We don't want you to be surprised with anything in the printing process. We've had over 18 years experience in the printing industry and we'd like to pass along our knowledge so that you can make an educated and informed decision when it comes to selecting a printer.

While we certainly hope you decide to stay with First Place Publishing for all your printing needs, we encourage you to get a few prices from local printers ... just so that you have piece of mind knowing that the prices you are paying are reasonable.

When calling around to local printers, be sure you cover all your bases to avoid any extra fees or charges once the print job has started. To help you assure yourself that you are getting accurate price quotes without leaving any bases uncovered, we've created the following helpful tip sections for you to review:

• Process Inks vs. Spot Color Inks
• Offset Printing vs. Digital Printing
• Bleeds
• Overs & Unders
• Negs & Plates
• Coatings
• Set-up Charges & Press Washes

If you have any questions about the printing process or if anything mentioned in this section is unclear, feel free to call us anytime for further explanation.

In order for the printer to recreate your photographs, logos, backgrounds, etc. colored ink is used, which absorbs into the paper from the printing press. Full-color images (such as a color photograph) are created using four inks: cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), and black (K). This process is commonly referred to as 4-color process printing using the CMYK process inks.

All full-color images are created using these four CMYK inks. The illustration below shows that when different combinations of these four inks are placed on top of one another, the end result is a full color image.

While there are only four process inks (cyan, magenta, yellow, black), there are thousands and thousands of different spot color inks. When printing your marketing products that have full-color pictures, you will tell the printer that your print job will need to be printed using the CMYK printing process, not in spot-colored inks.

One last tip in regards to inks: if your product design utilizes a lot of inks (means that there is not too much white space showing), it would probably be considered a "heavy ink coverage" print job. In other words, the will be a lot of ink used to produce this job - and in printer terminology they call this "heavy ink coverage". When asking for price quotes be sure to let them know if you have heavy ink coverage. Most of the products we design utilize background images that cover up almost all of the white paper ... thus resulting in heavy ink coverage.

To be sure you have no surprises waiting for you when you pick up the job, be sure to tell your printer ahead of time that your job has heavy ink coverage. If you do not know what type of coverage your job would be considered (such as light coverage or normal coverage), simply show your artwork to the printer and ask them if they consider your job light, normal, or heavy ink coverage.

Offset Printing vs. Digital Printing

When printing your full-color products, we highly recommend getting them created using a traditional offset commercial printing company. Offset printers put actual wet ink on their printing presses, as opposed to some digital printers which may use dry colored toner (like color copiers). Printing with ink will result in the best quality product and in most cases will also be the most economical. See our special section entitled What is Digital Printing? for a more detailed explanation into digital printing.

Bleeds

What are bleeds? Luckily enough they have nothing to do with blood or getting hurt. The term 'bleeds' is used when ink goes all the way to the edge of the paper. Look at the two images below to help understand what 'bleeds' are:

Bleeds are important for a number of reasons. When it comes to good, visually-appealing designs, bleeds greatly improves the look and appearance of a designed product. If you've ever tried to print a full-page image on your ink jet or laser printer but are disappointed when the picture does NOT go all the way to the edge of the paper, this occurred because computer printers cannot print all the way to the edges of the paper.

When getting prices from a commercial printer for your brochures, postcards or business cards, make sure you let them know about the bleeds. When a printer is told that a job has bleeds, this means that the printer must print on paper that is larger than your finished size.

For example, if your brochure is 8.5" x 11" with full bleeds, the commercial printer will not print your job on regular 8.5" x 11" paper. They will print it on paper larger than that, such as on a 9" x 12" sheet, in which the printer will cut off the edges after the ink has dried to result in the final size of 8.5" x 11".

Print jobs that have bleeds are typically a little more expensive because they require larger sheet sizes to accommodate the bleed areas. However, for the few extra dollars it may cost for bleeds, the end result of a much better looking product with full-bleed design is money well spent.

Overs & Unders

Overs & Unders is something you will want to verify with your commercial printer before you tell them to proceed with your print job. It has been standard in the printing industry for years and years to have the ability to charge customers for 10% over or under the quoted quantity and price. Most printers typically do NOT charge for overs/unders but it is something you should be aware of.

For example, if you told your printer to print 1000 brochures and the fine print in the estimate stated "10% overs/unders", the printer can now give you 10% over than the 1000 requested brochures (1100) or 10% under (900) if they want to. If they go 10% over, you are given 1100 brochures and you are charged for those extra 100 brochures - even though you didn't ask for them. If they go 10% under, you may only be given 900 brochures instead of the full 1000 brochures requested. Although you are only charged for 900, this may still cause you problems if you really needed 1000 brochures but only got 900.

The moral of the Overs & Unders story is: demand up front that the printer provide to you exactly the amount of printed pieces you had them quote you for - no more, no less. First Place Publishing never gives overs or unders - the amount you want is exactly the amount you get.

Negs & Plates

Some commercial printers require the use of negatives and plates to transfer your images and words onto their printing press. If a printer needs to create negs and plates, be sure to verify that their price quote already includes these negs/plates.

Some printers have taken advantage of modern technology and no longer use negs or plates or both. While this may sometimes speed up the actual printing process, the quality of the end product is typically the same when comparing these newer printing presses with traditional ones that utilize negatives and plates.

Coatings

After the 4-color process inks are put on the paper, it is very common (and recommended) for printers to put on an additional clear ink - or a coating - that is placed on top of your sheet for protection against outside elements and wear and tear. An aqueous coating is a clear, water-based ink that are common on most 4-color process jobs and is fairly economical in cost. This coating reduces fingerprints from showing up as a result of oil from the skin on your fingers.

Ultra-violet (UV) coating is another type of coating - usually a little more expensive - used to protect inks. UV coatings are common on print jobs that typically require heavier stock, such as business cards or postcards.

Are coatings such as these required? No. However, on print jobs that use a lot of ink (called Heavy Ink Coverage), a coating such as aqueous or UV is highly recommended.

Set-Up Charges & Press Washes

When a commercial printer creates your price quote, be sure that you know if it contains any set-up fees or press wash fees. The last thing you want is to give a company your print job based on an estimate they gave you ... but you soon become outraged to find out that you owe more than the quoted price because it didn't include set-up charges or press washes.

Although set-up charges and press wash fees are typically already built into most price estimates, it is always your best bet to ask if the quotes include these items. Set-up charges refer to the actions that the pressman has to utilize when setting up his printing press before beginning to run your print job. Press washes refer to the process of washing up the press to clean out the inks used on your print job.