At Valley Web Printing, your project will be made ready for press by our skilled Pre Press with state-of-the-art digital equipment. We are a full digital computer-to-plate facility with high speed file processing and a knowledgeable staff. We have designed this web page to assist you in preparing a file that will result in fast turnarounds and the high quality our clients expect.
Submitting your job
You can send your file to us in a number of different ways. You can burn it to disk, e-mail it, or upload to our FTP site.
If you bring in a disk, you should label the disk clearly with a name, date and contact information so we can reach you if there is a problem. If you upload to the FTP site, you need to send an e-mail to notify us as the FTP is an unmonitored site. When you send an e-mail with your job attached or to notify us of a file on the FTP, please include a contact name and phone number along with job details including page count, quantity and colors to be used.
The more information we have, the easier it is for us to get your job done fast and right.
PDF vs Native Layout File
PDF (Portable Document Format)
Valley Web uses the Xenith Sierra Workflow, which is a PDF workflow with an Adobe core. What this means to you is that our preferred file format is PDF. A well made PDF will mean that your project can skip the file prep workstations and go directly to the RIP, i.e. “the fast lane.” Most of the time the default “press” setting within Acrobat Distiller is all you need to use, however corrupt links in your layout, such as sub-standard PDF ads that have been placed can cause problems when Xitron tries to render your files for the plate setter.
Native
While PDF is the fastest and can be the safest on many fronts, it is sometimes a hard thing to achieve. In this case we can accept files created in most of the industry standard layout programs. Valley Web accepts native files from: Adobe InDesign and Quark X-Press on Mac. If you plan on submitting your file in its native format, you must also supply all linked images and a full set of all fonts used. Valley Web does not accept documents from Microsoft products in their native format due to their unstable nature and therefore requires clients that use these programs to create PDFs to send to us. If you are using a program other than the before-mentioned software, you need to call and talk to us about an alternative way to submit your file. Saving your document to PDF does not create a high enough quality PDF, therefore you must use one of the before-mentioned methods or ask for technical support.
Printing From Hard Copy
Valley Web no longer has a camera or film of any kind, but we can scan your camera ready copy if no digital file is available. We recommend using a quality laser printer as opposed to an ink jet because a scan of an ink jet print will be poor quality. If you have black and white art that needs to be scanned it is possible to scan as a Bitmap as opposed to Color or Grayscale to achieve a clean high resolution scan. Please call and we would be happy to give feedback that is specific to your project.
Page Requirements
Pages should be designed to the finished trim size with bleed extended beyond the page bounds. We prefer PDFs containing multiple pages as opposed to multiple single page PDFs. NO PRINTER SPREADS! We have imposition software and printer spreads cause problems including slowing down the natural pagination process and eliminating the opportunity to implement creep on high page count projects. Do not include trim marks and page information, again, we use pagination software which adds marks and color information.
File Name
This one seems obvious but in the month of September, for example, I may receive ten or more files named something to the effect of “September 2020.pdf” which gets very confusing. It would help us greatly for you to at least abbreviate the name of your business or project and add a date so we can easily tell one job from another and one month from another. Also keeping file names less than 24 characters including the appendage helps because our RIP server will truncate names longer than 24 characters.
Basic Design Tips:
Images
The quality of images used in a publication is very important and needs to be addressed before the file is sent to Valley Web for production.
Resolution (DPI)
The most important factor in re-producing a quality picture is resolution or Dots Per Inch (DPI). We recommend keeping your resolution between 200 and 300 dpi. If you are printing on newsprint you can push it as low as 150 dpi because we are using 100 line screening for newsprint. There are ways to increase image resolution using Adobe Photoshop; just be aware that using a program to increase resolution will cause the image to have a digitized look as the computer has to add pixels based on averages taken from existing pixels, a process known as interpolation. Try to view the image resolution at the size the image will be when it is placed into the layout. In other words, don’t place a picture and then stretch it to a larger percent because this will decrease your effective resolution. If your publication has low resolution pictures our RIP will automatically go through the interpolation process to bring the photo up to the resolution required by our thermal plate setter but it’s going to look digitized.
Color
Now that you’ve checked the DPI of your pictures, it’s time to look at color. First, you need to think about what color space to work in. If your publication is color, you need to work in CMYK, and if it is going to be black and white your images need to be Grayscale, no RGB! If your images come to us as RGB they will be converted to the proper color space but we have no control over color adjustment or brightness at that point and most images will get dark so it’s best to do the necessary conversion and color adjustment before you place the photo into the layout. Adjusting the color of an image is usually necessary but be careful to not trust your monitor unless it has been calibrated to match offset printing presses. Once you have the correct DPI and color, the image should be saved as a TIF (Tagged Image File). You can choose other options such as EPS (Encapsulated Post Script) or PSD (Photoshop Document) if you are using transparency or a clipping path. Avoid using JPEG as a file format as there are many drawbacks which may result in a poor quality image or unstable format. Images need to be saved to a folder and placed in the layout, never copy and paste from the image software to the layout. Valley Web is not responsible for the quality of images that don’t meet the standards detailed in this section.
A note on using color profiles
The business of color management and ICC profiles is very deep and complex; there are many resources on the internet that will educate and confuse you if you choose to pursue it. In a nutshell, images and colors will change once they get transferred from the printing plate to the sheet of paper due to dot gain. Dot gain is what happens when a dot of ink gets offset onto the paper and spreads a little before it dries which results in a darker image. You can set up a color profile in Photoshop to simulate this press gain on your monitor which is only useful if you have calibrated your monitor to the point of being able to trust it to match the printed sheet. The dot gain will depend on the press and the kind of paper:
Gloss Stock - SWOP Coated 20% gain
Uncoated Stock - SWOP Uncoated 25% gain
Newsprint - SWOP Newsprint 30% gain
Layout
As stated before you should use a professional design program for layout, Photoshop is an image manipulation program and should not be used for layout for various reasons. The extra cost of a good design program may seem unnecessary at first glance but they are expensive for a reason.FontsYou can use any kind of font you like as long as the font comes from a good source, free fonts downloaded from the internet can be coded improperly and result in poor output. Some of you have been in the business for a while and have a stigma concerning True Type fonts, they are no longer a problem. You should avoid using artificial font styles, if the font family includes an italic, bold, etc... style then you can use these attributes but avoid forcing these properties on a font that doesn’t have a matching set of styles. Always embed and subset all fonts in PDFs or include a full set of fonts used if you are submitting your file in native format.The following is a list of things to keep in mind when designing for print;
Images - Use Photoshop to size your images and place them as close to 100% as you can in the layout. Keep linked images in organized folders and save them as TIF not JPEG.
Bleed - If anything on a page runs off the edge of the page you will need to extend the object a minimum of one eighth of an inch beyond the final trim since we print on oversized sheets. We will reject any file that doesn’t have bleed where needed.
Margins - Don’t put anything you care about within one quarter inch of the final trim. Ideal page margins are between one quarter and one half inch. Don’t set up the layout to the live copy area, set it up to the finished size and create margins within the final page size.
CMYK (Full Color) - When designing for full color you need to use the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) color space and not RGB. Make sure black type is black only and doesn’t have the other three colors built into it. If you have chosen spot colors make sure and convert them to a process color model as it is better to do this in the original design program than in the RIP process.
Black and White - This sounds pretty straight forward but color objects in a black and white publication will convert to CMYK and you will end up with a skeleton black separation.
Spot Color - Spot color is the hardest to achieve because everything has to be just right. If you’ve never designed using spot colors you should call and discuss the details with a member of the pre press team.
PrePress & Graphics
Advice on creating a successful,
print-ready document.
The following section was created to educate our clients on the technical aspects of proper file preparation for commercial offset print. It is a basic look at industry standards as well as topics specific to the Valley Web workflow. For more in-depth queries or questions not addressed, you can email our PrePress Manager directly or visit our favorite PrePress technical forum, b4print.