Top Quality Printing - how is done?

[Visar]

Hi All,

I am printer in Kosovo. We have 6 color Roland Machine and CTcP CRON. We are one of the best printers in our country but still I am not satisfied with the print we do.

I have a question to all: how are done those top quality printing fashion catalogs which have high contrast, very good printing pictures and so on?
What are the main factors to do such a print?

Thank you all in advance,

Visar
CEO
VIPRINT

 

[Disappointed]

Quality source material - photographs, studio work, layout, design.

Its a very tough question, do you have specific print problems or are you let down by your design team??

 

[gordo]

Quality source material - photographs, studio work, layout, design.

And plates and a press that are set up correctly and a press operator that knows what they're doing.

best, gordo

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Hi All,

I am printer in Kosovo. We have 6 color Roland Machine and CTcP CRON. We are one of the best printers in our country but still I am not satisfied with the print we do.

I have a question to all: how are done those top quality printing fashion catalogs which have high contrast, very good printing pictures and so on?
What are the main factors to do such a print?

Thank you all in advance,

Visar
CEO
VIPRINT

I would guess that the quality of the paper is the starting point.

 

[Cornishpastythighs]

Hi All,

We are one of the best printers in our country

Please could you describe what you are currently doing to be one of the best in your country.
Thanks

 

[Visar]

Thank you all for you reply,

here is what we do:

We make a plate on 2400 dpi CTP and use 2400, the photos are very good quality since it is catalogs for National Art Gallery. The paper is the best paper on market. It is coated art paper 170 gsm. The ink as well is is best quality on market.

We had a printing expert from Germany with 40 years of experience he said the print is good but we have to look at the prepress and design.

Totally confused

 

[Disappointed]

Then it could well be you have issues in pre-press and/or design, nothing to be confused about.

Both ends of printing are highly skilled jobs, have you got decent people in the pre-press area?

Can you post an example of the work printed??

 

[D Ink Man]

Good ink and excellent technical service.

Realize this; when you look at printing you are looking at INK.

INK on paper. Think about it.

D

 

[Disappointed]

Good ink and excellent technical service.

Realize this; when you look at printing you are looking at INK.

INK on paper. Think about it.

D

I'm sorry but if your input is not good, it matters nothing what the quality of the ink is, only when you have quality pre-press, quality ink, quality paper, etc in conjunction will quality output be obtained. Garbage in = Garbage out.

You must start at the beginning and that is PRE-PRESS.

 

[D Ink Man]

I must say, I have never seen pre-press in many views of printed material.

It is there of course, but the 'most important single factor' is the acuality of what you are viewing.

D

 

[Disappointed]

I must say, I have never seen pre-press in many views of printed material.

It is there of course, but the 'most important single factor' is the acuality of what you are viewing.

D

PrePress is ALWAYS there, good design counts for most of the impact of a job, the eye will notice the design way before it sees any faults in the colour balance or that "little bit of picking" on the back edge.

Everything in print is not always ink related, sorry to burst your bubble

 

[Dan Roll]

Of course, the best press and a good craftsman can only reproduce what is on the plate. If the pre-press is not top notch, the press can not make up for it.......

 

[Schnitzel]

What good is your ink if your pre-press worker messes up the original photograph's colors using the wrong ICC profile?

 

[D Ink Man]

Run a print job witout ink.

Then choose between pre-press or ink.

A good print sales person might be able to pull it off.

You never no.

D

 

[DCurry]

Run a print job witout ink.

Run a job without plates. See what your salesperson can pull off now.

 

[Disappointed]

Run a job without plates. See what your salesperson can pull off now.

Or paper???

Ink is only one part in a system.

 

[Colorblind]

What good is your ink if your pre-press worker messes up the original photograph's colors using the wrong ICC profile?

I agree, and we're not even mentioning stuff like ink optimization systems that can alter the final result (contrast, color saturation). I've seen flesh tones gradation turn pretty ugly in the printed versions of ads we produced, you could tell right away were the black was kicking in. I used to test UCR/GCR gradation tables on drum scanners 20 years ago and replacing CMY neutral and semi-neutral components by black will be noticed if not done properly.

 

[D Ink Man]

Or paper???

Ink is only one part in a system.

The most important part.

It is able to be changed by the hands of a trained and gifted technician. The musician that is the conductor of the entire orchestra can wave his baton to make everything come out in perfect harmony. Rare breed anymore.

Again, IT IS WHAT YOU SEE!

D

 

[gordo]

When I worked at Creo we used to print posters and brochures for marketing purposes. We worked very hard to make sure they were the best "quality" printing possible - as examples of what customers could do if they bought our equipment. Customers often asked us for the original files that we used and would then try to duplicate on press what we had done. It was a good way for them to learn. Perhaps your system vendor has examples of printing that you find impressive and can give you the materials that they used?

Best, gordo

 

[Cris]

To say any one part of the printing process is more important than the other shouldn’t even be a discussion. The original files that come in, the design of the job, pre-press done for the job, plate making, inks, substrate used, the printing and the finishing all work together to make the final product for the customer. If any one of those components fails or is not quality then the process crumbles. Every part of the process takes some level of skill to get the finished product that is desired. Hopefully I did not forget a piece of the process and if I did it was not meant as a slight. I’m hoping not but this post will probably only fuel the conviction of some to defend their belief that their part of the process is more important than the rest and that is not the intention. I’m not here trolling. I wanted to put my two cents in and state what I thought was obvious.