How to color registering in Publisher for printing

[Bad_Wolf]

Hi all,

Imagine a four color printing press which has 4 plates for the colors magenta, cyan, yellow and black. Because of some tolerance differencies between the colors there will be a small gap between adjacent colors possible. To avoid this small gap, I used "overprint" in the past (early nineties) with applications like Freehand and Quark Xpress for the outline of a shape or text.

I do not know if I make myself clear. Therefore an example here :

I have a yellow square in the CMYK color format. I place a magenta circle over it in the same color format. Now theoretically when it finally prints in the printing press, I have a yellow square with on top a magenta circle. However, when I leave the drawing like this because of some inaccuracies of the press there will likely be a small gap visible on the outline where the two colors meet each other. What I did in the past was give the line a 0.5 to 0.8 thickness and selected "Overprint". This mean there will be a color overlap of 0.5 to 0.8 from the top object (in this case the circle) over the bottom object (the square).

How can this be done in Affinity Publisher?

Thank you very much for your input.

Chris

[MikeW]

Trapping is a function of a 4-color press' RIP. The software involved in processing a PDF for print (both to better digital presses and traditional film) will automatically decide whether spread or choking should be used and can be overridden by the pre-press department.

I don't think object-level overprint is possible in Serif applications.

[padura]

I follow this. The explanation is clear and I also asked myself how Publisher deals with overprinting.

[Bad_Wolf]

@MikeW

Thank you Mike for your fast reply and your explanation. It is from the mid-nineties I made such documents and my knowledge about the subject is not up-to-date. However, I intend to take up this activity again in Botswana (printing in Botswana but creating from my laptop).

The last version of FreeHand I used was 3.1 and Quark Xpress also 3.1. Both had the overprint function. I was looking to Publisher and Designer but neither of them has this function or I cannot find it.

When I am in Botswana at the end of the year, I will ask printshops in Gaborone if "overprint" will be done automatically, so I don't need to care about it.

After being busy with Publisher, I realise I have to learn much to up-date my knowledge about Desktop Publishing. I liked it in the early nineties and now I take it back up.

@padura

Like you, I follow this subject with very much interest. Thank you.

Chris

 

[Paul Martin]

Hi Bad_Wolf. I also have found DTP engaging - a mixture of fun and exasperation. I always loved the fact that printing had hundreds of years of ingenuity and subtlety behind it that DTP tried to absorb and reproduce in about a decade. Good luck with your printers. I'm probably going to try a PDF output from Affinity Publisher on my printer sometime soon. Of course, it will work without any problems, won't it?

[Bad_Wolf]

@Paul Martin

Thank you for your reply.

Remember that Affinity Publisher is still in beta mode. Therefore things can workout not as expected. I think before sending anything to a printer for production, that you wait at least until Publisher is in the final release state.

If you intend to sent your PDF file to a printer, I think it is best to check the PDF file in another PDF reader like Nitro or Adobe Reader. Be very carefull when checking the generated PDF. Do not check it only on screen but also print it with an office laser printer. It is no guarantee that everything is correct for printing but you add an extra safety net where you can catch possible errors.

LIke you, I am very much interested in Desktop Publishing. In 1990 I followed evening classes typesetting on an Agfa MCS 100 system. I was very good at it and used it with very much pleasure. Then in 1991 I bought Quark Xpress 3.0 which I preferred above PageMaker because of the frames. I upgraded to version 3.1 and used that until somewhere around 1995, the year my Mac SE died.

For what I do, Quark Xpress is too expensive and the subscription model of Adobe does not work  for me. When in Botswana, I only have very poor internet. I am also using Affinity Designer since it became available for Windows together with Photo. I like what I see in Publisher very much.  They are not so bloated as Adobe's applications and the Affinity codebase is new, the one of Adobe is decades old which is showing.

I am sure there are still functionality missing in all three Affinity applications, however within a few years, Affinity will soon catch up with Indesign - Photoshop - Illustrator and Quark Xpress. Something to look out for.

chris

[MikeW]

Just now, Bad_Wolf said:

...

I am sure there are still functionality missing in all three Affinity applications, however within a few years, Affinity will soon catch up with Indesign - Photoshop - Illustrator and Quark Xpress. Something to look out for.

chris

Hi again, Chris.

I think that if, and only if, InDesign or QuarkXPress stopped adding & refining features., would Apub catch up with them in a decade. Both are moving targets. Heck, it may take a decade to hit the features that the relatively (compared to ID/QXP) static Viva Designer Pro has.

Serif does have the advantage in that there is only upwards to go when it comes to adding features—advancement is far more obvious. QXP alone has added about 20 features in a 3 version cycles. And many more are planned. 

Mike

[A_B_C]

You might also want to have a look at this video:

https://vimeo.com/147846568