How To Get The Most From Full Colour Printing
A bride-to-be by the name of Jenny thought she would save money by printing her own wedding invitations. She spent hours researching proper wording and etiquette and designing the cards that would welcome friends and family to be a part of her special day. Each invitation had to be fed into the printer separately, she printed a hundred invitations… only to find that the ink cartridge was out of alignment and all the invitations were crooked!
Do-it-yourself projects are great in theory… but take a look at how much time and effort you are spending to get your printing projects done. Does it really save money if — like poor Jenny — you have to print double because of an error? It sure doesn’t save time if you have to baby-sit your printer and feed in each sheet by hand.
You can save time, save money, and reduce stress with full colour printing from a professional printer. Full, vivid colour makes that critical first impression, a good one! Marketing studies have shown that using full colour instead of black and white can increase readership. Better yet, using full colour can increase message retention by a whopping sixty percent! Just about any printed piece will have a greater impact with colour.
- Look for a printer who can help you get what you’re looking for within your printing budget.
- Choose a coated paper stock — either matte or glossy — to make your colours pop, your graphics flashier, and your images more appealing.
- Look at your images in CMYK colour so you won’t be surprised. Computer monitors use a red-green-blue colour model; full colour printing uses cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow, and black. What you see on the screen will look slightly different from what you see on the printed page, unless you convert your images to CMYK.
- Need an exact colour match? Ask your printer for a look at the colour books. Colour books have thousands of specially mixed inks (known as pantone colours) to choose from. A metallic or very bright colour may cost extra, but if you need an exact colour match, this is the way to go.
- Ask for suggestions — your printing professional may be able to suggest changes that will lower your printing cost or reduce printing time.
- Go over your proofs carefully. You can usually get a proof of your project online or as a hard copy. Look over the proof carefully to make sure the information is correct and the colours are accurate. Have someone else double-check the proof to make sure you didn’t miss anything!
- Pick a printing company that offers a strong guarantee. If there are any printing errors or you aren’t satisfied with the quality of the printed piece because of poor workmanship, a quality printing company will reprint your job at no cost or give you a refund.
With the time and money (and sanity) you save with full colour printing, you can devote more to other areas of your business or project.
(This did actually happen to a friend of mine, literary agent Jenny Rae Rappaport. Here’s the link to her blog about the struggle: https://litsoup.blogspot.com/2007/07/hello-from-printer-land.html I thought it made a good example of why you should trust a pro rather than do it yourself!)
