LETTERPRESS FILE GUIDE A quick guide to adjusting files to letterpress specifications.
Compiled by Danielle Feliciano in 2013 1
P H O T O P O LY M E R ? 1. Photopolymer is a plastic plate used in letterpress printing. It is environmentally friendly and non toxic! 2. With letterpress each color must be printed separately, so each color needs its own plate. 3. Once plates are made they are applied to a base (metal, wood, or acrylic) and locked up in the press chase (at left). 4. Then they are locked into the press, lined up with the paper, and printed.
*Lining up plates for the second color
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How to: Photoshop & Illustrator Not all artwork is suitable for letterpress, however a wide variety of effects are possible such as: • • • • • • • • •
Full bleed (over edge) printing Gradients Multi-color printing Metallic Ink Printing Highly detailed Images with small 8pt type Crisp, precise, accurate prints Printing on coasters, napkins, and thick card stock Duplexing (fusing two pages together for double sided printing) Blind Impression (blank impression)
Overprinting (overlapping)
Gradient Printing (Ombre 2 colors)
Full Bleed (Over edge Printing)
Blind Impression (blank printing)
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USING I L L U S T R AT O R 1. Scan your inked artwork at 300 DPI in gray scale mode. Adjust the levels here to try and eliminate as much grey as possible. From here you have two choices - to adjust the artwork in Photoshop or Illustrator. Vectors are always preferred. REMEMBER: If you have full bleed artwork (art that runs over the edge) you must include an 1/8” bleed on each side (1/4” bleed) 2. Open illustrator and make your art board the size of your plate. 3. Place your file (command + D) and arrange the image where you want it 4. Live Trace and Expand the image, ad (Image Trace in newer versions) adjusting the settings until you are satisfied. There are lots of settings, but stick with Black and White. Set the view mode to Preview (at the bottom- the check box) and play with the sliders until you’re happy.
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* Click Ignore white, just trust me.
5. Once your artwork is expanded you should be able to select it like this. All of your line work and the white spaces that surround it have been turned into individual objects. 6. Add any text you like Remember you should only be using black (000000) or white (ffffff) only 7. Convert the text to outlines under Type > Create Outlines. You can not longer edit your text at this stage. 8. It is also wise to convert all strokes (if you have any) to outlines. Highlight all of the artwork and go to Object > Path > Outline Stroke
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9. Clean up any last parts of your artwork. Delete any extraneous stuff and double check that you only have black and white shapes.
10. Now it’s time to add crop marks. Group all of your artwork. Make sure there aren’t any extra bits hanging off and that when you select the artwork it is the final size you want it to be.
11. Once you’ve properly sized and grouped everything, you can go to Effect > Crop Marks to add crop marks. Make sure they are in the right place! You can drag a guide over to make sure they line up properly
12. Finally, save the file. An . EPS is preferred, but an .AI file or a PDF with editing capabilities would be fine as well.
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Above is the original artwork and below is the final negative. I added a border and text to my image in illustrator. You can save your negative as a .Tiff or .EPS which is preferred.
TIP: If you don’t have any hand drawn artwork and it’s all vectors you can skip ahead and just outline all the strokes/type before changing the color and adding crop marks.
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USING PHOTOSHOP 1. Open a document in Photoshop the size of your final plate. 2. Open your scanned image and drag it onto your blank canvas. Make size and placement adjustments. 3. Using a levels layer, adjust the image until it is a close as you can comfortably get to pure black and white. 4. Using the brush/eraser tool clean up any mistakes or dust marks. Don’t forget the bleed if you have an image that runs over the edge! 5. Once you are happy with the image go to Image>Mode>Bitmap Turning your image to a Bitmap will make it pure black and white. There are a couple of different options you can use to achieve different effects. The first and best to use 50% threshold. If you want crisp sharp lines then this is the setting you want. You may need to play around with the pixels per inch.
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Another option is the Diffusion Dither. This will help with things made with ink brushwork or images that have some grungy effects to them.
The final option is the halftone screen. The absolute maximum I can print is 100 Lines Per Inch, though I suggest something closer to 60-70 LPI. Halftones are unpredictable to print so avoid them if you can.
100 LPI
80 LPI
6. Once you’re done, save the file as a high resolution .Tiff (300-600 DPI). It is strongly suggested that you add any text in Illustrator and outline it (see previous chapter). Text in Photoshop is not always as sharp and perfect as with Illustrator. Vectored artwork is always recommended. If you can, import this final file into Illustrator and follow the instructions to live trace it. If you cannot get the effect you want, then stick with the Photoshop image.
