Champion Newspapers Ad Production Advice

Getting the most from your artwork Advertising artwork for publication in

newspaper titles Information prepared by Steve Smith, News International for Champion Newspapers, printed at Newsprinters Knowsley November 2010

2 THE GUIDE FOR MACÆ/ADOBEÆ CREATIVE SUITE USERS Welcome to Champion Newspapers advertising help guide for artwork preparation.

This is where weíll provide the information and application settings youíll need to produce correctly-specified artwork.

Set up your applications Create your artwork Create and check your PDF

THE BASICS An ICC profile is a file that describes how a particular device (in this case, a printing press) reproduces colour.

Newspaper presses use a process called offset lithographyand this is very different to our magazine presses, which use the gravure process.

The profile also controls the Total Area Coverage (TAC) for CMYK colours and can be used to set the maximum ink limit.

Newsprint is specified as 240% whilst gra vure magazines can be up to 360%.

We can supply ICC profiles that match all of the press/paper/ink combinations used to print each of our publications.

We use international standards for newspaper and magazine printing, such as PDF/X-1a:2001 and ICC printing profiles supplied by IFRA.

PDF/X is a subset of the Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) specification that is intended to reflect best practices in graphic arts file exchange. The aim is to produce digital content file that will run through our prepress systems without requiring rework or causing errors and be printed predictably and correctly on our presses.

We want to help you create artwork that will meet our printing specification and, most importantly, give you the results you expect.

3 SET UP YOUR APPLICATIONS This is the first important step. It will save a lot of effort if you set the application preferences to match the destination printing conditions before you start work on a specific artwork. Luckily, thereís an easy way of synchronising all Adobe applications using Adobe Bridge, so youíll only need to do this once for each print condition.

Launch Adobe Bridge and go to Edit/ Creative Suite Color Settings. Load the relevant .csf file and click Apply. All Adobe applications are now synchronised using this setting.

Of course, youíll need to choose an alternative CREATE YOUR First, go to www.niadhelp.com and download the setting in Bridge each ARTWORK time you begin artwork correct ICC profiles for each publication.

ICC profiles need to go into the for a different print Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder. condition.

Go to www.niadhelp.com to find the mechanical We’ll use Photoshop to specification for your create the first colour document, including: settings (.csf) file.

- trim, bleed & type sizes Go to Edit/Color - min. type and line sizes Settings and load the profiles you need.

The RGB profile will be Check colour your most common or settings in Bridge preferred input profile (often sRGB or Adobe 1998). The CMYK profile will be the destination Create an press profile. This InDesign document example shows the IFRA with the correct Trim newspaper profiles for Size and add bleed colour and greyscale. if required.

SAVE your settings with a recognisable name.

Document colours must be CMYK or Repeat this operation for Greyscale - check each print condition. your colour palette and change any spot or RGB colours Itís important you calibrate your computer display if you want to to CMYK. view a print simulation of your artwork. If you donít have a graphics quality display, then your screen may not be capable of accurate colour, All fonts must be on but calibration tools such as Gretag EyeOne Display 2, Spyder 3 will your system, help move it closer to the D50 graphics standard viewing condition. including those Itís also a good idea to set your desktop pattern to a neutral grey as bright images can affect your colour judgement.

embedded in imported graphics.

4 If you have been given a CMYK image of unknown origin, you should consider converting it to RGB first.

It’s really important to use the Relative Colorimetric rendering intent with BPC.

Illustrator vector graphics should use the same mechanical, colour and font specification as InDesign.

Imported files such as images, graphics and logos must be created with (or converted to) the correct ICC printing profile. Embedding the CMYK profile is not the same - this assumes it will be used by the printers prepress system and this is not the case at NI. It’s recommended to start with RGB images. Open them with their embedded profile if possible as most will contain their default camera profile.

Turn on CMYK Preview (View/Proof Colours) to simulate the ICC printing profile end destination colour space. Simulate Paper Colour provides points are set when you use better accuracy on a calibrated display.... but prepare to be the HL and SH droppers in shocked by newsprint simulation! the curves or levels windows Crop the image to constrain it’s physical size and resolution, thus keeping file sizes low without affecting image quality. Use 200dpi for newspaper images and 305dpi for magazines. (note: 1-bit images should be 1270dpi for newspapers and 2540dpi for magazines) Open the Curves or Levels window and use the droppers to set the range (highlight and shadow end points) of the image. It’s OK to drop out to white paper for newspaper printing but gravure magazines require a minimum dot of 6-8%.

Adjust the gradation (contrast, brightness).

Convert to the destination CMYK. Since you have already set up your default Color Settings, it’s OK to choose Image/Mode/CMYK. Make any final (minor) colour edits and apply some sharpening if required, taking care not to change the highlight and shadow end points. The ICC printing profile has controlled the maximum TAC (Total Area Coverage) and you could force the file out of specification with excessive end point adjustment.

Save the image in any supported format and place in your InDesign document.

5 CREATE A PRINT-READY PDF FINAL DOCUMENT CHECK: - have you applied the correct Color Settings?

- are your trim and bleed sizes correct?

- are all your colours CMYK or Greyscale?

- have all your images been converted to the destination ICC profile?

- are all document fonts on your system?

Using InDesign Go to File / Export and choose Adobe PDF format. Name your file and save.

Select Adobe PDF Preset PDF/X-1a:2001.

Select ì Outputî to check the correct ICC profile name appears in the Destination field. If not, you must go back and set your document colour settings.

Export your PDF.

6 The Adobe Flattener settings will affect quality if transparency has been used in your artwork. Default settings for PDF/X-1a are 1200ppi for line art and text, 300ppi for gradient and mesh.

Higher resolutions may improve quality, especially for magazine publications.

Using Distiller

Go to Edit / Transparency Flattener Presets and save a new preset. You can apply it in the Export Adobe PDF window (page 4) by selecting ì Advancedî and choosing the new preset. Consider saving several Adobe PDF Presets for future use.

Export your InDesign document as an EPS with these settings.

Enter bleed values to match your document.

In Distiller, select preset PDF/X-1a:2001 and open the EPS file to distill your PDF.

7 CHECK YOUR PDF News International advertising delivery systems will preflight your PDF on upload. However, Acrobat Pro also provides a preflight that will give you a quick way of checking the PDF before you send it.

Preflight In Acrobat Pro, go to Advanced / Preflight and select the PDF/X-1a preflight.

Note: this option checks against the 2003 standard but it will still return valuable information and help you diagnose potential problems.

Most importantly, take a look at your PDF using Acrobat’s Output Preview to simulate the printed result.

Softproof

In Acrobat Pro, go to Advanced / Print Production / Output Preview Select the destination profile (which should already be selected as your output intent if you have correctly set up your applications).

Turn on Simulate Overprint - does anything disappear? If it does, go back and check your InDesign overprint settings.

Use Simulate Paper Color for a more accurate softproof on calibrated displays.

Churchtown

Banks

Southport

Tarleton Crossens Scarisbrick

Mere Brow Rufford

Birkdale Bescar Ainsdale

Shirdley Hill

Freshfield

Halsall

Formby Hightown Ince Blundell

Lydiate

Crosby

Parbold Newburgh

Haskayne

Ormskirk

Aughton

Appley Bridge

Skelmersdale

Bickerstaffe Up Holland

Maghull Waterloo

Burscough

Melling

Aintree Litherland

We’ve got the West Coast covered

Six editions every week delivered to over 140,000 homes in Sefton & West Lancashire

Clare House · 166 Lord Street · Southport · PR9 0QA champion Production Team t/ 01704 392 320 • f/ 0871 528 9264 • e/ production@champnews.com Information prepared by Steve Smith, News International for Champion Newspapers, printed at Newsprinters Knowsley November 2010