A B C D E F G H I J K L M
N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
(Courtesy of Design : Talkboard)
| A • |
A4 Paper •
Standard ISO paper size format, measuring 210x297 mm.
Additive Colors •
Produced by light. The more light produced, the brighter the colors. This is opposite of subtractive colors. Red, green, and blue are the primary additive colors and used in computer monitors.
Alias (Jaggies; Bitmapped; Aliased) •
Aliasing is the description given to jagged edges on curves and diagonal lines in bitmap images. They can be more easily seen if the image is enlarged to above 100% of its size. Aliasing is unavoidable to some degree with on-screen images because computer screens use pixels that run horizontally and vertically. In printed images, the jaggies can be avoided by using a digital image with a high enough resolution.
• See also: Anti-Aliasing (next)
Anti-Aliasing •
The process where the jagged “aliased” edges of a bitmapped image, or on-screen font, are smoothed. Anti-aliasing can be achieved via a number of processes, the most common of which is done with an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop, which has a number of tools and settings for achieving an anti-alaised effect. Sometimes an anti-alias is actually undesirable. For example, when displaying small fonts on-screen, it is generally clearer to leave the fonts aliased.
Art Director •
An ever-changing and much-disputed term. Art directors were traditionally the creative lead in the advertising industry. They were responsible for thinking up the creative briefs of an advertising campaign, photo-shoots, and so on. In recent years, it has become more fashionable for some agencies to ascribe the term art director to senior designers (and even some less than senior designers).
Artwork •
Finished artwork is an all-inclusive term for the finished, supplied documents or digital files that are supplied to pre-press or for print. Traditionally, finished artwork would have been pasted-up boards that were ready for photographing to make films and printing plates. It was known as “camera-ready artwork.” Nowadays, finished artwork would generally refer to digitally-supplied documents that are ready to be output to film, printing plates, or digital output. This is often supplied as a “fully-formatted disk,” though, in a modern production workflow, artwork is just as likely to be supplied via an ISDN link, FTP, or by email.
Artworker (Finished Artist, Typesetter, Compositor, Graphic Artist) •
Traditionally specialists who implemented the creative brief, as given to them by a graphic designer or art director. To some degree, in recent years—with the advent of desktop publishing—these terms have blurred somewhat, with many graphic designers (and even art directors) doing their own artworking. Artworkers are usually highly proficient in a number of the basic graphics software applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign; Freehand; and QuarkXpress. They will be able to take a brief and implement it according to the brief and finish it so that it is ready for pre-press or print production.
Author’s Alterations (AA)
(Author’s Corrections; Author’s Amendments) •
Client changes to text or artwork. These are usually chargeable to the client. |
| B • |
Bevel •
In graphics terms, a bevel refers to creating the appearance of a smooth or straight raised edge to a shape. This can be created with a bitmap image-manipulation program such as Photoshop or in a vector-based drawing package such as Illustrator.
Blanket •
The blanket is a rubber printing pad which is fixed to the cylinder of an offset printing press. The printing plate transfers ink onto the blanket which, in turn, applies the image to the substrate.
Bleed •
Extra area outside of a finished document that designers must allow if they want images that are butting up to the edge of the page to be cropped properly. Because printed documents are guillotined in large batches, it is impossible for the printer to guarantee that every sheet will be cropped exactly on the crop-marks. Printers will generally specify that graphics must extend into the bleed areas by at least 3mm. In larger print jobs, it is sometimes necessary to allow up to 5mm.
Blu-Ray (not Blue-Ray) •
Optical disc format for displaying high-definition (HD) video. It can hold very large amounts of data (more than DVDs) and so can pack very high-quality digital video onto a single disc.
Board •
Heavier printing paper. The exact grams per square meter (gsm) that mean a sheet is referred to as board, as opposed to paper, appears to vary between suppliers and printers. Over 200-300 gsm is a safe starting point.
Body Copy (Body Text) •
Term given to the main blocks of text in an article—not headlines or sub-headings.
Branding
(On-Brand, Off-Brand, Brand Awareness, Brand Identity) •
Originally an advertising concept, branding is now an integral part of many graphic designer’s day-to-day exposure. A brand is a graphic, font, image, or a series of concepts that defines a company’s, or product’s, identity. By establishing a strong and identifiable brand, a company or organization is trying to convey to its consumers a sense of familiarity and trust of its products, over that of its competitors.
• See also: Corporate Identity
Brief •
A designer’s brief, or creative brief, is what a client will give to a designer to help them come up with a creative solution or set of concepts. Briefs can vary drastically from client to client. Some will simply give a few verbal pointers, while others may supply full written documentation with information about the company, their customer base, statistics, corporate identity information, and so on. A thorough design brief can be crucial for the creation of a succesful solution. One of the biggest compaints from many art directors is the difficulty in getting enough targeted information from potential clients.
Broadsheet •
Measures 17x22" and is a standard size for newspaper printing.
• See also: Tabloid
Bromide •
A photographic print on bromide paper, also sometimes know as a photo-mechanical transfer (PMT). Used to be the prime format for supplying black and white finished artwork. With the advent of desktop publishing, bromides are now rarely used.
Business to Business (B2B, B-to-B) •
Design communication targeted from commercial companies at other commercial organizations, as opposed to between the company and their consumer. Often these communications will take the form of trade magazines (or websites) or targeted advertising within the financial press, for example.
Byline •
Term given to the short piece of text that identifies and describes the author or journalist of an article. It generally comes after the heading or at the end of an article. |
| C • |
Caption •
Descriptive text that is used to explain the contents of a photograph, diagram, or illustration.
Choke •
Choking is a type of trap that involves reducing the size of a graphic color to trap the inner color, resulting in a hairline trap.
• See also: Spread
CMYK •
Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) are the four primary printing inks that make up any full-color printing job. Also known as the four process colors.
Coated Paper •
Printing paper that has been coated with clay to give it a smooth and “coated” look and feel. Finishes can be gloss, matte, and silk, among others.
• See also: Uncoated Paper
Color Bar •
A series of colored shapes printed outside of the finished area. These bars are used to verify the accuracy of the printing job and allows the press operator to calibrate the print job and adjust the press if necessary.
Color Calibration •
Process where a series of graphic input and output devices are calibrated, or matched, using color profiles, in an effort to match the appearance of color across the range of the design, prepress, and printing process. Both input devices, such as scanners and digital cameras; and output devices, such as monitors, printers, proofing devices, and imagesetters; are calibrated. This is to ensure consistency throughout the publishing process. Many hardware suppliers provide a color profile with their products so that designers and prepress professionals have a starting point from which to work.
Color Separation •
The process where the four (CMYK) process printing colors are separated into their primary colors to allow for professional printing.
ColorSync •
Apple’s color management system (CMS). ColorSync uses a variety of profiles for different input and output devices to try and calibrate the whole design, publishing, and printing process.
Column Guides •
Used by graphic designers to mark out the grid format that the body text element of a page will take. Page layout software, such as Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress, allow the designer to assign non-printing column guides to aid in the design of templates for magazines, brochures, and other printed documents. These are especially useful for monthly magazines and periodicals that use the same layout format on a regular basis.
Comp
(Comprehensive, Composite, Rough Layout, Dummy) •
A layout that has been mocked up to show how the different elements of the design will look when the job has been printed. This could range from a rough sketch to a fully-formatted digital layout or printed proof. In printing or pre-press terms, a composite is an outputted file that has not been separated into its separate printing colors. This would often take the form of a proof for showing to a client, for example.
Concept •
A design concept is the graphic designer’s idea or solution to a client brief. Often a designer will produce more than one concept, so that the client can have a choice. There is some debate among designers as to how many concepts to show a client. Companies often want to see many options—especially with logos—while many creatives argue that clients should only be given two or three well thought-out ideas. Design concepts are often presented as printed presentations, or visuals. Sometimes these are presented to the client in person on boards, or on a laptop or display screen. For smaller jobs, concepts are often simply emailed to the client as a PDF. Visual concepts are often backed up with written documentation. The latter is especially important with larger design projects and for website design.
Contrast •
The difference between the darker and lighter tones of a photographic image.
Copy •
Term given to the raw editorial text supplied for formatting into a designed document.
• See also: Body Copy
Copywriter •
Commercial author who writes copy for adverts, brochures, annual reports, or other designed marketing material. Copywriters are often freelance, but many also work inside the larger advertising agencies.
Corporate Identity •
While having a link with branding, corporate identity generally applies more specifically to the visual perceived image of a corporation rather than to an individual product. The intent of a strong corporate identity is to promote this cohesive visual image, both within the company—as a corporate culture—and externally to clients and rivals as a strong visual corporate identity. In practical terms, for designers, this involves the development of a logo (or group of logos) and a set of printed visual guidelines—usually in the form of a Corporate Identity Manual—as to how the organization’s corporate identity is to be represented in publications, websites, and advertising campaigns. A Corporate Identity Manual would include samples of logotypes and layouts, instructions for their usage, and color guides and swatches.
Cromalin •
Often mispelled as Chromalin. Cromalins are a well known photo-mechanical proofing method from DuPont. They are capable of producing CMYK proofs as well as spot color and Pantone Matching System proofs.
• See also: Matchprint
Crop (Cropping; Trim, Trimming) •
To crop an image is to trim it to a size that best enhances the contents or to make it fit into the allocated space in the design. Cropping an image can be achieved digitally in a number of ways. A photograph can be cropped in an image-editing program such as Adobe Photoshop, or it can be imported into a page-layout package, such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXpress, and trimmed there.
• See also: Crop Marks (next)
Crop Marks •
Crop marks are printed cutting lines on a printed sheet of artwork or completed print job. They are there to indicate where the publication should be trimmed. |
| D • |
Deboss •
Debossing involves pressing an image into the sheet of paper to create an impression. Also known as tooling.
• See also: Emboss
Density Range •
The difference between the lightest and darkest areas of an image. Also known as tonal range.
Desktop Publishing (DTP) •
Catch-all term applied to the introduction of digital publishing systems in the 1980s. These systems replaced large, specialist design, prepress, and compositing systems. DTP encompassed a mixture of tools and technologies, but none more so than the combination of the Apple Macintosh computer, with its WYSIWYG interface, page-layout software such as Adobe PageMaker (now InDesign), and PostScript laser printers. In practice, DTP was, and remains, somewhat of a misnomer. Though a lot of the design and prepress can be done on small “desktop” systems, the actual printing still requires large and expensive output systems, though this is now gradually changing in some areas, with the advent of smaller-run digital printing machines.
Die Cut •
Die-cutting is the process where shapes are cut out of paper or other substrates. Designers will generally have to specify a cutting grid, in their page layout or vector drawing program, that the printer will use as a guide for making the die.
Digital Proofing •
Digital proofs are produced directly from an output device, as the result of a computer file—not a photo-mechanical proof.
Direct Mail •
Marketing communication carried out by mailshots. This can be a designed letter, enclosed leaflets, and forms, to the envelope itself.
Dot Gain •
Where the halftone dots of an image print larger than the size they were on the films or printing plates. This results in some loss of detail. Some degree of dot gain is an unnavoidable part of the printing process, and there are settings in a number of desktop-publishing tools to allow for this. Adobe Photoshop, in particular, has settings to allow for dot gain under its color settings/preferences.
Dots per Inch (DPI; Dots per Square Inch) •
The generally-accepted term for describing the resolution of an output device—such as imagesetters and printers. It is also used in relation to bitmap graphic files and scanned images that are intended for printed output—not pixels per inch (PPI), which is used for images that are intended purely for on-screen use.
Double-Page Spread (DPS) •
Refers to a magazine design layout that spans across two pages. Usually, the design editor will arrange to spread the layout across the center pages of the magazine, to ensure that the design lines up properly.
Drop Shadow •
Shading effect used to give the appearance of raised type or graphics on the designed page. This can be either a solid drop-shadow—used mainly for text headings—created by simply overlapping two identical headlines, darkening the bottom letters, and shifting them a few mm—or it can be a soft drop-shadow, which is usually created in an image-manipulation program, such as Photoshop, by blurring the bottom layer to create a fuzzy appearance.
Drum Scanner •
An extremely high-resolution and prepress scanner quality that uses a high-speed rotating glass drum to scan transparencies and photographic images. Drum scanners give a much more detailed reproduction of an original than flatbed desktop scanners and can capture a much greater range of tones, however the gap between some of the top flatbed scanners and drum scanners is narrowing at a dramatic rate.
Duotone •
A black-and-white photographic image that has been given a color tint, by duplicating the image onto a second color channel. Photoshop has a one-stop “Duotone” command that converts a grayscale image into a two-color duotone, three-color tri-tone, or four-color quadtone. It is advisable, however, to then adjust each channel to ensure that the image has the correct tonal values for each channel and will print as intended.
• See also: Fake Duotone |
| E • |
Electronic Publishing •
All-encompassing term that applies to everything from desktop publishing (DTP) and digital printing techniques to photocopied or fax-machine publishing to email publishing.
Emboss [print] •
In printing terminology, not the digital simulation of embossing (see next term), to emboss is to make a physical impression of a shape into the printing substrate, so that it projects beneath the surface.
• See also: Deboss
Emboss [design] •
Embossing is the creation of a raised, three-dimensional area on a printed sheet. The effect can also be simulated using graphics software such as Photoshop.
Emulsion •
Light-sensitive chemicals used on films and printing plates.
Estimate •
The estimated cost of a print job. Printers will only ever estimate a job, as the variables involved can be many. However, as long as the designer supplies the finished artwork in the correct format, the print job should not cost more than the estimate.
Exclusion Zone •
The area around a logo or company brand is a measurement of space where a company’s corporate identity guidelines specify that there should be no other graphic or text. Any element that infringes on this space is said to be breaking the brand guidelines. Generally these specifications are written into a company’s corporate identity manual and are handed out to printers and designers so that they are made aware of the conditions. |
| F • |
Fake Duotone •
Also know as false duotone, duograph, duplex halftone, screen halftone, and flat-tint halftone. A dummy duotone simply has the image from one plate duplicated and overprinted over the other color plate.
Fifth Color •
Though there can be many additional colors, in addition to the four CMYK process printing inks, a single fifth color is the most common. Often this is the corporate color of a company’s logo or corporate identity, which needs to be reproduced accurately.
• See also: Spot Color; Pantone
Finishing •
The finishing process is made up of a number of postpress processes that may be applied to a document after the printing job has completed. This includes binding, folding, and trimming. A document which has not been cropped, varnished, or bound may be referred to as unfinished.
Flatbed Scanner •
A desktop or design studio-based scanner that works by placing original artwork face-down on a glass sheet, and an electronic sensor scans the selected image area and outputs the digital file to a desktop computer. The quality of desktop flatbed color scanners has improved dramatically in recent years. Some of the higher-end flatbed scanners are even capable of prepress-quality color scans.
• See also: Drum Scanner
Flyer (Leaflet) •
Usually a single sheet or handbill designed to be handed out or picked up by consumers.
Foil Blocking •
Foil stamping, or blocking, is a printing process where metalic foil is applied to the printing substrate via a heated die.
Folio •
Simply one page—one side of a half-folded sheet. In publishing terms, it also refers to the page number of a publication, not the actual position of the sheet in the document.
For Position Only (FPO) •
Refers to the placement of a dummy image, dummy text, graphic, or blank box as a placeholder—during the proofing or editorial process—to indicate that there is a real image or “live” copy still to come. Sometimes the correct image may be in place, but it will only be a low-resolution, non-printing image, until a high-resolution version has been scanned and imported. It is particularly important in these cases to identify the images as FPO to prevent the accidental sending of the file to prepress for output.
Fully-Formatted Disk •
A disk containing all of the print-ready files required for a job to be outputted at prepress. This could typically include the DTP document itself (like an Adobe InDesign or QuarkXpress file), all the EPS logos, and high-resolution Photoshop bitmap files and scans. |
| G • |
Galley Proof •
A proof of the set type or body text.
Gamut •
The range of colors available to a specific output device, such as a laser printer or an imagesetter. If the color range is too wide for that particular device, it is referred to as “out of gamut.” For example, the RGB color range is much broader than the CMYK color gamut (which is what most prepress output devices use). Colors specified using the RGB gamut will often fall out of the gamut range when output.
Gate Fold (Gatefold Document) •
Finished sheet where both sides are folded, overlapping, towards the gutter. Often used for download-sized promotional flyers.
Grams per Square Meter (gsm) •
Used for measuring paper and board weight.
Gravure (Photogravure) •
The photogravure printing process is where metal cylinders are etched with millions of tiny impressions to hold the ink. Gravure printing is very expensive unless used for very large quantities. Used for printing high-quality color photographic images on lower-quality stock paper—for example, Sunday newspaper color supplement magazines.
Gray Balance •
Using cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK) to produce a neutral grey image.
Gray Component Replacement (GCR) •
This process involves replacing the gray tone in the cyan, magenta, and yellow plates with black ink during the color-separation process. Not to be confused with undercolor removal (UCR).
Grid •
A layout grid is the non-printing set of guidlines that designers use to align images and text in a document layout.
Gutter •
The inside margins or blank space between two facing pages of a magazine or book. The gutter space is allowed due to the space lost during the binding process, especially during perfect binding. In saddle-stitched publications, the gutter is adjusted to allow for a process called “creep,” when the outer pages of a section appear to bunch up and the inner pages protrude more. |
| H • |
Hairline •
Very thin rule or keyline. There is no agreed measurement among designers and printers, but somewhere between 1/8 (0.125) and 1/4 (0.25) pt seems to be generally-agreed measurements. QuarkXpress has a “hairline” setting for keylines. Many printers caution against using this setting as it produces a hairline far too thin (allegedly 1/8 or 0.125 pt) to be reproduced. 1/4 (0.25) pt is the recommended thinnest setting.
Halftone •
There are two common definitions for the term halftone, as far as prepress and printing is concerned:
| • |
Traditionally, a halftone screen is a piece of film with a grid of lines (line screen). It is used to break down continuous-tone images, such as photographs, into halftone images for printing. The halftone screen breaks down the image into a symetrically-aligned series of dots—known as halftone dots. Nowadays, this process is generally done digitally, via an imagesetter. |
| • |
A continuous-tone image that has been commercially printed, using the halftone process, is also referred to as a halftone image. |
See also: Stochastic Screening
Hexachrome •
The Hexachrome printing process uses a color model based on six primary colors, not the traditional four-color process. As well as cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK), Hexachrome also adds orange and green into the range. To utilize the six colors, images must be scanned and imported using software that can understand the file formats, which most up-to-date DTP graphics software can. Orange and green are the hardest colors to reproduce in vibrant shades using the traditional CMYK four-color process, so Hexachrome is used when an extremely high print-quality color reproduction is required. The downside is that it is generally far more expensive at the prepress and print production stages.
High Resolution •
A bitmap image that has a high pixel resolution. Photographic images that have been scanned and that are intended to be used for printed reproduction must be high-resolution. Usually defined in terms of “pixels per inch” (PPI). It is a relative term. Images that will be printed must usually be scanned to a resolution approximating 1.5-2.5 times the intended line screen of the output device.
• See also: Low Resolution
Histogram •
An electronic tool in Adobe Photoshop and other image editors that shows the relative distribution of the density of pixels in a scan. It is used to gauge the evenness of distribution of shadow and highlight tones in scanned digital images.
Hot-Metal Typesetting (Hot-Lead Typesetting) •
Hot-metal typesetting, linecasting, or compositing is a no-longer used method of setting lines of type for printing on a letterpress printing machine. Initially this was done by hand, where the typesetter would either set individual letter or slugs of type. Eventually machines were built that speeded up this process somewhat. The most famous exponents of hot metal were Linotype and Monotype, who have recently merged into one company. Hot-metal typesetting was eventually replaced by phototypesetting and, later on, desktop publishing. |
| I • |
Imagesetter •
Digital output device for creating films for offset-litho printing. Digital files are output in a similar way to normal laser printing but printed as separations for high-quality reproduction. Imagesetters can have output resolutions of up to 5,000 dpi, although 12,000 dpi is more the norm for mono printing and 24,000-36,000 dpi is generally acceptable for basic CMYK color work.
• See also: Platesetter
Imposition •
The arrangement of document pages so that they will appear in the correct order after the document has been printed and folded.
Inkjet Printer (Bubble Jet) •
Works by spraying tiny droplets of ink onto the printing substrate. Inkjet printers can vary from small home printing devices to large and expensive dye-sublimation printers that are involved in the early stages of color proofing.
Interpolation •
An interpolated bitmap image is one where pixels have been artificially added either by the input device, such as a digital camera or in the scanning process, or afterwards in an image editor such as Adobe Photoshop. This is done to artificially enhance the resolution of an image. Interpolating an image’s resolution generally results in a “soft” or fuzzy image, as the software has added pixels by “guessing” where they should go, based on the shades of the pixels in close proximity.
Invert •
In design terms, inverting an image involves reversing the colors or tones of an image. Adobe Photoshop and other image editors achieve this with a simple menu command.
ISO Paper Sizes •
European standard-paper size standard, most common being the “A” series. The aspect ratio of ISO paper sheets is 1:1.414. This means that if you cut a sheet into halves, they will be the same proportion as the original—a sheet of A3, when cut in half, will give two sheets of A4. There are also B and C size papers and the larger RA and SRA paper sizes, which allow printers to print oversized sheets that can be trimmed to A size for commercial use. |
| J • |
Jaggies (Jagged Image; Bitmapped; Aliased) •
An image that has been scanned at too low a pixel resolution will appear pixelated. If the graphic is output at too low a print resolution, it will also appear jagged or aliased. Sometimes also referred to as bitmapped. Jaggies can also occur with linked images which have been output to a high-resolution printer, or an imagesetter, but where the original linked image file is missing.
Job Ticket •
A docket to keep track of prepress and color reproduction jobs by service bureaus.
Jogger •
A machine with a high vibration rate that is used in the finishing process to even up large stacks of printed sheets.
Joliet •
A CD-ROM recording format for Windows-based PCs that allows long filenames.
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group; JPG) •
File format used to compress the size of images. The downside is that there is some loss of quality in a JPEG image. This can be limited by using a high-quality setting, but this results in a larger file size. JPEGs are used less in graphic design for print these days, due to the relative cheapness of large storage devices, such as hard-disks, CDs, and portable hard-disks. The JPEG format is largely used to keep the file size of web images (especially photographic images) down, to enable faster downloads. |
| K • |
K •
The “K” of CMYK printing inks refers to black. “K” stands for “key” color.
Keyline •
Another term for a rule, line, or even a frame border, used in graphic design. Keylines can be set in many graphic-design software applications to different widths, to be solid or dotted, or even with various patterns.
• See also: Hairline
Knockout •
Trapping-related term. It refers to the process where two colors print exactly next to each other, without overlap—hence no trapping has been applied. The danger with object knocking-out is misregister, which allows white space to show between the objects.
Kodak Approval •
Digital proofing system by Kodak. |
| L • |
Lab Color •
Lab is a color system that was developed as a method of calculating all the colors that are viewable by the human eye. Lab color is a mathematical model defined in terms of luminosity and brightness, as well as two axes—green to magenta and blue to yellow. The Lab color model incorporates all the colors in the CMYK and RGB color spectrums and is often used as an intermediary when converting one format to the other in an image editor, such as Adobe Photoshop.
Laminate •
A transparent coating applied to printed sheets to give either a shiny (gloss) or neutral (matte) finish. Usually used on the outer covers of brochures or heavy, single-sheet, printed materials. Helps protect the document from moisture and heavy usage, as well as being aesthetically pleasing.
Line-Screen (LPI) •
Also referred to as the line-screen frequency, this refers to the measure of distance between the rows of dots that make up a halftone screen. Lower line-screens are used on rougher, low-quality printing substrates (such as newsprint), while higher line-screens are used for high-quality print jobs on smooth art papers.
Lithography •
Method of printing utilizing oil and water to enable the ink to produce a printed image. Image areas are covered with oily ink, and non-image areas use water to repel the ink. In combination with the offset printing technique—offset-litho—this is by far the most popular method of printing.
Low Resolution •
The term applied to a bitmap graphics file (usually a photographic image) that is only used for positional purposes, or “on-screen” display. The term “low-resolution” is not an absolute term. A low-resolution file is typically 72dpi, at the intended output size, so is generally considered unsuited for printed work, as it will probably appear bitmapped or aliased. However, some newspaper or large posters are output at very coarse line-screens, so this size of image is no longer considered “low-resolution.”
• See also: High Resolution; Resolution
LZW Compression •
Format that is used to compress certain types of bitmap graphics images (such as TIFFs). Unlike JPEG compression, LZW is a lossless compression format—i.e. file size is reduced without the loss of image quality. The downside of compressing image with LZW is that they take longer to print. |
| M • |
Machine-Glazed Paper •
Paper that has one highly-glossed side and one rough side. Often used for posters.
Makeready •
The combination of activities that comprise the preparation of a printing press to print a job. One of the reasons that a conventional printing job can be so expensive to keep repeating is that the makeready process is very time-consuming. Obviously the shorter the print-run, the larger the percentage of the price attributed to the makeready process—something that designers and their clients often overlook.
Masthead •
Magazine term referring to the printed list, usually on the editorial page of a newspaper or magazine, that lists the contributors. Typically this would include the owners, publishers, editors, designers, and production team. The masthead is often mistakenly used in reference to the flag or nameplate, which actually refers to the designed logo of the publication.
Matchprint •
A four-color, photomechanical proofing process from 3M. Similar to DuPont’s Cromalin.
Metallic Ink •
Contains powdered metal, sometimes with added pigments, to simulate a metallic finish. Gold and silver are the most common, but it is also common to have metallic inks in numerous colors.
Midtones •
Areas in a graphic which will print closest to 50% tint, but in practice this is any shade between 30 and 70%.
Moiré Pattern •
Occurs in the printing process when two or more repeating patterns overlap each other. Similar to the distortion effect on television when a presenter wears a crisscross pattern on their suit, the moiré pattern effect will occur in halftone areas of the print if the line-screens of two different inks have been output at the same angle, therefore it is important to ensure that the screen angles of each printing plate are different. Moiré patterns can also occur when a halftone image is scanned and printed, as the dot pattern from the printed halftone can clash with the new line-screen. There are numerous ways to reduce this, from blurring the scan slightly, to reducing the size of the scan, to various Adobe Photoshop techniques and filters.
Multimedia •
Multimedia design is a somewhat all-inclusive term. It became fashionable in the early days of CD-ROMs and now can be assigned to any type of graphic design that has an interactive design element or involves 3D or animation. Multimedia applications can include Adobe Flash and Director and a number of 3D design packages. |
| N • |
Newsprint •
Low-grade printing paper, used with newspapers and other “disposable” documents.
Newton’s Rings •
Flaw that can occur in a photograph or transparency that had grease on it while it was being scanned. The visual effect is similar to that of oil poured on water.
Noise •
A noisy image or scan is one where there are random or extra pixels that have degraded the image quality. Noise in a graphics image can be generated at the scanning stage, by artificially enlarging an image by interpolating the pixels or by over-sharpening a digital photograph.
Non-Impact Printing •
Not a large-scale printing procedure but refers to laser-printing, inkjet printers, and photocopying devices.
Non-Printing Blue •
A blue pencil that can be used to mark-up artwork or mechanicals. Useful because it will not be picked up on graphic-arts films. Also known under a number of other names, such as “non-repro blue,” “drop-out blue,” and simply “blue pencil.” |
| O • |
Offset •
Printing method that applies an image to the paper via a blanket, rather than directly from the printing plate. In conjunction with lithography—to produce offset-litho printing—this is by far the most common printing technique in use today.
Open Prepress Interface (OPI) •
A graphics management system where a high-resolution scanned image is placed on a server and a low-resolution version is supplied to the designers for use in visual page layout only. When it is time to run the finished job for print—or high-resolution proof—the job can be output at a high resolutionm and the OPI files will be picked up and sent to the imagesetter. This is especially useful because it saves time in the design studio, as it is not necessary to spend time scanning low-resolution positionals, and it also ensures that, when the final high-resolution scan is output, it will be positioned and cropped exactly as the designer intended—no need for rescanning or manual placement.
Optical Resolution •
The optical graphics resolution is the real maximum resolution that an input device, such as a scanner or digital camera, can render a bitmap image—not the interpolated resolution, where the input device’s software will enlarge the image resolution by artificially adding pixel data. When buying a high-quality flatbed scanner or digital camera, the optical resolution is the figure of which needs to be paid attention. The maximum optical resolution is the amount that a given document can be enlarged by the scanner’s hardware technology without resorting to interpolation. Interpolating an image’s resolution will result in a soft or blurry image and not in a high-quality prepress reproduction.
Outline •
This can refer to the outside edge of a font or the outer edge of a vector graphic image, drawn in a package such as Adobe Illustrator or Freehand.
Overprinting •
Printing over a previously-printed impression, such as printing type over a halftone screen image. |
| P • |
Pantone Matching System (PMS) •
The proprietary Pantone color -matching system is the most popular method of specifying extra colors—not out of the CMYK four-color process—for print. Pantone colors are numbered and made-up of a base set of colors. By specifying a specific Pantone color, a designer knows that there is little chance of color variance on the presses. Pantones are generally used as spot colors, such as logos, to ensure color consistency for corporate identities, however they can also be used in halftone graphics and for duotones. Pantones can also be simulated using the colors from the CMYK spectrum—and Pantone even published a guide for doing so—however the results can often be unsatisfactory, especially for greens and oranges. This is one of the motivations for the development of the Hexachrome printing system.
Perfect Binding •
Process of binding sheets of a document by roughing the edges at the spine and bonding them with glue to an external cover. Paperback books and thick documents, such as brochures and larger news-stand magazines, are generally perfect-bound.Thinner publications, such as trade magazines and journals, are generally saddle-stitched.
Perfecting Press •
A printing press that is capable of printing both sides of the sheet in a single pass through its rollers.
Perforating •
Creating a line of punched dots on a printed sheet so that a part of a sheet can be detached by a user in the future.
Pixels per Inch (PPI) •
Method of measuring the size of a bitmapped digital image on-screen. This is separate from dots per inch, or the output resolution of an image.
Plate •
A printing plate is the metal (or sometimes plastic or even paper in short-run printing) sheet that carries the image being printed on a printing press.
Platesetter •
Type of imagesetter that outputs press-ready digital files directly onto printing plates, not films.
PostScript •
A page description language, developed by Adobe, that redefined the design, print, and publishing industry in the 1980s. The Apple Laserwriter in the mid-1980s shipped with PostScript and, combined with Adobe PageMaker and the Macintosh, launched the desktop-publishing (DTP) industry. PostScript was the first digital-printing programming language that, in conjunction with DTP software, allowed text and graphics to be reproduced in a high-enough quality to be used in prepress reproduction. PostScript is also utilized in the majority of fonts used in the design and publishing industry, as well as in design tools such as Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress and vector-illustration tools such as Adobe Illustrator and Freehand. As well as printing systems, PostScript is also used as a display system for screen output.
Press Check •
When a client, designer, or production manager visits the printing press and checks the printed sheets as they come off the machine. Usually, these sheets are signed off by the client and used as proofs to color-match the rest of the printed job.
Press Proof •
Printed proof that has been run using an actual printing press and commercial printing inks. This is generally done immediately prior to running the actual job.
Progressive Proofs •
Made-up of different combinations of all the printing colors of a document. They are generally produced from a proofing press, or on the printing press itself. The colors are progressively applied to show the result of the addition of each separated ink.
Proofing Press •
There are special proofing presses which are built with the specific purpose of creating accurate proofs. The advantage is that the proofs are printed using the same ink and paper as the intended print job without the commercial commitment of the press proof. The downside is that the colors are often more vibrant than they would be on the actual printed document. |
| Q • |
Quadtone •
Principally the same as a duotone or tritone but involving four inks, not two or three.
Quartertone •
The printed part of an image where the gray value is either 25 or 75%.
Quarto •
A sheet of paper folded twice (i.e. one quarter of the flat size) to make an eight-page section.
QuickTime •
Apple Computer’s proprietary video display technology that is built into all Macintosh computers and is popular on PCs also, for displaying and editing video and moving graphics. |
| R • |
Raster Image Processor (RIP) •
Hardware or software tool that processes a digital PostScript file and converts—rasterizes—it to a printable format.
Rasterize •
Rasterizing a graphic is to convert it from vector data to bitmap pixels. Adobe Photoshop and others will rasterize an image when it opens an EPS file from Adobe Illustrator, for example.
Reflective •
The opposite of a transparency or transmissive, in that it reflects light. A photograph is a typical reflective artwork.
Register •
When a printed sheet is “in-register,” it means that all the plates—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, in the case of a four-color process job—line-up accurately on the printing press and produce a clearly-defined color image. If a job is out-of-register, there will be a blurring at the edges of images that are made up of multiple colors.
Registration Marks [print] •
Cross-haired lines that help visually ensure that a set of films or printing plates are in register, to produce a sharp, registered result. Many modern printing presses have sensors which can automatically detect registration marks and ensure registration.
Registration Marks (Register Marks) [prepress] •
Thin lines—generally cross-hair patterns—printed in all colors on an unfinished document. This allows the printer to accurately register all the printing plates and ensure accuracy and sharpness. In desktop-publishing software packages, such as Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress, there is an undeleteable color called the registration color, which appears black as it consists of 100% of all printing inks.
Resolution •
For graphics reproduction, the resolution of a bitmapped digital graphics image is a measure of its quality, or the amount of digital information it contains. Resolution is measured by the amount of pixels an image contains in height and width. For professional printed reproduction, the resolution of a bitmap graphics file must be between 1.5 and 2.5 times the resolution of the line-screen.
• See also: High Resolution; Low Resolution
RGB •
Red, green, and blue are the three colors used by monitors to display images. They are called additive colors because the more of each RGB color that is added, the brighter the resultant color. 100% of RGB will produce white.
• See also: CMYK; Subtractive Colors
Rich Black •
Due to impurities in commercial printing inks, 100% solid black generally appears nearer to a dark gray, so printers often add a “wash” of other colored inks to create a rich black. Typically this is 40% of cyan, but other combinations of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black are known.
River •
Typographic term for the ugly white gaps that can occur in justified columns of type, when there is too much space between words on concurrent lines of text. Rivers are especially common in narrow columns of text, where the type size is relatively large. Rivers are best avoided by either setting the type as ragged, increasing the width of the columns, decreasing the point size of the text, or by using a condensed typeface. An often overlooked method of avoiding rivers is the careful use of hyphenation and justification settings in page-layout programs such as Adobe InDesign or QuarkXpress.
Runaround (Text Wrap) •
In desktop-publishing layout programs, such as Adobe InDesign and QuarkXpress, it is often desirable to place photographs, logos, or other digital images within blocks of text. The ability to divert blocks of text around the placed images is known as running the text around. In InDesign, QuarkXpress, and others, it is possible to set the amount of distance that the text will run around an image and also the method of runaround.
Running Head •
A title or heading that runs along the top of a printed publication, usually a magazine. |
| S • |
Saddle Stitching •
A printed document is saddle-stitched by stapling its sheets at the fold of the spine, over a mechanical “saddle.” Saddled stitching is used for thin magazines, brochures, and journals. Thicker documents often have to be perfect bound.
Screen Angles •
To prevent a moiré pattern in CMYK full-color halftone printing, the line-screen of each printing plate needs to be positioned at different angles to each other.
Server •
A computer which has been set up to store and “serve” files to other computer users. In a design studio or prepress environment, this is essential to prevent the duplication of files and so that an effective backup policy can be implemented.
Service Bureau •
One of the terms for a company that specializes in artwork production, for example high-resolution drum-scanning, color retouching and correction, outputting films, and preparing files for printed reproduction.
Showthrough •
Happens when the printed image from one side of a sheet of printed paper shows through to the other side. Usually occurs on thin newspaper or magazine printing paper. An “off-white” sheet is often used to help reduce this in thinner paper stocks.
Slug •
There are various definitions for the word slug in graphic design, prepress, and printing terminology, including…
| • |
In traditional hot-metal typesetting—such as Linotype—a slug is a line of text from a linecasting machine. Blank slugs were also used to apply leading between lines of type. This has now been superceded by electronic desktop publishing. |
| • |
In magazine design, the term slug is used for a heading that stays in the same position in each issue of the publication. |
Spot Color •
“Extra,” or “special,” color that is used in addition to the CMYK four-color process. The extra ink is added to its own roller on the printing press, to more accurately print certain colors that are hard to reproduce with CMYK inks. There are a number of companies that manufacture and specify spot colors, most common being the Pantone color-matching system. Spot colors are often also used in predominantly black-and-white publications, where it would be too expensive to add a CMYK graphic element. Advertising is often sold this way, and a charge is made for each extra spot color. It is for these reasons that companies often have several versions of their company logo as part of their corporate identity—full color, mono, and a spot-color version.
Spread •
Regarding color reproduction, a spread is a trapping reference. A spread is created when the inner, or lighter, graphic is set to spread out to overlap an outer, darker object to create the trap.
• See also: Choke
Stochastic Screening (Frequency Modulation; FM) •
Relatively new method of reproducing halftone screens. Traditional halftone screens—also called amplitude modification (AM)—simply adjust the size of the dots to reproduce tonal variations in images. Larger dots produce darker tones, while smaller dots reproduces the lighter areas of an image. Stochastic screening aims to achieve a higher-quality reproduction of graphic images by using complex mathematical algorithms to modify the number of halftone dots. By varying the position and clustering of halftone dots, stochastic screening can achieve a smoother tonal reproduction and a higher-quality printed reproduction of image detail. Another advantage of using a stochastic screening method is that it can have a dramatic effect on reducing the potential for moire patterns to appear.
Substrate •
Any material or surface on which to be printed. For example, paper is a printing substrate. Other printing substrates can include plastics, card, and even metals.
Subtractive Color (Reflective Color) •
Process in color theory where color is seen as the result of light reflecting from a printed surface. Cyan, magenta, and yellow inks are subtractive colors, as are any printed or “solid” colors—not additive colors such as those produced by RGB computer monitors. Cyan, magenta, and yellow are known as subtractive colors because the more of each ink that is added, the darker, or less reflective, the resultant shade. In theory, the application of a 100% mixture of cyan, magenta, and yellow inks will produce a solid black. In practice, in the printing process, black ink nearly always has to be added due to impurities in commercial printing inks. |
| T • |
Tabloid •
Format normally reserved for newspapers, measuring half the size of a broadsheet.
Text Wrap •
Used to describe body text that is running around a placed image (or block of text).
Thermography •
Printing technique that reproduces the effect of raised lettering, similar to embossing. The effect is produced using special inks and by drying the inks at the same time as applying a powdered resin. The document is then heated so that the ink and powder mixture melts and produces a raised waxy appearance.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) •
Cross-platform graphics file format very-highly used in graphic arts. In fact, it was specifically designed for cross-platform compatibility, and this helped it become a very popular file format, especially for high-resolution prepress files. Like the EPS file format, TIFF files have the ability to saved digital image information as CMYK, and this has led both these formats to become the de-facto standard for print design. Unlike EPS files, ordinary TIFFs are purely bitmap files and could not, until recently, contain vector data. Recently, however, there has emerged the enhanced TIFF file format, which not only supports fonts and other vector drawing information but also layers and transparency. The features of advanced TIFF files are extremely useful, especially when importing into a DTP package such as Adobe InDesign for layout design, however it is advisable to check with the intended prepress bureau or print supplier before submitting files in this format—most printers will still prefer layered graphics to be flattened before outputting them to an imagesetter. Additionally, recent versions of InDesign and QuarkXpress now support importing layered Photoshop files (PSD), so the use of layered TIFF files is questionable, albeit slight.
Tip-In •
Adding an additional leaf of paper or card into an already-formatted printed booklet or magazine. Tip-in cards are added to commercial magazines in the magazine industry to add-in advertising and promotional cards. A tip-in technique sometimes has to be done unintentionally, as the result of a mistake by either the printer, designer, or client.
Trapping •
Because the commercial printing process involves laying-down colors in sequence—as opposed to, for example, laser-printing—it is nearly impossible to align every graphic object exactly. Because of this, objects of different colors that are next to each other are set to trap. What this means in practice is that one object overlaps the other by a fraction of a millimeter, ensuring that there is no white space in-between them.
Trim Marks •
Thin horizontal and vertical lines marked on a sheet of printed paper which indicate where the document needs to be guillotined.
Tritone •
Identical process to a duotone or quadtone but with three printing inks, not two or four. |
| U • |
Uncoated Paper •
Has not been coated with clay to give it a shiny, or “coated,” finish.
Undercolor Removal (UCR) •
Reducing the amount of cyan, magenta, and yellow ink in the midtones and shadow areas of an image, while the amount of black ink is increased.
• See also: Gray Component Removal (GCR)
Unsharp Mask •
Digital process of sharpening the appearance of bitmapped photographic images. Used by graphics applications such as Photoshop. There are numerous settings to allow the sharpening of different types of photographic images without adding too much noise that can result in a grainy appearance.
UV Coating •
A UV varnish is a shiny coating that is applied to the printed sheet and fixed with an ultraviolet light. It can be used to cover the complete sheet of paper or just applied to areas of the printed sheet, such as photographs. |
| V • |
Value •
Another word for the shade or tone of a printing color.
Varnish •
A matte or gloss liquid, sometimes applied as a spray, to seal a printed substrate. Can be used either on the cover of a publication to finish it or as a spot varnish on images or to seal pages that have been printed with a heavy coating of ink.
Vector Graphics •
A vector is a mathematically-calculated method of plotting accurate lines and curves. Unlike bitmap images, it is resolution-independent and allows graphics images to be enlarged to any size without any loss of quality. Programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, Flash; and CorelDRAW all use vector graphics formats to save files in, such as EPS, SWF, and various CAD file formats.
Vellum •
Textured and bulky paper stock, generally used for business cards and book covers. Vellum can also be used to refer to heavy, translucent drawing paper.
Verso •
In book-publishing terms, verso pages are the left-hand, even-numbered pages of a book. Sometimes also refers to the page on the back of the title page, containing copyright information.
Viewing Booth •
Area, or even entire room, specially set-up with balanced lighting conditions for viewing proofs and printed artwork.
Virgin Paper •
Paper substrate made entirely from wood pulp, not recycled paper. |
| W • |
Washup •
Cleaning the the ink out of the printing cylinders of a printing press.
Watermark •
Faint image areas embedded in some paper stocks. Often watermarks are used as security devices for currencies, certificates, and stamps. The watermark is generally visible when the substrate is held up to a light source. Watermarks are created by pressing a wet metal stamp or roller onto the paper during the manufacturing process.
Web-Printing Process •
Web-printing doesn’t use sheets of paper. Instead, large rolls of paper are fed through a printing press. Generally only economic for large print-runs, such as newspapers and some mass-distribution magazines. Occasionally, smaller design jobs will be run through a web-press, but they will generally need to be booked in advance and must arrive on time, as they are generally tacked onto the end of a larger print-run.
White Point •
The lightest area of a computer monitor. This refers to the color temperature of the monitor and generally varies from 5000 Kelvins, to 6500K, through to 9300K.
Work and Turn •
When passing a sheet of paper through a printing machine, using the same plate to print one side of the sheet before turning the paper over and printing the other side with the same printing plate and gripper edge.
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) •
One of the terms that came into use with the desktop-publishing (DTP) revolution and refers to the display system where what is seen on a computer screen, using a DTP package, is what you will get when the document is printed. The use of WYSIWYG has now been expanded to include website design software, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, that allow web designers to build websites without having to hand-code. All the DTP page-layout programs such as Adobe InDesign, PageMaker (formerly), QuarkXpress, and so on, all claimed to be WYSIWYG. In practice, the process of duplicating on-screen content into the “real” or printed medium remains easier said than done—similarly, this could also be said about WYSIWYG web-development tools—though the criticism here was often that the code that WYSIWYG programs create is not as “clean” as it would be if it were hand-coded. |
| Y • |
Yellow •
One of the four primary color inks that make up the CMYK, four-color printing process. |
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