Apostrophe S

Today went alright. It wasn’t great, but it was alright. Work was once again limited by the amount of stuff they’ve given me to do, but I did get a photo illustration on the front page. See, I did this little Photoshop trick with my last spread, where I greyscaled the entire image, then used the history brush to bring back the color in certain areas. Harris liked this so much that he asked me to do it with a photo of racing horses. So that was interesting. The only problem with the effect is that I have to convert the photo back to CMYK, so the uncolored sections are actually 4 color blacks, which means a lot of faith is put into the registration skills of the guys at the press. Registration what? Let me explain:

Every time you pick up anything that has been printed lithographically (newspapers, books, magazines, etc.), it’s printed using plates. For black and white pages, there is only one plate, the K, or black, plate. For color, you have to add one plate each for C, M and Y. It’s a combination of tiny dots of each of these colors that produce the wide range of colors you see on printed pages. Now, this effect depends on the ability of the press operator to make sure that all of the plates line up correctly, which can be more challenging than it sounds. If one of the plates is off, you’ll notice, because the anything in color will be blurry, and you’ll see a “shadow” of whichever plate is off register around two sides of all of the photographs on the page. bad registration can make really good page design look like crap. Usually early editions of pages are at the most risk of having registration problems, as the press operators work to correct it as the press run goes on.

It’s done for almost anything that’s printed. Next time you open a cereal or pop tart box, look at the flaps. Sometimes you’ll see lines of color dots or blocks, and something that looks like a bullseye. Those are registration tools; printers use them to make sure everything is lining up correctly. You don’t see them on newspapers or magazines because they are printed on edges that are later cropped off. Anyway, more than you wanted to know. There’s a mini lesson in photo-lithographic printing, and registration. (For those who know: Everything right? Or should I retake that class?

The importance of registration to your every day life? Absolutely nothing. Although, I guarantee if all of the publications you frequently read suddenly stopped caring about it, you would notice.

Now, have you ever noticed how the price of every imaginable commercial transaction in the United States is based on the price of gasoline? We depend on gasoline to ship nearly all of our goods, and when the price of transporting your favorite brand of waffles goes up, so does the price of your favorite waffles. (Probably Eggo, if you’re smart.) It’s a vicious cycle. Just to let you all know, gas is still under $2 for regular here in Jersey. What’s everyone paying where they are these days?

Again, just random stuff today. I’ve got big plans for the weekend, though, so stay tuned!

Until then, take care…

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