Bayard Printing - Design for Digital

Achieving the best printing results. Large areas of solid colors, tints and blends There are several design techniques you’ll want to learn to help improve the way large flat areas of solid colors or tints reproduce on a digital press. To maintain a smooth appearance, intro- duce a slight pattern to modulate the color. The pattern can take the form of texture, subtle graphics or simple noise. Adding a pattern can also improve color reproduction and eliminate banding. The same holds true for large areas of color blends and gradients. Use all your design options One of the best ways to optimize quality in large areas is to incorporate imagery, photos, graphics or text in your design right from the start. When you naturally break up large areas of color with design elements, you’re also taking advantage of one of the strengths of working on a digital press—that is, the ability to reproduce high-quality, full- color images. On a digital press, large areas of solid color, tints or blends may show some unevenness or banding. Adding a subtle pattern to the background or incorporating other design elements may increase the visual attractiveness of the piece. • Areas of solid color, tints and blends may reproduce better if filtering techniques are used (i.e., noise or texture) at the design stage. Apply from image manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop. • Create blends from QuarkXPress, Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, or other common desktop publishing applications. • Tints should not be less than 10%. • Limit blends to less than 50% value change over 2-4" for best results. • For tints less than 40%, apply noise or texture. Tints and blends Achieving the best printing results Designing for Success 5