There are some printers and printing specialists such as cheap-printing-spain.com who cater for international clients. By using English-speaking printers in Spain it is more likely to get the most cost-effective materials and print processes as nothing is lost in translation.
Nowadays, it is more important than ever to demand value for money in your printing. Printing in Spain is no exception. On the contrary, the opportunity to obtain bargain-priced printed artwork is greater with targeted and healthily populated expatriate regions. With printing companies who cater for specific populations, it is easy to fill printing plates with many customers requiring similar printing runs to reduce the initial setup costs. It is normal that these savings are then passed on to the client. For example, a local printing company in Costa Blanca on the run up to St. Patrick’s Day would have several printing plates all filled with A5 flyers advertising several different bars and restaurants. So for the cost of one printing plate, the printer will produce several jobs. This then can force the price of printing down to accommodate the requirement.
It is natural to think that poor printed output is down to the printer. Sometimes this is the case with issues such as colour registration or of course, lack of quality control, but mostly it is due to the resolution and colour levels of the original artwork. It is important to check your final print file before sending to the printing company. Here is a list of some of the most common techniques to bear in mind which if ignored or done incorrectly, result in a less than average printed output.
If your final output size is to be A5, for example, and you wished that some of the image to be printed right up to the paper (i.e not a white border) then the file you need to give to the printer should include crop marks showing the A5 image. It’s essential to run the image beyond the crop marks so that a portion of the image is sliced of after the image has been printed. Various printers ask for different amounts but the industry standard is to supply a 3mm bleed.
Resolution is without doubt the number one offender when sending artwork in Spain. Many printers due to problems in communication or lower-rate, lower profit margins, will just assume you’ve checked the file and will simply print what is sent irrespective of bleeds, resolution or colour balance etc. So it’s normally up to you check this to be correct. Printed resolution is something that can be very confusing, even to the most qualified and experienced industry professionals. Basically your great screen image doesn’t necessarily mean it will look good on paper. Screen resolution on your monitor is 72 dots per inch and printed media at press quality is printed at 300 dpi. Printed colours are usually made up from four dots – cyan, magenta, yellow and black, whereas your monitor will display any single colour with only one screen pixel. If this is still all a bit hard to grasp, don’t worry, you’re not on your own but a good rule of thumb is to think that any screen image will print the same quality but a quarter of the size printed. So, if you have a nice big full screen image, it will be output on paper to that same quality on paper but only a quarter of the size and maintain that quality. So an image 1200×800 pixels, fills your screen and looks fine, to fill an a4 printed space (roughly the same size as your monitor) then your picture should ideally be some 4 megapixels.
You should also always check your colour levels before printing. Another thing to check in your design files is the balance of levels. Remember screens are naturally very bright. Photo editing software such as Photoshop has features like auto levels which will automatically optimize the colours, or you can choose to manually adjust them using a slider. Many free programs or online versions can also do this now. Here’s a quick popular example… if you had a picture of someone with the sky in the background, you’ll sometimes notice that the face comes out a bit on the dark side because the camera didn’t want to overexpose the sky when taking the photograph. But for your artwork, nine times out of ten it’s the subject is more important than the sky. Don’t forget that are underexposed image will show up to be worse on printed media. Therefore, It’s good practice to lift the levels of the photo to display the subject and overexpose the sky which will of course go white (i.e no ink on the paper). This is far less subtle on paper than an overexposed image on screen where the power of the backlight on the monitor will blind you somewhat.
Another thing to bear in mind, when images are repeatedly saved and saved again, each time with a level of compression (such as a jpg) then compression tell-tale signs start to apper. Often on screen at 72 dpi this is naked to the eye on screen, these can reduce the sharpness and colour density of the printed image. If possible, find the original highest resolution photo for use in your design. There are also various plugins for popular editing software that automatically removes digital artefacts and noise etc. Remember though – it is ALWAYS best to get the perfect image to start with.
Technology has moved a long way recently and it is now possible to print superb quality documents at very high resolutions in large, medium or very small quantities. Because of the fall in set up costs with the advent of quicker, better, printing equipment it is now feasible to receive low-cost printing at high qualities. Cheap-printing-spain.com is one example of such a printer in Spain. They optimize the whole printing process through the use of latest technology and digital and offset printing to suit a client’s particular needs. The result is great value for marketing and advertising through printing. Now, more than ever, marketing budgets are incredibly tight and the need for value for money is essential. Many are focusing more and more on internet marketing, so every cent spent on Book printing Costa Blanca now really needs to count.
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