Preserved Topic: need help with trapping (Page 1 of 1)

I'm working on my first professional print job and I was told I need to trap my artwork. Can anyone direct me to some info on how to do that. Thanks

Prop up a box using a stick with a string tied to it. Put a carrot under the box. Find some cover and wait. When your artwork comes snuffling around the carrot, pull the string and BAMMO! Trapped artwork!

To put that another way... no idea, sorry.



There are a lot of strange people in the world. I should know; I'm three of them...

What program(s) will you be using?

It sounds like he might not know what it is, Lotiss. Could you tell us, because now I'm curious, too.

What kind of artwork are we talking about? You almost never have to trap continuous tone illustrations and photos. Flat colors with hard transitions and especially type are where you run into problems.

Trapping is a kludge to account for the fact that minor slippage and misregistration can occur on press. There are typically four colors being laid down - C, M, Y and K. An illustration generally has some information on each of the three color plates in all areas, so minor misregistration is concealed. The problem comes when you have elements that are only one color, type being an obvious example. If the registration isn't perfect, some background or some of one of the other plates might show through around the edges - ugly. Trapping tries to account for the possibility of this slippage. Photoshop can trap, but generally I think it's done in a page layout software since most of the time the type is added there. Help?

Steve, I know that Quark XPress and PageMaker have sketchy trapping functions, which apply to the entire document, type and images alike. Illustrator has trapping functions, since it also often generates files where registration problems might cause a fuss, but those traps apply only to its own files. Adobe also makes a professional-grade trapping program called TrapWise, about which I know nothing at all.

All of that is beside the point, because contrary to what your printer said, you shouldn't have to trap your own work. If your printer can't or won't do it, switch printers. The industry standard is for the printer or service bureau to take care of all trapping issues. This is the best way to do it: after all, you as the designer don't know the specifics of the printer's machinery and printing process, right? How can you trap your graphics optimally?

I used to know the basics of manual trapping, but it's been forever since I've given it a passing thought. I've got a book on it, but it's at my parents' house... next time I visit them, I'll refresh my memory, and then share it with the Asylum.

Perfect Thunder is right. The printer my company uses takes out photoshop file and then works their magic on it. It is a small setup fee (around $100-150), but we just create and let them worry about the tech side of printing.

Cheers!

www.homestead.com/reitveld

Well there you go, levelnine. These guys speak from inside the trenches!

Now you know what trapping is, and now you know to leave it to the printer/service bureau.

levelnine, if you find you really need to do your own trapping, either to save money or time, let us know what software your art was done in, and how it is being printed, we'll still help.

Like Steve says, if its a photoshop file, and your printing offset cmyk, don't worry about it, you may just need to tweek your ucr and black generation settings in your color setup (the printer should tell you the exact settings they need if not standard settings).

If your doing screen printing or spot colors from photoshop, well thats a little more involved. Email me that case.

Me Again?

Yah, I used to do this a lot, using QuarkXpres to prepare files for screen printing on card stock (or whatever). We always insisted upon doing to trapping ourselves, so we could get to the right tolerances we knew we could do. Anytime a client did this first, we re-did it, no sense taking chances! Give us some more info, who asked for this to be done, and did they specify material, type of printing, size of bleed, etc...

Your pal, -doc-

Interesting (maybe this issue belongs in the print graphics forum...? I apologize if anyone has a problem with me posting this here

A little of topic perhaps...
Im in the middle of solving a problem with my bureau. It seems that we have a trap problem with all kind of files. I make eps-files of my quarkpages and then pdf:s in distiller with the printhouse´s joboption file. It runs through the whole system perfectly but with photos that are placed under a coloured background the background shines through, and also in some illustrations made in Illustrator. We always discover these problems but they seem to be appearing randomly and they are really giving me a headache since neither one of us can find the reason. We have tried a number of different settings but we cant get a pattern.

Anyway, we solve this problem with an app. called TrapIt, great program, dont know if its a part/xtension of the ripsystem Rampage though.... Do we have any trappingpros here???

Sincerely yours
Tommy