Printing terminology

Colour management - ensures accuracy of colour reproduction between different equipment and processes.

Gamut (RGB, CMYK, hexachrome). describe the accuracy of reproducibility. RGB can reproduce 70% of colours seen by naked eye. Using a colour outside printing gamut will need to be replaced with closest colour and this will affect design.

Colour profiles pre defined printing and stock. different across Adobe programs as they have different print requirements

Coated/uncoated provides service quality but changes how ink is absorbed and therefore how sharp the image will appear. Glossy = sharp, uncoated = softer image

Process colour in offset lithography colours are applied in CMYK using halftone dots.

Spot colours must be defined if a colour to be printed falls outside the working gamut system. Can be defined using the Pantone system but the colours will look different on screen and paper so use printed reference.

Lithography printing process uses plates (one for each colour) and ink is applied on the basis that oil and water repel each other. Ink from plates are offset onto a rubber surface before being applied to the paper.

Web High volume printing (newspapers) often onto huge rolls of paper. flexography (relief) or rotogravure (intaglio)

(registration) Black registration is the result of all 4 process colour in the same space. Used to apply registration marks to ensure accurate alignment of the litho plates.

Full bleed printed beyond margin limits to ensure no white edges appear

Tipped in page is printed separately but bound with rest of publication (insert, different size, stock, colour, coating)
Tip on extra content added onto a page eg a membership card glued onto page

Duplexing bonding two stocks together to act as one page with different colour or texture on each side

Foil blocking where coloured foil is pressed into the stock using a foil stamp

Embossing/debossing raised and indented surfaces.

Die cutting design is cut out of the surface using metal die

Laminate plastic coating heat sealed onto stock to provide waterproof

Varnish using spot colour process to a certain section of the stock to add shiny, glossy surface.

Using paper stock I created a swatch of standard book formats to use as reference when deciding what size to print my publication in.