Leaflet Printing Design Advice

[Hugh Potter]

HI Denise,

i’m not familiar with signlab so design all my cards and flyers in corel draw (actually.. i do everything with corel!)

one possible problem is that the litho will use cmyk (i’m 99% sure on that) when printing the flyers, as a result it’s best to design in cmyk to avoid any changed in the colours you’re specifying.

did you send the artwork as a pdf? sometimes saving to pdf can muck up the colours a bit. it’s always worth printing the flyer off of the file you’re going to print from, i usually do it on the laser and inkjet, one will usually show and weird things up. fountain fills, transparencies and drop shadows seem to be the main culprits, sometimes it’s worth converting it to a high res jpeg or simply to a bitmap before printing for better results, sometimes even just the drop shadows etc, it prevents them playing up.

one last thing with corel… regardless of printer, i find that corel (12) always prints photo’s darker so usually have to up the brightness a couple of clicks. haven’t tried to see what happens on X5 yet so it might have been an issue that’s overcome now.

hope that helps,
Hugh

[Tim Painter]

I don’t use signlab so can’t advise. as I use Corel.

Always create in CMYK, I convert all text to curves to avoid any font issues.
As Hugh said convert fountain fills, transparencies & drop shadows to CMYK bitmaps.

I would never supply it as a JPEG, keep vector parts / text as that.

I think the printer went for the easy option for output and in the conversion colours have shifted.

Also you will find if there is small text it probably has jaggies and isn’t as sharp as if you have kept it as vector.

[Dale Farrell]

We do a fair bit of designing for printers. The very first job I did a long time ago was designed in RGB & turned out very differently than I imagined. Blue was purple etc…

I will use Photoshop, Illustrator or Corel for design.

Always best to design as CMYK, as this is what printers will ask for.
I would also steer clear of sending as JPEG as PDF will give better quality.

Dale.

[Peter Dee]

And therein lies a problem. Output to PDF will often result in it going back to RGB. Depending which reader or Acrobat you have you can check to see what colours are in use within the created PDF.

[John Gregson]

litho printed or digital, makes a big difference in quality. Digital always looks different from the original.

[David Rowland]

If you are at junction point of possibly learning new software then there is two options, learn Corel Draw or learn Adobe Illustrator.

Corel Draw has always been very easy to get on with, even with the people who have used AI learning a new program. The new version X5 (patched twice) it is actually brilliant onscreen but still a performance hungary application, with regards those say PDF’s from Corel are not right, I dissagree as our entire workflow using custom PDF settings. In my opionin that what you see in a Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF will be a very close representation of the final product.

Adobe Illustrator is a dream to use, even those who have a digitiser pen, it does allow a lot of design to flow from the tools provided. One other thing is Adobe are always updating the program and bugs being fixed so you always feel that you program isn’t going to fail on you. The other thing is PDF format is Adobe’s technology and Illustrator will open PDFs and what you see on screen is what was intended.

SignLab is a tricky one as I have only used it as Graphtec variation of the program, it has come along way and there is a lot of tools to help the designer for signage especially, as mention few times here before where a simple task in SignLab could take many processes with Corel. But deep down I don’t see it as a professional designer application but it can do a very good job. I have no idea how powerful the rendering engine or how well it is tuned for colour profiles.

Thing is, learning other applications is a good thing, I have been trying to get my team to use more Adobe products, but everyone seem to keep using the tools they use and trust. The importance is to learn learn and learn and get better at things.

[Alan Drury]

I supply a fair few leaflets and I also supply artwork for output for digital print, banners, direct to substrate and self adhesive. My workflow is very similar.
I never use Signlab, not because I don’t think its capable but you would need the full blown print and cut version to get the colour management and that is the main problem for many – how do I get the printed colours to match my screen.
I use Corel Draw (X5) for all jobs going to print, I set up the colour management for RGB = Adobe RGB 1998 – CMYK = Euroscale Coated V2 – Greyscale = dot gain 15% – Primary mode cmyk and rendering intent perceptual – spot colour definition = LAB values. You can use Europe prepress and thats’s ok to start from. X5 will take the monitor profile from the system so set this for your monitor. Previous versions of Draw set monitor within Draws colour manager, use a profile of your monitor if you have it – generic will do at a pinch.
I work in cmyk if designing leaflets or anything for cmyk output or Pantone colours for 1, 2 or 3 colour spot colour work such as letterheads etc. Photographs I will do all tweaking in RGB and convert to CMYK when I’ve finished so the whole job has a cmyk colour model. It is quite normal for bright vivid colours to dull down slightly when converted to cmyk and that is the whole point of colour management – to see what your going to get when printed. Getting it peerfect is virtually impossible as even press variations and media differeneces can change colour.
OUTPUT – I will print to Cute pdf for litho output as I can use print preview to step and repeat if required and check separations. If you want fonts to be converted to curves, do it manually or uncheck ‘download Type1 fonts and convert true type to type 1’.
For digitally printed stuff to vinyl, banner or substate I publish to pdf from within Draw:
Colour = output colours as native
Document = page only is checked (ensure page size matches output size)
Objects = Compress text and line work, Export all text as curves
compression I use ZIP – Colour 300dpi – Greyscale 300dpi – monochrome – 1200 – eps = postscript.
These settings for bitmaps are only relevant if the bitmaps are above this on your page.
In X5 a new page will give you a default setting for large format set ‘rendering resolution’ to 100 or 150 for litho 300 – in X4 and below this setting is found Tools – Options – Workspace – General. These settings may require some fine tuning but they have always worked for me. X5 had major work on the colour manager to be more inline with an accepted ICC workflow and Publish to PDF is pretty good now too as it preserves blends and fountain fills better. Postscript output does have limitations and PDF is the future and most workflows use this now anyway.
Can’t comment on Illustrator but the basic rules are the same anyway and the settings will be in there somewhere.
Alan D

[Denise Goodfellow]

many thanks everyone for replying XXXXXXXXX

Its for litho printing, so I can see why designing in CMYK needs to be done. ( having just read an article on how litho done. )

but how confusing, even the printers of the leaflets offer different advice. I`ve just read a link on someones website, they say they will only accept PDF`s, others say just send a j peg @ 300dpi….

Looks like I`ll have to use corel ( we have X3) 😉

In signlab, I can click on a colour tab and alter it from 1 shade to another, and also convert it from RGB to CMYK.

Can I open a palette so that its CMYK already? or so every time signlab is opened the palette is CMYK ?

[David Rogers]

For leaflets & flyers I just send my print company jpgs. That way there is absolutely no way there can be import errors (can get them even with PDFs).

It makes absolutely no difference whether you send them RGB or CMYK other than GENERALLY speaking the CMYK will be a little duller on screen and be closer to the actual paper print.

The actual output will be virtually the same regardless of what you supply them, and there is absolutely no need for you to do the hard work as the CMYK separations are all done by your friendly local printer.

I always send them 600dpi JPGs as I prefer to do my designs that way as then I don’t have to bother about palette imports for any vectors. Also – vector generated fades can have more noticeable fountain steps resulting in a banded appearance. Again, generally – if it’s all done in say photoshop (bitmapped) the graduations are often smoother.

As for designing in Signlab – I do all of my vector work there. Logos, even text as it’s faster for me. Then just drop the component parts into photoshop and tweak away.

Dave

[Alan Drury]

I suppose we all have out preferred workflow but I wouldn’t use jpg only. PDF can contain bitmap and vector data, text usually is vector, it and any other vector object therefor will output at the maximum resolution of the output device – ie a printer outputting to a setter or CTP will output vector objects at 2000 + DPI a 600dpi jpg apart from being a larger file will only be 600dpi so lower quality. At these out resolutions they should be using a high line screen so really there should be no banding on blends or fountain fills. If you work in RGB you will rely on the conversion of the printer so you can expect a colour shift on some colours, work in cmyk and with a colour manager as found with Corel Draw/Illustrator/Photoshop and you will get more predictable results. Keep vector objects and text vector, photos 300 – 400dpi finished size, working this way is the more common workflow for litho printing producing smaller file size, higher quality text and more predictable colour.
Alan D