly. An exaggerated example of this would be when you notice that the colors in the comics of the Sunday paper have shifted.

Usually trapping is most important when you are using two or more solid ink colors, such as the industry standard Pantone Ink colors. There are several techniques for trapping, and most DTP (Desktop Publishing) programs have their own methods, so for exact instructions consult the owners manual for the DTP program that you are using, but to give you an idea of what is going on here's a brief overview.

In essence what you are doing when you trap is assigning a stroke (around a letter for example) that will overprint (print on top of all other colors in the job). The width of this stroke (usually between .18 points and 1 point; different requirements for different print jobs) falls half way onto both inks. Now, with the trap, if there is a slight shift in the paper or shrinkage the overprinting stroke will fill the gap.

Bleeding
Simpler than trapping is bleeding. If you are ever designing a piece that will have a full bleed (have ink that goes all of the way to the edge of the paper) then you need to bleed it. What bleeding does is run your inks over (usually about .25 - .5 inches) the edge of the paper.
You do this so that when the job is all printed and ready to be cut and folded, there will not be blank spaces (much like mis-registration gaps) if the cutter misses the edge by a small amount.

Correct Color
We live in a wonderful world of technology, but if there is any industry that shows how far we have left to go its the printing industry. The trickiest part in designing a print piece is getting accurate color when it comes time to go to press. The reasons for this are numerous but in short we can say that what you see on screen ain't always what you get on paper.

Monitors (and televisions for that matter) display colors by combining the colors Red, Green and Blue (RGB) in different combinations to make up every other color. This is like the reverse of sunlight being broken down into its primary colors in a rainbow. On the other hand, when printing, all possible colors (in a four color job only) are created by combining different combinations of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. So what we have are two different methodologies that do not translate perfectly from one to the other, and thus we sometimes have error.

The details in getting good color could fill a book, but these ones should give you a good solid platform to get started with.

Expect Variation. No matter what you do, color will always be something that will need extreme attention and adjusting.
Never trust your monitor. Even with the best monitor, you will not get truly perfect color reproduction from monitor to press let alone from scanner to monitor to press.
Use your pantone books. Always trust your pantone books over your monitor. You can get these color swatch books to use as a reference when picking and proofing colors.
Get a proof if needed. If accurate color is critical to the job, then plan extra time and money to pay for a good proof. This will save you a lot of headaches in the long run.
Use a decent monitor. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars for a good monitor, but a good monitor can make your job a lot easier. You should be able to find a good 17" monitor for about $650 - $700.
Calibrate your monitor. There are plenty of ways to do this, from $2,000 color calibration hardware to adjusting simple system settings on your computer. Most good monitors will come with some software calibration that works pretty well when used correctly.
Use a capable computer. Even the best monitor will look horrible if the computer running it can't drive it accurately. Critical here is the ability to display at least "Thousands of Colors" and preferably "Millions of Colors" . All color Macintoshes have the ability to display at least "Thousands of Colors" but many Windows machines can only display 256 colors. To extend your computer's color capabilities look into a quality video card and/or possibly adding some VRAM (video RAM) to your system.
Scan appropriately. Use a scanner that has good color depth (at least 24-bit preferably 30-bit) and good reviews. If the job is important enough, pay to have your photos drum scanned to get the most color possible.



Industry Sites Design Tips Community Info	Here are a few tips to help your print design process go smoothly. Some of these tips may be elementary to seasoned designers, but they will defiantly help anyone who is plunging into the print design realm. TRAPPING COLORS BLEEDING YOUR WORK CORRECT COLOR Trapping After you have designed your piece and before you take it to be output to film, make sure that you have trapped appropriately. Trapping is the porches of slightly overlapping inks where two solid colors meet. This technique helps to compensate for any paper shrink or movement on the press that may cause slight misregistration. If you do not trap, and there is any mis-registration, then you may see tiny white lines where the inks did not match up properly. An exaggerated example of this would be when you notice that the colors in the comics of the Sunday paper have shifted. Usually trapping is most important when you are using two or more solid ink colors, such as the industry standard Pantone Ink colors. There are several techniques for trapping, and most DTP (Desktop Publishing) programs have their own methods, so for exact instructions consult the owners manual for the DTP program that you are using, but to give you an idea of what is going on here's a brief overview. In essence what you are doing when you trap is assigning a stroke (around a letter for example) that will overprint (print on top of all other colors in the job). The width of this stroke (usually between .18 points and 1 point; different requirements for different print jobs) falls half way onto both inks. Now, with the trap, if there is a slight shift in the paper or shrinkage the overprinting stroke will fill the gap. Bleeding Simpler than trapping is bleeding. If you are ever designing a piece that will have a full bleed (have ink that goes all of the way to the edge of the paper) then you need to bleed it. What bleeding does is run your inks over (usually about .25 - .5 inches) the edge of the paper. You do this so that when the job is all printed and ready to be cut and folded, there will not be blank spaces (much like mis-registration gaps) if the cutter misses the edge by a small amount. Correct Color We live in a wonderful world of technology, but if there is any industry that shows how far we have left to go its the printing industry. The trickiest part in designing a print piece is getting accurate color when it comes time to go to press. The reasons for this are numerous but in short we can say that what you see on screen ain't always what you get on paper. Monitors (and televisions for that matter) display colors by combining the colors Red, Green and Blue (RGB) in different combinations to make up every other color. This is like the reverse of sunlight being broken down into its primary colors in a rainbow. On the other hand, when printing, all possible colors (in a four color job only) are created by combining different combinations of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. So what we have are two different methodologies that do not translate perfectly from one to the other, and thus we sometimes have error. The details in getting good color could fill a book, but these ones should give you a good solid platform to get started with. Expect Variation. No matter what you do, color will always be something that will need extreme attention and adjusting. Never trust your monitor. Even with the best monitor, you will not get truly perfect color reproduction from monitor to press let alone from scanner to monitor to press. Use your pantone books. Always trust your pantone books over your monitor. You can get these color swatch books to use as a reference when picking and proofing colors. Get a proof if needed. If accurate color is critical to the job, then plan extra time and money to pay for a good proof. This will save you a lot of headaches in the long run. Use a decent monitor. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars for a good monitor, but a good monitor can make your job a lot easier. You should be able to find a good 17" monitor for about $650 - $700. Calibrate your monitor. There are plenty of ways to do this, from $2,000 color calibration hardware to adjusting simple system settings on your computer. Most good monitors will come with some software calibration that works pretty well when used correctly. Use a capable computer. Even the best monitor will look horrible if the computer running it can't drive it accurately. Critical here is the ability to display at least "Thousands of Colors" and preferably "Millions of Colors" . All color Macintoshes have the ability to display at least "Thousands of Colors" but many Windows machines can only display 256 colors. To extend your computer's color capabilities look into a quality video card and/or possibly adding some VRAM (video RAM) to your system. Scan appropriately. Use a scanner that has good color depth (at least 24-bit preferably 30-bit) and good reviews. If the job is important enough, pay to have your photos drum scanned to get the most color possible.