4/4 and 4/1 - The use of 4-color process (CMYK) on both sides of your print job is referred to as "4/4" (pronounced "four over four"). The use of 4-color process on the front side of your job, but grayscale or black and white on the back side is called "4/1" (pronounced "four over one").

4-color Process (CMYK): When using color or color images in your design and layout, be certain to use CMYK values instead of RGB. CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black ("K")) is the color space that printers use to run your job. If you have an image that is RGB, like images that come from your digital camera or scanner, you must convert them to CMYK first before placing into your design.

Be careful when converting images from RGB to CMYK as color shifts may occur. This is especially true of RGB blue, orange and green.

Binding - The process of fastening loose sheets of paper together. To fasten sheets or signatures and adhere covers with glue, wire, thread, or by other means.

Bleed - An image or printed color that runs off the edge of the paper. Bleeding increases the amount of paper needed, which may increase the production cost of the job. Bleeds are created by trimming the page to size after the printing is completed.

Bond paper - Grade of paper commonly used for writing, printing, and photocopying.

C1S - Paper coated on one side.

C2S - Paper coated on both sides. 

Camera Ready - The stage in printing when the document is ready to be photographed or scanned to make plates for the press. All elements of the document are in their final position, and the proof has been approved.

Choke (Choking) - When a publication is printed with several interacting spot colors, gaps or color shifts may appear between objects. Choking closes this gap by slightly overlapping a dark color over the boundary of a light color.

CMYK - Printers use CMYK - representing the colors cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks - when printing 4-color process work. These are called subtractive colors, as combining them all gives the color black. Subtracting one or more of these colors will yield any other color. When combined in various percentages, these four inks will create an entire spectrum of colors, including those used in color photographs.

Coated Paper - Paper with a layer of coating applied to one or both sides, such as gloss, dull and matte finish. Dot gain is significantly less on coated papers providing sharper images and they are used frequently in 4 color process work as well as in black and white halftones.

Color Gamut - A range of color. The human eye can see billions of colors. Full color printing can only produce some of the colors the human eye can see. Spot color printing can produce more colors than full color printing therefore it's color gamut is larger than full color printing. Foil stamping can also produce colors that neither full color or spot color can produce but has a smaller color gamut than either full color or spot color printing.

Color Matching - A color sample book is used to match colors with standard inks used by most printers. The printer will then prepare separate printing plates for each color. The colors are chosen from those provided by a color matching system, such as Pantone. Use of a color matching system permits consistency of the color over time and among different jobs.

Color Separation - The separation of full-color artwork or transparencies into the four primary printing ink colors (CMYK).

Composite Image - A photograph or other image that is created by a combination of multiple images on a single sheet.

Computer-to-Plate (CTP) - A technology that allows for the delivery of digital data directly to a plate for printing. CTP efficiency eliminates conventional films and stripping to significantly reduce prepress materials and costs, and allow for significant productivity benefits over other commercial printing solutions.

Copy - The words (text) that are used in printed material.

Copyright - An exclusive right that has been granted by law to a particular creative product.

Copywriter - Someone who writes copy for advertisements or other promotional material.

Cropping - To reduce in size; to remove unwanted elements.

Die-Cutting - The use of a sharp, formed piece of metal to cut out specific shapes in a piece of paper.

Digital Printing - New printing technology in which electronic files are used to create images on press. Typically used for on-demand printing and to personalize documents. Generally used for short runs.

Direct Digital Printing - Commercial-quality printing in which electronic source files are processed directly on the printing press or printing system, rather than through analog steps such as film imagesetting and platemaking. Direct digital printing systems may be based on lithographic offset technology or laser/toner technology. Front-end RIPs and servers are integrated components of these printing systems.

Direct-to-Plate Printing - Imaging directly to the plate material used in offset lithographic printing. The traditional offset printing process includes generating film (typically from an imagesetter today), "burning plates" by exposing the aluminum or poly printing plates with the film, and mounting the resulting plates on offset presses. Direct-to-plate printing eliminates the film imaging step by imaging directly on the plate material.

Dot Gain - The spread of ink on paper, causing the dots which make up the image to print larger than they were on the film or plate. The images may become distorted, appearing darker with less clarity.

Dots per Inch (DPI) - A measure of computer screen and printer resolution that is referred to as the number of dots that a device can print or display per inch. The more dots per inch, the sharper the image.

Duotone - A two-color halftone of the same image created by using two screens, two plates, and two colors.

Emboss - The creation of a raised (embossed) image by pressing a shape into a sheet of paper with a metal or plastic die.

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) - A computer graphics file format developed by Adobe Systems that usually contains object-oriented files.

Foil/Emboss Only- Foil Stamping - The application of foil to paper. May also be combined with embossing for added interest. Use this option when your print job uses no ink. Otherwise foil stamping and/or embossing can be used in combination with spot color and full color printing. See Full Color Printing below or Spot Color Printing for more information.

Full Color Printing - A method of printing that uses dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black to recreate the continuous tones and variety of colors in a color image. Also known as 4 Color Process, Process Color Printing and CMYK Printing.

An alternative to full color printing is spot color printing. See spot color printing.

GIF - A graphic file format commonly used by computer bulletin boards, not appropriate for printing.

Halftone - The method by which photographs and other images are printed by using cells of dots to simulate the tones between light and dark. A printing press is not able to change the tone of ink, therefore dots of color are used to trick the eye into seeing a continuous tone image. To accomplish this, the photo is processed with a screen that breaks the image into tiny dots. The closer the lines of the screen, the smaller the dots and the more dots per inch, leading to a crisper image.

Imagesetter - A high resolution output device for producing film used to create plates for a printing press.

Imposition - The process of arranging individual pages on a form in preparation for the printing press so that the pages will be in proper sequence after printing, folding, and binding.

JPEG - A computer graphics file format that is not typically used in printing due to low resolution.

Leading - The space between lines of type, measured from the baseline of one line to the baseline of the next. The quantity is measured in points, such as 6 point type, 8 point, etc. Each point equals approximately 1/72th of an inch.

Lines Per Inch (LPI) - The number of lines or rows of dots there are per inch in a screen and therefore in a screen tint, halftone, or separation.

Lupe - A magnifying lens used by printers to examine the details of printed materials. Use of a lupe permits an individual to see the individual color halftone dots used in process color printing.

Mainline  - A reference name given to a print job for identification purposes. Normally a reference to the most noticeable text when first looking at the product. For example, consider a business card for Hathaway Nursery. The mainline could be Hathaway Nursery. Taken a step further, add a name that appears on the card. A card for John Smith could have a mainline of Hathaway Nursery - Smith.

Moire - A blurry pattern created by printing several repetitive designs on top of each other. In 4-color process printing, this pattern is created when the halftone screen of each color is not properly aligned or a screen is applied to an already screened image.

NGOA - No Guarantee on Art. This is used when the supplied art is considered low quality by the graphics department and we want to make sure you are aware of this. Whether it is low resolution, blurred or the art may not reproduce properly - whatever the reason, we need your approval to use the supplied art as is.

While some clients may accept any printed product, many will not and there is no way for us to know what is acceptable to your client. If you know that the art is not good quality but the client will accept the art as is, then click the NGOA box.

Offset Printing - The most common commercial printing technology in use today. Offset printing applies layers of ink on the page. For each layer, a reverse image of the page is placed on a roller in the printing press. Ink is applied to the non-image areas on the roller, so that as the roller presses against paper moving through the press, the proper image is left on the paper.

On-Demand Printing - Commercial-quality printing produced as needed with turnarounds next day or less. Often associated with very short runs of a hundred or fewer pieces. A newer class of device - the direct digital printing system - is usually associated with on-demand printing.

Perfect Binding - A binding process whereby single sheets are stacked together, the binding edge is ground to create a rough surface, and adhesive is applied. A cover is then wrapped around the pages.

PDF - Stands for Portable Document Format. This is the next generation of files for the prepress workflow. PDF files are made by taking postscript files through Adobe Acrobat Distiller which embeds all fonts and graphics and can still be edited by a prepress department.

Pixel - Short for "picture element". These are the dots that form the picture on a monitor. The smaller the pixel, the more detailed the picture.

PMS (Pantone Matching System) - An ink color matching system created by Pantone.

Point - Equivalent to 1/72th of an inch, points are the units of measurement of type, such as 6 point, 10 point, etc.

Postscript - Postscript fonts have very smooth edges and are used in most printing applications. Writing Postscript is similar to sending files to an office printer, but the information is collected in an electronic file that can be read by prepress computers which RIP files prior to output.Postscript files can be converted into PDF format.

Prepress - The processes performed on a printing order prior to its going to the press to be printed. Examples are file preparation, file modification, preparing film, stripping, creating proofs and making plates. Most up to date prepress operations have or are converting to all digital processes and work with customer provided electronic files.

Press Ready Files - Files which have been prepared for printing including color trapping, proper color definition, set to actual print size and includes bleed and trim areas. May include crop marks.

Printing Plate - A thin object (plate) made of either metal or paper which is light sensitive and causes an image to be transferred to paper while on a printing press. The image is burned onto the plate by the use of high intensity light. The surface of the plate is treated or configured so that only the printing image is receptive to the ink which transfers to the printed object.

Proof - A method of checking for errors prior to printing an order. A press proof is used by the printing press operator to ensure the correctness of the finished product during the production of the order.

Process Color - One of the four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) that is used in producing full-color images, such as color photographs.

Registration - Putting two or more images together so that they are exactly aligned, and the resulting image is well defined.

Reorder Number - A letter followed by a 6 digit number followed by an identification extension. (ie: A453876.1-2) Used to easily order a print job that has been printed before. Reorders can be "Exact Reorder" (no changes) or "Reorder with changes" (normally name, phone number and email will change).

It is strongly recommended that dealers keep their reorder cards along with a sample of the printed job for future reference. Do not give the customer the reorder card, this card is for the benefit of the dealer.

Resolution - The number of picture elements (pixels) per unit of linear measurement (normally an inch) on a computer monitor, or the number of dots per inch (dpi) in printed form.

RGB - RGB (red, green, and blue) are called additive colors because added together they may create all colors. Typically, RGB is used for slide presentations, computer software and games, and anything that is viewed on a video monitor.

Saddle Stitch - The binding of sheets of paper to form a book by use of staples or stitching through the spine.

Score - To press a channel into paper to facilitate folding. Also called a crease.

Screen Angles - Angles at which screens intersect with the horizontal line of the press sheet. The common screen angles for separations are black 45 degree, magenta 75 degree, yellow 90 degree and cyan 105 degree.

Screen Ruling - Number of rows or lines of dots per inch or centimeter in a screen for making a screen tint or halftone. Also called line count, ruling, screen frequency, screen size and screen value.

Sheet-fed Press - A press that prints single sheets of paper, as opposed to a web press.

Spine - Back or binding edge of a publication

Spot Color - Printing method where actual color inks are used instead of mixing cyan, magenta, yellow and black (aka CMYK) on press to produce a desired color. For example to print the color red on a spot color job, 1 ink color is needed - that being red.

For a process color job, a minimum of two colors - magenta and yellow are required to produce red. Three or more more would be needed to produce a darker red. These additional ink colors increase your printing cost versus just using red ink.

The effective use of spot color can also add heightened interest to printed materials without incurring the cost of process colors. In addition most Pantone colors, metallic colors and fluorescent colors cannot be produce using process color printing technology. Spot color printing gives you the ability to print colors which are out of the full color printing color gamut.

Spread - 1. Technique of slightly enlarging the size of an image to accomplish a hairline trap with another image. When a publication is printed with several interacting spot colors, gaps or color shifts may appear between objects. A spread closes the gap by overlapping another color. 2. Two pages that face each other and are designed as one visual or production unit.

Tabloid: 11x17 paper dimensions.

Thermography - A finishing technique applied after printing that raises the ink and gives the effect of engraved printing.

TIFF - Tagged Image File Format - A high-resolution graphics file that is commonly used in printing for photographs and illustrations.

Tint - Screening or adding white to a solid color for results of lightening that specific color. A percentage value of a solid color. (e.g., 50% of Reflex Blue is also known as 50% tint)

Trapping - The deliberate overlap of adjacent colors, using chokes and spreads, to eliminate gaps between adjacent colors. Trapping is done through computer software and the overlap is minute, minimally visible to the naked eye.

Trim Size - The size of the printed material in its finished stage (e.g., the finished trim size is 5 1\2 x 8 1\2).

Undercolor Removal -  Technique of making color separations such that the amount of cyan, magenta and yellow ink is reduced in midtone and shadow areas while the amount of black is increased. Abbreviated UCR.

UV Coating -  Liquid applied to a printed sheet, then bonded and cured with ultraviolet light.

Varnish - A coating added on top of paper to serve as protection, or enhance appearance. Varnishes are very effective in adding emphasis or eye-appeal to printed material. Gloss and dull varnishes are available.

Watermark - Translucent logo in paper created during manufacturing by slight embossing from a dandy roll while paper is still approximately 90 percent water.