Process Printing 70% Cyan

[dereknaves]

Hi Everyone,

I recently had a cover printed for a DVD. The title lettering was 70% cyan on a white stock, and came out quite jagged. Not terrible terrible, but noticeable if you looked closely. Is this because all the other inks were at 0% and thus the 70% cyan dots were the only dots and thus the edges didn't come out smooth? I apologize if I'm using incorrect terminology here, as I really don't have much printing or pre-press knowledge. It's just that I'm thinking of doing something similar again but want to avoid the jagged (appear soft from a foot away) edges.

The print to the actual DVD was done with solid pantone colors and it looks absolutely amazing.

Would printing the cover with Pantone spot colors be better than process printing when the color is something like C-100 M-0 Y-0 K-0 ??

Thanks a lot!

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

What line screen and what size text are we talking about? Is it text less than 10 pt? Or light weights? If so pantone is probably your only option (provided you are not satisfied with what you got)

If you are talking about large and bold type then…
One tip would be to use a hairline of 100% cyan to enclose the 70% fill. An altrnative is to use an "inner glow with a 100% cyan fading in to the 70%. Yes it does affect the design, and so it should be evaluated with the designer, if you are not the designer yourself.

 

[DavidMa]

and, I would check to see if the type had been rasterized.
Was it built in Photoshop or Illustrator/Indesign?

 

[oxburger]

More than likely what you are looking at is the screen dots of the cyan looking funny in areas due to the screen angle that was used. To answer your question, yes, you would be better off picking a Pantone ink that resembles 70% cyan and run it at 100% if that is the only color that is on the cover. Pantone 306 is close although you could have them mix a custom ink to better match the other components.

 

[zoran]

It's solid vs screen.
Solid (100% ink) should always be nice and not jaggy.
If you have to use screen, like 70% cyan, there are still options like what was suggested by my colleagues or another option is to ask your printer for stochastic screening.
Stochastic will eliminate jaggy edges and it will look much better than what you've got, probably.
I hope this helps.

 

[rath307]

Did you try and change the screen angle? most times cyan is on the 75 degree angle. Try the 45 degree angle which is usually the magenta swap those two angles. Note this depends on what else is on the page you don't want to affect the color of anything else.