When to Use the Services of a Printing Press and When To Use Your Own Printer

Jan 21
01:08

2005

Maricon Williams

Maricon Williams

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If you are ... with lots of printing jobs, you befall ... and don’t know what to use – the printing press or your own printer. Well, it’s easy, just follow these ... or laser

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If you are bombarded with lots of printing jobs,When to Use the Services of a Printing Press and When To Use Your Own Printer Articles you befall perplexed and don’t know what to use – the printing press or your own printer. Well, it’s easy, just follow these guidelines:Inkjet or laser printer in our desktop is ideal for printing everyday, personalized materials such as letters, memos, reports, and the likes. It is also perfect for small quantities of materials such as proposals and formal reports. Normally, we do not use our desktop printer for producing finished copies of business cards, posters, brochures, and other pieces that are printed in large quantities on a printing press. They surely can be printed on a desktop printer, but may appear of lower quality.Need bulk copies of a catalog, brochure, or direct mail piece? Check into a local or regional printer with a web press. The palpable difference between a sheetfed press and a web press is that a web press prints on rolls of paper instead of sheets of paper. They are huge machines that not only print the piece but fold, bind, and trim it in one cycle.Many of us take jobs that have need of more than a few copies down the street to the type of quick-copy shop you find in a storefront or as an extension of your local office-supply store. The decisive point is that they use a high-quality, high-speed versions of office copiers and they rarely use printing presses.Adhering ink to paper is different than adhering toner to paper--printing quality, in general, is better compared to copier quality. In addition, having a job reproduced on a copier can be more expensive than having it printed on a printing press. As a matter of fact, if you regularly print over 1000 pieces at a quick-copy chain, you’ll save money by finding a commercial printer with a printing press. You often pay a premium for the convenience and speed of a quick-copy operation so don’t be hesitant to insist on good quality. At its best, a system such as the Xerox DocuTech is capable of producing crisp, clear, copies so you shouldn't settle for less. When dealing with copy shops and small printers, find out who will print your project. Be sure to ask early on if a printer has the equipment to reproduce your project in-house. If they are sending it out, you may get a better price by going direct the one who does the work.Complex black and white and all solid-color, mainly 2- and 3-color, work typically requires the better quality of an offset printing press. Many types of projects such as booklets, brochures, newsletters, letterheads, business cards, and envelopes fall into this category. The process is more expensive than a copier because a paper, polymer, or metal plate must be made from your artwork or computer file. An offset press reproduces the fine detail and subtleties of high-resolution photographs and artwork better than a copier; it does a far better job reproducing large gray tones and solid areas of color; and, because it can print larger sheet sizes, your design can extend or "bleed" off the edge of the paper.There are two ways to turn up at matching a specific color. You can choose a specific ink color that matches it, called a "solid" PANTONE® Color or you can combine four standard colors to match it as closely as possible, referred to as "process" colors. The alternative method is to print the job using the 4-color process. The process colors are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). This combination of colors can be screened to represent just about any color value across the spectrum. Four-color process is best for printing color photographs and any other material that contains a range of colors that cannot be reproduced using two or three solid colors. The limitation of the 4-color process is that it cannot reproduce some colors as vividly, and is typically more expensive than the solid color method. Choose the least costly process that can effectively produce a professional-looking job. The cost of printing is based mainly on the value of the equipment and the amount of time it takes to complete the job. Prices increase when you run a simple job on equipment used to print more complex jobs and/or larger sheets of paper. The rule of thumb is to avoid being the smallest job in a big shop or vice versa.How to Design Posters? Whether you want to create a poster as a piece of artwork, a personalized gift, or as an ad for a small business, there are decisions to make before you begin. Moreover, there are the key elements you have to consider whenever you are creating a poster: First, poster should deliver your message. Second, it is well laid out. Third, it is self-explanatory. Fourth, appropriate to the target audience. Lastly, the words and pictures will print. Remembering these elements will guarantee that you get the best from your work. When planning a poster it is vital that you have a clear concise message. More often than not, you will have less than a second to get your audiences attention. Once you have your customer’s attention you need to deliver your message to them in as little time as possible or draw them in to find out more by studying it deeper. Either way it needs to be apparent what you are telling them or showing them as it's unlikely you'll be there to give details. Even if the poster is just there for decoration it needs to look right. Whatever the message or content of the poster you must make sure that it is targeted correctly. Make sure your poster stands out from the crowd and is easily read. Remember you can even make black and white posters interesting, and color is always an option. In addition, you can now turn your photo, picture, artwork, image, etc. into a huge poster. Customized and personalized posters are now all the rage. Before you bring your poster for printing always look at the way it makes your point and have someone else view it as a sanity check. A poster is an important tool; use it carefully. Also, check spelling and grammar carefully. A poster printer is not a laser printer. You only get one chance to print it right. Lastly, verify that any images you use are appropriate for the size you will be printing to. Graphics for posters tend to be large, so scan at high resolution to avoid sizing up and pixelating images. The images should be at least 150dpi at the final size. Make sure any text you are using is strong enough to be seen against the background. Remember most posters are viewed from a distance. Bold san serif fonts, Helvetica, Franklin Gothic for example, stand out well in dark colors against a lighter background. If you are using light type on a dark background it will become difficult to read. Provide as much information as possible in the form of images or graphics rather than straight text. Remember that a poster paints a thousand words. Make it interesting with cartoons, humor, photographs and color. Another thing that you should consider is to avoid common mistakes. The number one mistake is to make your poster too long. Densely packed, high word-count posters are basically manuscripts pasted onto a wall, and attract only those viewers who are for some reason keyed up by manuscripts pasted onto walls.Your printing company, in printing posters should use powered computers and the latest in digital enhancement techniques, to create the most stunning high quality inkjet posters from almost anything. Make use of its services and allow their poster printing media to take you to the edge of marketing your business. They must offer convenience and rapid turnaround on tighter budget digital printing. The process of creating and printing is quite a complex one with several pitfalls along the way but they must guarantee full customer’s satisfaction.We constantly conduct research and create reviews on the latest in full color printing