Designing For Digital

Our lastest digital press the Xerox 5000 installed January 2007, is the most recent in a line of machines using dry ink (toner) technology with single pass four colour process printing. It incorporates the very latest advances and improvements in digital technology.

There are no limiting problems with toner technology that require any special design measures however, unlike litho, where ink levels can be minutely tweaked across the sheet on the run to get best results, with digital printing any adjustments are overall. This means that adjusting to improve one part of the image, could have a detrimental effect on another part.

As an instance, large areas of solid dark colours surrounding text or pictures can be difficult without this variable adjustment and these are best avoided if possible.
As with any four colour process accurate line colour matching can be difficult with certain shades. Most mixes of colour, text and full colour images , providing that normal industry wide best practice is followed, work brilliantly!
See our artwork page.

File Formats

We can accept most file formats (see our help pages), but the preferred no extra cost format, is as a PDF with fonts embedded, or a bitmap such as TIFF or JPEG.

Size and Bleeds

Check out our advise on Bleeds
Unlike our litho flyers all digital work must me accurate to ISO sizes. Most artwork creation programmes allow you to specify and will then display the finished document size. You should then be able to pull any bleed areas outside the displayed document size by about 3mm.

When you create your PDF from your completed artwork there should be the facility to specify the amount of bleed and whether or not crop or registration marks are required.

Specify the bleed as 3mm all round and turn registration/crops off. Our print control software will detect the correct size and the specified bleed amounts and automatically add the crops as required.

For non PDF files such as TIFF or JPEG - MAKE SURE YOU PULL ANY BLEED REQUIRED OUTSIDE THE FINISHED SIZE AREA BY 3mm. We will then place the file manually to create the PDF we need for printing.

REMEMBER IF YOU DO NOT APPLY BLEED IF APPROPRIATE, YOU COULD GET WHITE BANDS SHOWING AT THE EDGE OF YOUR JOB.

If you have any questions and need help click below:

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Another aid in creating great graphics for digital printing is:

Parsons "Eight Edicts" of Design for Digital Print Parsons School of Design and Xerox Collaborate on Primer to Facilitate Productive Partnerships between Designers and Digital Printers by by Bob Wagner

Proof early and often. Proofing on digital presses has two significant differences from proofing for offset. First, the digital proof is not a simulation, as it is in the offset process. Rather, digital proofs are printed on the actual production device, permitting the designer to see exactly how the piece will turn out. Second, digital proofs cost far less than highquality on-press proofs. Consequently, the digital workflow process is based upon designers submitting files, reviewing "press proofs," making any adjustments they desire and repeating the process until they are satisfied. Such aggressive proofing gives the designer unprecedented control, and is critical to digital printing success.

Avoid image compression. Image compression enables files to be downloaded more quickly and easily on the Internet - but can cause the loss of valuable image information that cannot be restored. Parsons recommends working with uncompressed TIFF or EPS files whenever possible, avoiding use of compressed file types, such as JPEG. When files are received as JPEGs, Parsons recommends opening them in an image editing application, such as Adobe Photoshop CS, and saving them as uncompressed TIFF or EPS files.

Revisiting type sizes. Just as offset type reproduction differs from letterpress, digital type reproduction differs from offset. And the only way to know the difference is to see it. Parsons students demonstrated this by developing a concept for a digital type specimen book that shows a range of typefaces in different sizes and colors, on white paper and as knockout black. Generally, smaller type is more challenging on digital presses than on offset, but knockout type on black can work well on digital presses. Proof reading early and often helps ensure that typeface selections are readable and effective.

Be resolute on resolution. Parsons recommends different resolution settings for text and images. Scans should be produced at 600 to 1,200 dots per inch (dpi) at reproduction size for text and line art and at 300 dpi for continuous tone images. Increasing the resolution has minimal impact on continuous tone images. To determine resolution of existing images when scaled to planned reproduction size, Adobe Photoshop has an "image size" tool in its pull-down menu that can automatically calculate resolution at various sizes.

Optimizing large areas of flat tints. While digital color presses are excellent at reproducing color, they perform less well in reproducing large areas of some colors evenly - especially mid-tone tints and long blends. Often they come out fine, but sometimes they show unevenness. Reproduction can be improved by choosing a lighter or darker percentage or using an imaging software, such as Adobe Photoshop, to add "noise," or texture, or to create a tight pattern. Thorough proofing helps ensure that the approach is working.