You want your printed piece to look as much as possible like the colors that you see on your computer monitor, right? We may not be able to achieve perfection, but we can make colors more consistent. The accurate reproduction of full color images and artwork requires following a careful and proven workflow. A color workflow maintains the best translation of colors from device to device or environment to environment throughout the production process, each with its own color processing standards and capabilities.
Each of these environments must be carefully managed for consistent and predictable artwork results. Why, for example, might the images on your screen differ from your final printed piece? Color calibration guarantees adherence to a known set of color standards. Color standards provide a common base language or code for all devices to reference, such as the proper distribution of tones from black to white. Referring to the same code allows the translation of color representation between devices to occur seamlessly.
You lose accuracy. Do you really want to spend hours and hours editing your artwork, only to find out you made the wrong or even just ineffective tweaks? You can also buy an assortment of color calibration tools that help you calibrate display monitors. Be sure and get a calibration tool rated for print color management.
Many people put down the sRGB space. Adobe RGB tends to be the safest and most flexible option. This means Adobe RGB can keep the integrity of all the color possibilities that both of these spaces can produce. The main benefit of the ProPhoto color space is that it keeps the data that applies to the colors your monitor can display, the colors your printer can produce, as well as all the colors that printers and monitors in the future will recognize. You can do this pretty easily in most design software, such as Photoshop, with the Assign Profile option.
You can also convert color to specific color profile. This method assumes that an image already has an assigned color profile. RGB content can now be seamlessly processed by most modern print workflows and gets converted on the fly to CMYK for any offset printing applications. Your printer may be gun shy. What were once commonplace mistakes like leaving artwork in RGB no longer cause problems — and sometimes even work to our advantage. A lot of old school print shops still recommend converting images to CMYK.
But not only will you immediately lose irrecoverable image data, Photoshop will make this conversion based on your current color settings for the CMYK color space and is rarely, if ever, correct. Even with a custom profile, be extremely careful when navigating this territory. Making a color mode conversion is a one-way street. You can use a preset or printer profile that makes the conversion for you, creating a new CMYK file but leaving your native RGB file alone.
This way, you can see how your colors will look after conversion to CMYK, but all of your image data will remain intact in your original source files. Today, traditional and modern printing methods coexist. Of all the common printing techniques summarized above, your biggest decision will most likely come when evaluating offset versus digital.
Each year, the quality of digital printing increases. In fact, the print quality of digital can often matches that of offset often at a lower cost. These color values can be combined to create every other color when reproducing an image. Printers create small dots with these four colors, placed at different angles to create an accurate reproduction of an image. This color system is the most widely used in color printing, whether it is the digital printers in your office or a large multi-function printer using printing plates.
However, be wary of smaller fonts when it comes to accessibility, as this sizing might alienate young readers as well as older demographics. If your black ink is low and you have full color ink cartridges collecting dust in your printer, this is the best way to take advantage of the remaining black ink cartridge. Probably the best-kept secret on this list, using grayscale, can significantly reduce the consumption of black ink.
What is Grayscale? Without getting into scientific specifics, greyscale is simply a printing method that uses a combination of black and colored inks to emulate the color gray.
While it still requires small levels of black ink, tiny amounts of cyan, magenta, and yellow are sacrificed to compensate for the missing black ink. Greyscale is also technically able to print colors; that color is gray, but different shades of it to differentiate from each other. Albeit boring to look at, this allows you to print photos and graphics, such as charts and graphs, without losing critical information. If there is no Grayscale option available, there is an alternative method of achieving this.
If you are using an Adobe Creative Suite program such as Photoshop, you can change the font color using a specific color code. This should emulate the same sort of results, though not exact. With such a high demand for printers that use less ink, one of the best-kept secrets can be done on your very own printer without a need to upgrade to a new one.
Probably the most divisive topic in the printing community is whether or not you should leave your printer on at all times.
While there are benefits and drawbacks to both arguments, leaving your printer on will consume less ink. Why is that? Every time you turn your printer on, it will conduct a routine maintenance cycle. This precautionary test will shoot ink throughout the system, which will loosen any ink clots and clean the internal system.
This is helpful for printers that have not been run in a while. The residue from ink can harden over time and obstruct the general flow, lessening the quality of your print. We're not recommending or condoning this action, as it may have ramifications that can seriously damage the printheads.
Draft Mode is a feature used on older computers that allow for a lower quality print that consumes less of the necessary printer ink. These were often used as a "test version" before printing the final copy. This is achieved by reducing the saturation and resolution of the document. Although the quality may be slightly sacrificed, it will still be legible and serve its purpose.
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