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This
is a page dedicated to taking down one of the barriers between the Print
Industry and everyone who uses the Print Industry! The barrier is LANGUAGE
– there are plenty of little words that don't mean much to the rest
of society. To help you keep up with your local printer or designer in
coversation, read here what many of the special terms actually mean in
plain English!
Bitmap
A form of picture made up of individual pixels. When saved; each of the
pixels is measured in terms of its position within the whole image, and
of its specific colour. When viewed and printed these values remain constant
– so, if enlarged, each pixel is literally stretched – therefore
the quality can be reduced considerably. Images with the extensions; .bmp,
.tif, .jpg, .gif are all pixel-based pictures.
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Bureau
An office or department of specific business; we work closely with printers
and can make the film or bromides they require to print from – from
supplied artwork on disk or create it in-house.
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Bromides
A type of high resolution paper artwork, produced using the same photographic
methods as Film (see Film). Some printers still accept artwork from Bromide
originals, mostly used now by newspapers, who may ask for adverts to be
supplied in Bromide form.
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Colour-seperated
In order to print a job which involves more than one printed colour, you
need to supply colour-seperated originals to your Printer. ie; each individual
colour on its own.
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Corporate
Identity
Of or being or belonging to a corporation or group; A style which has
been specifically designed to be associated with your company for a variety
of reasons. May include typeface styles, colours and certain logos.
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Domain
Name
An appropriate and, usually, easy to remember reference to your company
on the WorldWideWeb. Eg: www.keystrokemill.com. Your domain name basically
acts as a forwarding address to the server that your website is actually
saved on. This name in itself, does not necessarily entitle you to email
accounts or webspace.
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DPI
Dots per inch; indicates the resolution of printing output by all types
of printers or imagesetters. Is also a setting of pixel-based images (photos)
in their digital form – indicative of the scan or images quality.
Scanning at 300dpi is usually sufficient for most uses within print.
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EPS
Encapsulated Postscript; a graphic of the item selected written in Postscript
language (created by Adobe) – able to be imported/exported as a .EPS
picture file. Commonly created in Adobe Illustrator & Macromedia Freehand
– but can also be written by 'Printing to File' from most applications.
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Film
Strip or sheet of plastic etc. coated with light-sensitive emulsion for
exposure in camera; the stuff from which professional printers make their
plates (the bits which actually go on the press) by exposing them both
under UV lighting conditions. Files from computer can be imaged onto film
[using an Imagesetter] and then have to be processed under dark room conditions,
similar to that of traditional photo processing. Printers accept either
Positive or Negative (or both) types of film, depending on their equipment.
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Full
Colour (4-colour process)
Type
of printing that enables replication of images of almost any colour to
be represented. Uses 4-colour printing system (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black
CMYK) to make virtually any colour. Images are made up of different percentages
of each CMYK ink colour, and they are printed on top of each other to
make desired tint.
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Imagesetter
The box of tricks that works a bit like a conventional output printer
from a computer. It 'images' the file onto light sensitive film –
which then needs to be processed under dark room conditions. The resulting
film is very high resolution, our Scantext imagesetter makes film up to
3251dpi – where a typical Laser Printer would be 600dpi.
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Inkjet
Printing
A type of computer-output printer, sprays ink through nozzles on the inkhead
according to the image sent by computer. This form of printing CAN be
affected by water, if not printed on special paper or laminated with a
water-resistant coating.
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Lithographic
Printing
Process of printing from stone or metal surface so treated that ink adheres
only to the design to be printed; the most common form of printing at
the present time. It usually involves a film and plate process before
getting to the press.
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Mac
(Apple Macintosh Computers)
The
original Personal Computer developed by Apple in 1980's. Today the term
PC tends to refer to the majority of computers available by a huge range
of manufacturers. Mac's are only made by Apple. Basically they are different
'platforms' from each other – but usually operate similar software.
The print industry continues to use Mac's in abundance. We run PCs in
addition to the Mac's on our desks.
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PDF
Portable Document Format; the file type associated with Adobe Acrobat
Reader application. This free (download from www.adobe.com) program enables
users to view and print files that have been created in applications that
they don't have on their computer. You need a PDF-creator software or
plugin to create PDFs (not normally free). Using the high resolution settings;
it is possible to make film for print using PDFs in the same way as Postscript
files can be used.
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Postscript
Printer language, written by Adobe, containing all the data that a particular
printer needs to print from a particular file and application. This information
can be saved in a file (.PS extension) if 'Print to File' is checked on
print command. If printer-specific information is correct (ie; Driver,
paper size etc) then .PS file can be output by printing device without
original file, graphics/fonts used or even the application that created
it.
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Positive
/ Negative Film
Your printer may require either of these formats of film Ð they will specify.
As the name suggests, one is normal when looking at it (positive), and
one has all of 'image' inverted so is negative. Printers Owner of printing-business;
Where you see this word, it usually refers to professional Printers, rather
than a computer output device.
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Right-Reading
Emulsion Side Down (RRESD)
Wrong-Reading Emulsion Side Down (WRESD)
This information will be specified by a Printer, as to what type of film
they require. It is basically whether the image appears 'mirrored'/backwards
or not. This differs depending on what kind of printing process is being
used. For example: Litho printing normally uses RRESD, and screen-printers
usually require WRESD.
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Scanning
Method by which a picture or image can be digitally stored; Original is
placed on scan bed and computer controlled device scans and saves a replication
of original onto disk. This form of picture is measured in dpi (resolution).
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Screen
Frequency
Measured in Lines-per-inch (LPI) or Lines-per-cm (LPC), the screen frequency
is to do with how large the dots are that make up tonal areas of an image.
This will be specified by Printer or Publication – sometimes indicated
by a figure prefixed with the hash symbol (eg; #85). This measurement
is not to be confused with image resolution!
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Signmakers
Specifically produce signs; can be either from cut adhesive vinyl, or
from plastic. A completely different process from Lithographic printing.
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Spot
Colour Printing
Method by which images can be printed in certain colours only. For instance,
2 spot colours in a job may be Black and Green. Everything on the page,
must appear in one of these two colours only. Industry standard spot colours
are Pantone numbers Ð a universal index of hundreds of individual colours
that Printers mix up inks to match.
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Typeset
To compose text and images onto a page layout; Old-fashioned term that
refers to a Compositor, placing small bits of lead within a frame to make
up pages as printing plates. These days, most typeset using computer applications
like QuarkXpress and PageMaker, and the end result is imaged through a
digital Imagesetter.
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Vectorised
Images that are vectorised are created using editable lines and shapes.
The position of each point is plotted, like coordinates on a map, and
if an area does not contain any data, it doesn't save the blank space.
This means if enlarged, a vectorised graphic simply replots each point
in relation to itself, and retains shape, curve or line Ð without loss
of quality in print. In order for this kind of picture file to retain
editability, they must be saved in a postscript format (.EPS for instance).
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Webspace
The physical disk space you have been alloted in Megabyte's. If you are
registered with an ISP Ð you probably have some webspace already, however
you need to make sure it is (a) enough space and (b) not restricted in
terms of what elements (CGI-BINs, FLASH etc) you may place on your site.
If your company has already bought a domain name (www.keystrokemill.com),
that in itself, does not constitute Mb's in webspace upon which to place
your site!
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