Experiences with Printing

[heliopagus]

What experiences have you had with printing (brochures, business cards, anything...) and particularly dealing with printers?

I always provide CMYK values and ask for a colour proof, yet the results are sometimes not what I hoped for (too light, lack of contrast, colours that are too warm, etc).

What tips do you have for dealing with printers? And what problems have you experienced?

[Toon]

If colour is one of the most important things, pay a little extra and get a Cromalin proof. Failing that ask for a wet proof or to be able to press pass it.

[lolly]

Alot of printers want everything possible so if they need to make changes they have no problems

[ianm]

Originally Posted by heliopagus

What experiences have you had with printing (brochures, business cards, anything...) and particularly dealing with printers?

I always provide CMYK values and ask for a colour proof, yet the results are sometimes not what I hoped for (too light, lack of contrast, colours that are too warm, etc).

What tips do you have for dealing with printers? And what problems have you experienced?

I assumed you were talking press printing, you are right? or is it digital?

Don't suppose I can comment much on this I've worked mainly for people that do inhouse printing - press and digital.

All places are different on digital calibration - depends if they are a high user of the digital printers or just a runn of the mill print shop. Inhouse we generally use spot/pantones and I haven't experienced any problems in colour depth etc.

[Cwilk]

I agree with Toon. Fujis or Chromalins, but also keep in mind that your personal color corrrection abilities on the computer affect the print outcome more than the press does. You can only do so much on press with color.

I've gotten so good at color correction, I haven't needed to produce match proofs in a while.