Hello, Welcome To City Colors Trade Printing Center!
Hello, Welcome To City Colors Trade Printing Center!
This is one of the most commonly asked questions in the printing industry. The answer is very simple. First of all, there are millions of different phones and monitors along with different color and brightness settings. Some are very bright, some are dark, some are average quality, some are great quality, etc. Also monitors use RGB, Red, Green, Blue, to show colors. Taking this into consideration, the most important thing now is the fact that a monitor has the ability to create a more vivid and intense color than actually possible with printing. Since the monitor creates light the appearance is drastically different, while as the paper or substrate relies on the reflection of the ambient light, which is also different from place to place, to reflect an image into your eyes causing a different appearance everytime.
All Digital, Offset, DTF, Apperal, Garment, etc order files should be submitted at 300 DPI. Submitting a file less than 300 DPI may cause it to look blurry, pixelated and poor quality.
All Wide format is recomended at 150DPI. SInce these fiels are not seen from up close.
We DO NOT recommend designing your file with a border. However, when designing with a border, the more space you leave around the card, the better the card will look. If you leave very little space, any minor imperfection will cause the order to be slightly uneven either top to bottom or left to right. This is completely normal in the printing industry. There are many reasons why this occurs. First of all, when paper is sold, it is cut to size many times by a guillotine. If guillotine cut, there is a very high probability the paper will be slightly smaller or uneven in some parts. After this, the paper is fed into printing machine. During the printing process, there are some inevitable shifting that may occur. After printing, there are many steps from bindery to cutting to sorting to finally reach the final size. Any minor movements thru out these processes may make a difference even as large as 1/8th of an inch, as an extreme, in any type of printed piece. Ultimately, it is not recommended to design with borders, but if its necessary, we will make a great effort to try to keep the job as good as possible but always remember there is some inevitable tolerance that must be taken into consideration.
Yes, we are a "Gang Run Printer".
A gang run is a sheet with multiple orders being placed on it to divide the total cost of production among many different clients to offer very competitive pricing to our customers. The only down side is colors may vary from one time ordered to another mainly due to the fact that we cannot focus on any particular piece of art, but instead we must focus on the entire sheet. Colors generally don't vary more than about 5%-10%.
Since we are "Gang Run Printer", we are able to offer the nations most competitive prices, since the setup costs to print are divided amongst many customers.
Heavy coverage or solids is a pressmans nightmare. Lots of banding, ghosting, hickeys, etc. With newer, modern printing technology it is much less of a problem but nevertheless they are very difficult at times to priduce. At times no matter how much time is invested into it, the result is not as pleasing as a normal design would be. Also, the gang run printing process makes it even more challenging.
Rich black is an ink mixture of all of the 4 colros, CMYK. This results in a darker tone than black ink only. If you print black alone as 100% K, the resulting black may not be as dark as you might like.
To obtain a rich black, we recommend all heavy blacks and defined text over 24pt to be configured with the following color combination:
All orders are final and cannot be cancelled. City Colors will TRY to cancel an order, if possible. Due to our fast turnaround times, most of the time orders cannot be canceled. We will make a great effort to cancel an order but remember once an order is placed it is final.
When a job is folded or scored, especially with high ink coverage, it may begin to crack. During use, the cracks may become bigger and the ink may start to chip off.
Cracking is normal when coated jobs are scored and/or folded and is inevitable. Designing the job without high ink coverage will help but may not prevent this.
City Colors usually provides more than what you ordered. However, we cannot promise exact amounts. Industry standards allow up to a 10% over/under for final counts.
As far as the final size, the typical industry standards due to INEVITABLE tolerences in paper mills, on printing presses, and on cutters, etc, the final size of your may vary slightly.
For Offset and digital, up to 1/8th on an inch larger or smaller is considered normal.
For Wide format, up to 1-2 inches larger or smaller is considered normal.
For example, if you submit a 4 x 6 the final size may be as small as 3 7/8 x 5 7/8 (3.875 x 5.875) or as large as 4 1/8 x 6 1/8 (4.125 x 6.125). Typically, a 1/8th of an inch over/under. This is a printing industry standard and completely normal.
Most of the orders are finished to the requested size.
We use Offset, Digital, Wide Format and DTF Printing methods.