Production guide

In contrast to the screen colours RGB (red + green + blue) in which the picture data in your camera is saved, digital and offset printing have to do primarily with CMYK colours (cyan + magenta + yellow + black). The data in your image editing programme has to be converted in order to reproduce them in the four colours through the printing machine. In offset printing, this four colour set can be replaced with special colours for additional printing works, which can also be used on the computer.

The ICC profile provides the colour management when converting the picture data. Preset output profiles compensate various printing material (colouration and surface texture of the paper) and make adjustments in the colour space that are less noticeable in print as on the monitor or in the original picture data. By means of independent reference values the printed result can be simulated on the computer.

The maximum representable colour saturation in print can be reached with full-tone colour. With combined printing inks (CMYK) the summation of the ink coverage can not exceed 300% (coated paper) respectively 260% (uncoated paper). This already has to be taken into consideration during the data preparation.

We print our memo book grid preferably with a line thickness of approx. 0.2 point Pantone (a CMYK- grey composition could lead to register problems). Negative or left out text should only occur in full-colour sections because here the precision is visible.

In print as with embossing, the image precision is dependent on the undercoat, so a glossy paper always leads to a better printing result than one that is open-pore. Coloured text on a coloured surface is set on Leave Blank in the layout programme (surface has holes where the text should be placed). It is recommended to overfill (enlarge) the light colours in order to avoid white streaks when the printing inks aren’t exactly on top of each other. For best printing results, the considerably darker text colours should be set on Overprint in comparison to the background.

Basically, what applies is: the smaller the print run, the more economical it becomes to use digital printing because no print plates are used and the machine can therefore be set up more quickly. When using printing plates of 200 or more, offset printing usually becomes more economical. The variety of paper is greater in offset printing than in digital printing, whereby more and more paper manufacturers have their papers tested and certified for digital print machines. Because digital printing paper is usually prepared with a primer for bonding the inks and the colour application is greater, the paper surface is sealed. The application effect with uncoated paper is glossy and slightly shiny, whereas offset printing inks seep more into the paper and the haptic is to the greatest extent maintained. Therefore digital printing offers more possibilities for customising, whereas offset printing simply doesn’t. We are happy to help you in selecting the best printing process for your needs.

Suppose your advertising pages are distributed throughout the book at irregular intervals or you have combined images and a dot grid on one page, there is a way to get around the 5-coloured print (CMYK for pictures + special colour pantone for dots\/check\/lines). With offset printing we set up the printing plates in a frequency-modulated screen, in short FM screening. Thereby the dots or lines are screened in 30% black in such a way that the grid points (common in amplitude-modulated screening) optically disappear. In this way the special colour is not necessary, and we save costs without sacrificing a clean printed image. There are no additional expenses for the data production.

During the offer phase, you will receive from us a sample print from similar productions that illustrate our quality standards. A press proof of your motif from the offset press is expensive and only recommended for very critical special colours or motifs. During the production process, your brandbook contact person will inspect the quality of the print before it is bound. By this time the print run has been completed, but in the case of any rejections, intervening at this point in the production process could avoid excessive costs. If you have the time, we would be happy to send you this printed sheet from the print production for your approval.

Without something to compare it to, it is difficult to predict the desired result or afterwards to object to the actual result. A print from a laser printer or a low resolution plot (inkjet printer in the prepress department) can only serve as a final check in regards to the completeness of the elements. These prints – as well as a screen view – are not colour consistent! It is recommended to make a contact proof with a high-definition printer, namely a digital print which can only simulate how the later offset printing on another paper will look, but due to the settings is colour consistent. The proof control strip contains what is needed to make a technical examination. Only in this way can an alignment of the printing press be made directly according to the template. Special colours will be matched with the corresponding colour guide.

The use of special colours is necessary when the CMYK illustrated colour space needs to be expanded, for example in the area of metallic or neon colours. But also with clearly defined corporate colours, in order to repeatedly get the same colour reproduction on the printed surface, a full-tone colour in print is advisable (instead of combining four colours). Whether you use the Pantone system, the HKS colour scale or the RAL fans – we can use the colour as reference. Offset printing is only printed in pantone (worldwide the most conventional special colour palette for printing) and HKS (a less wide-ranging colour system developed by one of the three German colour manufacturers), while the RAL colour pigment is used in coatings.

When comparing pantone colour C and U fans (C = coated for coated paper, U = uncoated for uncoated paper) one recognises that some of the colours with the same colour number are optically very different. Often the colours in the U fan seem more pale and less pure, while the open paper surface absorbs more colour. When combining uncoated and coated paper in the same book project, it is very important to compare the colours and if necessary choose another pantone tone that optically comes closer to the C value.

Highly pigmented colours from the ANIVA® series are always used when the image on uncoated paper must be reproduced as sharply as possible and in great detail. When printing on natural paper, conventional offset printing normally reduces the colour space significantly. Highly pigmented colours counter this effect and even expand the colour space. The printing result is greatly improved. Ask your brandbook contact person when using highly pigmented colour would be useful.

Neon colours have a special pigment with a high luminance that can be applied on the surface by means of a particularly thick colour application such as in screen printing. In order to get the same luminance and rich neon colour results in offset printing as in screen printing or to reach the same colour on the pantone fans, two printing runs should be planned. This applies particularly to uncoated paper, and is also recommended for coated paper with a closed surface.

Yes! Pearlescent particles give printing an iridescent effect and can be added to the printing ink. The pantone colour system includes metallic colours (gold, silver, copper and also bright colours with a metallic lustre) that in print, especially on coated paper, can be shown to their advantage. The lustre can not really be compared to that of metallic foil debossing; but in its favour varied motifs and half-tones are attainable.

The effect of a black and white photo can be enhanced with a special colour, which can already be set up in the data. With duplex printing, that is a print using black and a second printing ink, details seem more vivid. The second colour should be selected according to the desired effect wanted in the image. For example, silver gives the image a noble shine, a warmer brown tone gives a sepia effect.

In general, in book production we have the problem that when folding and cutting the bound book block and in the final cut on the edges, great pressure is exerted on the paper and consequently also the printing ink. Thereby it can lead to so-called set-off, which means that the printing ink carries over into the white areas of the paper. A finish should be applied here as a protective coating on full-surface and page bleed-off printed pages or if the colour application is 250% or more. A finish is advisable when printing on glossy paper but is not absolutely necessary for uncoated paper (and therefore the haptic of the uncoated paper is maintained).

The DIN formats are well-known, most sheets of paper are available in their aspect ratio. From an aesthetic point of view, brandbook has decided to minimally optimise this format so that, for example our A5 book page is 141 mm × 207 mm (instead of DIN A5: 148 mm × 210 mm). In doing this, we have aligned our machines in such a way that for a book cover with rounded edges, DIN A5 is a special format (and thereby cost intensive). You still have the possibility to select our standard or a customised format i.e. square. Technically books are possible in ​7,8 cm × 10,8 cm to 26,5 cm × 37,5 cm.

Now and then on image pages, the pictures or design elements crossover the binding (Attention: incidentally 2 advertising pages start as a right front page and a left back page! If a double page is desired, then technically you have to anticipate four pages.) Left and right sections are not always found on one piece of paper; instead the printing sheets can be folded and inserted inside each other. In an 8-page thread-sewn book, only page 4 and 5 are directly across from each other; all the others are false double pages. Therefore, the danger is minimised but the fold tolerance depending on the motif doesn’t exclude that the crossover might not appear clean. Diagonals should be avoided here.

Elements that are always the same distance from the edge of the page in the printing data, seem to jump around in the finished product depending on their position in the thread-sewn book. This is due to page creep, that results from inserting so many pages inside each other. In a 16-page book, the pages inside each other are minimally shortened after the final trimming of the book block in comparison to the exterior. To counter this phenomenon is work intensive in that the information about the paper strength is pre-calculated regarding displacement and the individual pages are then manually adjusted.

Image pages in a notebook that are glued in as single sheets or a 4-pager (because they can’t be thread-sewn) have a thin adhesive edge when bound (approx. 4–6 mm). Therefore the inner centimeter should not contain an important picture or text information and the layout has to be adjusted in a way that the picture or text are evenly centered on the page. This also goes for – if they are printed – the last frontleaf page and the first endleaf page that are each thinly glued to the book block.