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8-87 Desktop Color Primer
Color Reference Guide for C9800 - 87
Printing techniques
Until recently, most color printing was done on printing presses using one of several
printing techniques—offset lithography, flexography, or gravure, to name a few. All
traditional printing techniques require lengthy preparation before a press run can take
place. Short-run color printing, including Fiery printing, eliminates most of this
preparation. By streamlining the process of color printing, the Fiery makes short print
runs economically feasible.
In contemporary offset lithographic printing, digital files from desktop computers are
output to an imagesetter, which creates film separations. The film is used to make a
prepress proof, which is an accurate predictor of the final print job and allows you to
make corrections before going to press. Once the proof is approved, the printer makes
plates from the film and runs the print job on the press.
With the Fiery, you simply print the file. The Fiery processes the PostScript
information in the file and sends four bitmaps (one each for cyan, magenta, yellow,
and black) to the printer. The ease of Fiery printing makes possible experimentation
that would be too costly on a press, allowing unlimited fine-tuning of color and design
elements.
Halftone and continuous tone devices
Halftoning is used in offset printing to print each process color at a different intensity,
allowing millions of different colors to be reproduced using only the four process
colors. Depending on the required intensity of a given color, toner is placed on paper
in dots of different size. The grid of dots used for each toner color is called a screen.
Halftone screens are aligned to unique angles designed to eliminate interference
patterns called moiré that can arise with halftoning.
Some color printers are commonly referred to as continuous tone (contone) devices.
They do not use traditional halftone screen patterns and angles. Contone devices are
capable of varying the intensity of individual dots.
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