Glossary of Terms

Bleed: Adding bleed means to design your project with color past the trim marks.  This allows trimming to be exact and that will result in the color going to the edge of the paper.

CMYK: (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) The four colors in the four-color process. The primary additive colors, red, blue and green, when added together, produce white light. When overlapped, red and blue form magenta, green and red form yellow and green and blue form cyan. These resulting colors are subtractive and when added together, they produce a dark brown. In order to create an accurate photographic reproduction, the color black must be added.

Crop Marks: Printed lines showing where to trim a printed sheet.

Crossover: Printing across the gutter or from one page to the facing page of a publication.

Die, Die-Cutting: A die is a metal rule or imaged block used to cut or place an image on paper in the finishing process. Die cutting is the process of cutting a shape out of paper.

Digital Imaging: Digital imaging refers to the routines that take place before the output methods occur. These routines include: scanning, photo manipulation, color correction and RIPing.

DPI: Dots Per Inch. It's a measurement of linear resolution for a printer or scanner. For example, a resolution of 300 dpi means that there are 300 dots across and 300 dots down. A higher number of dots create a finer resolution.

Duotone: A halftone picture made up of two printed colors.

EPS: Encapsulated PostScript. It's a file type that allows the carrying of different information between software programs.

Four Color Process: The process of combining four basic colors (CMYK) to create a printed color picture or colors composed from the basic four colors.

Ghosting: A faint printed image that appears on a printed sheet where it was not intended.

Gradation: The transition between colors or shades. Gradation occurs by mixing percentages of a dominant and secondary color and then altering those colors to bring about a change.

Grippers: The metal fingers on a printing press that hold the paper as it passes through the press.

Halftone: Converting a continuous tone to dots for printing.

Hickey: Reoccurring, unplanned spots that appear in the printed image from dust, lint, dried ink.

Imposition: Positioning printed pages so they will fold in the proper order.

Indicia: Postal information place on a printed product.

Opacity: The amount of show-through on a printed sheet.

Overrun or overs: Copies printed in excess of the specified quantity. (Printing trade terms allow for + – 10 % to represent a completed order)

Perfecting Press: A sheet-fed printing press that prints both sides of a sheet in one pass.

PMS: The abbreviated name of the Pantone Color Matching System.

PostScript®: An Adobe programming language that enables text and graphic images to be output from different devices with consistent and predictable results.

PPI: Pixels Per Inch. A measurement of resolution. A pixel is a unit of data that should not be confused with dpi (dots per inch) or lpi (lines per inch). If there are more pixels per inch, the image will be sharper.

Prepress: The process of preparing artwork, film, and screens for conventional printing methods.

Registration Marks: Cross-hair lines or marks on film, plates, and paper that guide strippers, platemakers, pressmen, and bindery personnel in processing a print order from start to finish.

Reverse: The opposite of what you see. Printing the background of an image. For example; type your name on a piece of paper. The reverse of this would be a black piece of paper with a white name.

RIP: (Raster Image Processing) A process using mathematical algorithms to enlarge and print an image. Also, this software often includes “add-on” features, such as color-calibration software, various pattern selections, tools or a print-instruction screen.

Score: A crease put on paper to help it fold better.

Spot Colors: These colors are printed as solid areas and used when fewer than four colors are needed or when the four-color process (CMYK) is unable to accurately reproduce a PMS color.

Spot Varnish: Varnish used to highlight a specific part of the printed sheet.

Stamping: Term for foil stamping.

Substrate: Any surface on which printing is done.

Tiling: The process of dividing a very large-format image into smaller sections that can be output on the digital device.

Trapping: The ability to print one ink over the other.

Trim Marks: Similar to crop or register marks. These marks show where to trim the printed sheet.

Trim Size: The final size of one printed image after the last trim is made.

Up: Printing two or three up means printing multiple copies of the same image on the same sheet.

UV Coating: Liquid laminate bonded and cured with ultraviolet light. Environmentally friendly and comes in gloss or matte finishes.

UV Inks: Inks that contain pigments or other methods to resist UV fade from direct sunlight and other UV light sources.

UV Resistance: The resistance to fading under direct sunlight and other UV light sources.

Varnish: Coating to enhance and protect printing against fingerprints, scratches and scuff marks.