I'm new to this whole "printing thing," and I need some advice

[jeremyabel]

Hello everybody!

So, during my day job I'm a motion graphics and interactive designer, who never has to worry about color profiles or ink or paper weight or coated vs uncoated or whatever else. But in my spare time I've decided to do a concert poster for one of my favorite band's upcoming shows.

Now that the design is almost done, it's time to start thinking about printing it. Really, I want to make this as painless as possible. Color accuracy is very important to me. I've spent many an hour tweaking things so they're just right (on my monitor, at least). Normally I wouldn't be concerned, but I've had bad luck in the past with printing subtle greys, which this poster has a lot of.

Now the big question: am I going to have to go with offset printing if I want good color consistency and lovely greys, or is normal digital still a valid option? Oh, and the paper's gotta be matte. I hate gloss with a passion.

Here's a WIP of the poster, illustrating said greys: http://jeremyabel.com/secret/jagaPoster_08.jpg

[fantasygoat]

A decent giclee printer will print that fine. But your per-print cost will be high.

Depends on how many you want.

[jeremyabel]

Yeah, I'm not sure if $50 a print is really appropriate for something that's just gonna be tacked to a wall in the venue :P. I was thinking more along the lines of $3 a print... I'll probably end up printing 100 or so of them, but I'm not sure

[Unitus]

Then just go to kinkos and get $3 prints and realize that cheap laser prints probably won't pick up on all the subtle greys you've labored over.

[jeremyabel]

yeah, that's what I was afraid of... How bout $5 per print? Or is giclee really the only option?

[Thornysarus]

I just picked up a banner for a CD Release party for a friend tomorrow night. I did the CD Package, and volunteered to do the banner so that the color wasn't fucked up.

Guess what? The color is all fucked up.

Too late to do a reprint. Oh well.

To address your question: You get what you pay for. If you go to Kinkos, just make sure your art is CMYK and PDF format. If I were you' I'd back off the color over the entire piece about 5 percent on the heavy end of the spectrum. Kinkos will just run a color copy of it from your PDF and they tend to output a bit saturated.

If it's hanging on the wall in a venue, it shouldn't matter (much).

Free advice: Next time, consider your output budget before you sit down and start designing yourself into a corner.

Hope this helps.

[Quinine]

You should check w/ any local cd duplication resources that you might have access to. I have done design work for posters that were printed digitally via resources like that here. The place I have used for these type of projects can print full bleed on a decent (80 lb?) paper up to 13" x 19" for well under $3 per print and they are matte.

I agree w/ what the others have already said about your colors as well when it comes to this. It's been my experience that you just have to let go of that end of things as printer calibration, etc. will almost certainly going to be a factor. Good luck.

[Andymac]

some pro digital printer or a local offset shop with short run digital capabilities that isn't a cheapass copy place should be able to do that. you don't need no stinkin' Gickle.

Re banners and maybe a bigger print out, pay the extra to have it done in a higher resolution on a good material and the results are usually pretty good - but you pay more for higher rez output = slower printing, more ink

[vrooooom]

Hell, I would probably do a 4-color screenprint for you for $5 per unit, but you're still safer following the above advice.

[kim_a]

Are you Norwegian, or just a fan of Norwegian Jazz? The show is in july, you should have time to shop around for a good solution to your printing problems. I'd find a good print-shop, have them send you their digital-press' color-profile, put it into your Adobe programs, look at it on a calibrated monitor, adjust as needed and print.

-Kim