[vladdamien]

You know, I'm actually surprised this topic hasn't come up yet.

Even though we work mostly with digital media, we can't forget that feeling of holding a book in our hands, fresh off from the printer.

As an independant comic maker, I find it hard to find good and cheap printers out there, especially out of the US (as I live in Québec).

My first book print was a catastrophe in my opinion. The price was decent at first, but it got delayed because of "more important projects" (I only wanted 100 copies). So, I ended up waiting 6 months after they sent me my master copy. They finally sent half of them by Purolator. Then, I waited...
Another month and a few frustrated e-mail later, I finally got the rest... somewhat damaged.

And then? Customs wanted me to send them money... taxes for the "sale of multiple copies of the same item" (which rounded up to around $150 for both boxes)

So, all in all, my first print cost me nearly $900, and quite a few books were damaged, and I waited half a year for them...

Now I'll be printing my second book... and I hope I won't have to wait or pay too much...

-------------------

My tips to you:
-Define a clear due date with the printer.
-Try and keep it local. Not only will you encourage your economy, but you can even pick it up yourself in a timely manner (thus avoiding Customs fees and damage).
-Work BIG. My files were unfortunately lost in a hard drive crash, so the pics looked somewhat pixelized.
-Don't forget: 3 areas to think of when putting a page up for print - the safe text area, the safe picture area, and the bleed. You work will be trimmed, and not every book is timmed exactly the same, so be careful.
-Spines follow the following calculation for width (with standard 65lbs paper) :
Number of pages x .002252 for black and white books.
Number of pages x .002347 for colour books.
-Choose a standard format for print. Either European conventions (A4, A5, etc.) or American ones (Legal, Letter, half-letter. It'll cost less and fit with most other books in a library (nobody likes an odd-shape book that never fits in a library).

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Now enough about me. Do you have any print stories to share? Where do you print your stuff? Any recommendations? What's your process? What do you use to do the layout? Do you have printed material available?

I'm interested in seeing what you guys and gals have to say!

-Patrick

[Dylan]

Making sure your working in CMYK and using the appropriate color profile is quite important as well if working with color.

[RionaWolfheart]

Originally Posted by Dylan

Making sure your working in CMYK and using the appropriate color profile is quite important as well if working with color.

I'm quite new with working in digital, so what's the difference between CMYK and RGB?? Do you always work in CMYK?

[axl99]

General rule of thumb, since I also colour comics professionally, the final print will NEVER look like what you've got on the monitor. Here's a title I'm currently working on - http://www.red5comics.com/?cat=9

In comics, once colourists finishes their pages, it's out of their hands. The editor may choose to tweak the final product, throw it off to the letterer, then drop off a pdf to the printers once that's done. Considering deadlines there isn't much time if any at all to do any proofing, so the quality on the final print can change further. I can calibrate my monitor settings all I want when I'm working on pages, but it's all a moot point if the publisher suddenly switches printing companies and I have to start over again.

Red 5 used to print stuff in China, now they're doing it in Canada with Quebecor, one of the worst places I can think of for any comic to be printed. The cover paper stock is the same as the interiors and it feels like grease in your hands.

If you've got a solid printer at home like an Epson you can adjust your settings all you want on the fly, but if you're working with local printing companies [private or otherwise] then it's usually best if you're personally there to watch the process. Look through the proofs and give direction.

[bw-inc]

Originally Posted by RionaWolfheart

I'm quite new with working in digital, so what's the difference between CMYK and RGB?? Do you always work in CMYK?

RGB color is the color profile for colors you see on screen and CMYK is for print. (Cyan, Magenta Yellow and Black, which are the main ink colors they use for printing)

I've been finding with newer digital printers, RGB is used more often, which I'm assuming is because many people often print images they find off the internet. So they probably changed things around so that printing with RGB is better. I've tested it myself too.. I've printed some illustrations in RGB and they looked great, but incredibly muddy and gross if it was CMYK. But overall, I would still stick with CMYK, unless you're doing it for yourself at home on your own printer or can afford to pay for extra proofs at your local printshop to test out which prints out better.

But for professional printing, stick with CMYK. If you print at the press, you'll have printers bitching at you if you use RGB because it can completely ruin an entire print if just one spec of RGB is in your document. Totally not fun.

[RionaWolfheart]

Originally Posted by bw-inc

RGB color is the color profile for colors you see on screen and CMYK is for print. (Cyan, Magenta Yellow and Black, which are the main ink colors they use for printing)

I've been finding with newer digital printers, RGB is used more often, which I'm assuming is because many people often print images they find off the internet. So they probably changed things around so that printing with RGB is better. I've tested it myself too.. I've printed some illustrations in RGB and they looked great, but incredibly muddy and gross if it was CMYK. But overall, I would still stick with CMYK, unless you're doing it for yourself at home on your own printer or can afford to pay for extra proofs at your local printshop to test out which prints out better.

But for professional printing, stick with CMYK. If you print at the press, you'll have printers bitching at you if you use RGB because it can completely ruin an entire print if just one spec of RGB is in your document. Totally not fun.

Does anything change if you were to work in CMYK in photoshop? or can you convert it to CMYK after using RGB?

Thank you for your reply btw!

[Dylan]

You will lose color if you convert RGB to CMYK, if you select Gamut Warning from the View menu in Photoshop you can see exactly which colors you will lose.

You can still get nice bright crisp colors with CMYK though, it just depends on color choice. All the stuff I have had printed has come out fine, pretty spot on with what shows on my Mac.

[axl99]

Yeah, you'd have to readjust the CMYK version to match what you had with RGB.

[RionaWolfheart]

Thank you!! :3
vladdamien, I hope you find something that works for you soon! I can't believe you had to wait so long for your prints.

[vladdamien]

Thanks Riona!
I asked a buddy who works in the printing industry for some help... I'll have to wait and see...

[bw-inc]

Extremely bright/neon like colors will be lost when converted to CMYK. So if you can.. avoid using them.. they won't show up in print anyway~ Unless you can afford to get stuff printed at a press and use a special spot color. :3

I prefer to paint in RGB cuz the colors are so brilliant. If I need to convert, it's not a big deal if I lose any colors~ It's still pretty close to the original~ And I can easily adjust colors if they don't look as right in CMYK. Not to mention it will look slightly different on paper than it does on screen. (obviously 8D )

But I work strictly in CMYK for my design work so I don't mess up anything at the printers. 8D;

[memod]

I print and sell my work through deviantArt, and I must say, I'm reaaally content with their print quality. They get a lot of the revenue, but the quality is fine
Since they do all their print preparation themselves, you have to submit RGB files anyhow. I colour calibrated my CRT monitor, and the prints look pretty much like what I see here, so it's all good with me.
Haven't tried local printers yet, as their prices are so steep, that even with shipping from america I'm still cheaper with dA. And I know what I get...

I couldn't order things like a canvas print or so, though, shipping that would just be beyond reasonable

[ish]

At this point printing would just be for personal use.
But I have heard really good things about deviantarts printing business.

[memod]

Yeah, I use it a lot to just get good prints for myself, which I can carry around with me in a folio and show to people, if they don't get bored and run away after they hear that I do digital painting.

Can't say that I make a lot of money from the prints. It's hard to charge a sensible price online, especially if you get only half the profit. So I suppose unless you're one of the really big names on dA who also get featured over and over, it's hard to make a considerable amount.
But especially to those who are in the states and thus pay pretty much no shipping, it's definitely a good choice for getting your own stuff printed!

[ish]

Oh yeah haha
when I pump out some work worth showing I'll probably do that.

I can't imagine the profit is too good from prints but at least it's something.. and for literally no work on your part.. that's pretty kewr