Overprinting onto a spot color

[CamarotaDesign]

Are there ever issues with overprinting black shades onto a pantone spot color?

Specifically, I had a square of pantone red 32C, witha 30% black square overprinted to give it a shaded effect (it was part of a 3D box) As far as I know, there shouldn't be any problem overprinting black onto a spot color... correct?

I am so sick of this damn printer, this is the 3rd thing they've messed up in 3 weeks.... nevermind the fact that they've been returning all our jobs late. this is not our regular CMYK staccato printer, who kicks ass... this is the typical "we dont really care about what we print print shop, and we hire people who dont really know what they are doing."

Damn idiot printers... I can't believe the incomptetence some of these places are at these days. I was talking to a "pre-press tech" the other day who didn't even know what dot gain was.... WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[budafist]

In theory there should be no problem. Maybe supply a hard copy for them to check against? Or you could always demand a press-pass?

[doubting_thomas]

You'll want to make sure of how the colors are layed down on press. What I
mean by that is that the black will need go down last (or it would here). I've seen jobs like that run black first and it's ugly. If the piece is printed on a 2 color press with a common blanket (ink is applied from plate to the blanket, then from the blanket to the sheet of paper), there will be integration of the two colors. So if they don't give a toss and run the job in one pass you'll have color inconsistantcy by the end of the run. It may be worth it to find this stuff out.

[jimking]

Well the prepress person that didn't know what dot gain was could have been a struggling graphic designer by trade not a printer. If this printer is so bad which sounds like it is then why bother with them? But, let me guess why you do, Cheap prices maybe? Can you discribe the problems with the job? doubting_thomas--ditto.

[CamarotaDesign]

Thomas, I am familiar with the blanket cynlinder (reason for being called offset printing) I'm also fairly well versed with setting up for press. (our usual staccato printer says they are always very happy with my files, never a problem, and I know what I'm doing with chokes and overprints) I forgot to tell you the specific problem for this job: They knocked out the red behind the black shade, so it didnt overprint a shaded red... thats just incompetence.

I also just looked with my loupe and noticed that they printed it CMYK, so obviously thats the problem. The overprint probably got tossed out in the conversion. I had specified a 3 SPOT PANTONE JOB(and paid for on the work order)

This was a simple run of the mill job, I didn't think it would need a press check and all that stuff. We do high volume here and dont have the time for driving a half hour to the printer 3 times a week for press checks. I send them correctly prepared files, and they should print them correctly, end of story. Obviously it's time to look for a new web press printer.

Sorry, I'm just ranting right now. It pisses me off so much to send the printer a correctly prepared file, and have them blow it.

[CamarotaDesign]

Well the prepress person that didn't know what dot gain was could have been a struggling graphic designer by trade not a printer. If this printer is so bad which sounds like it is then why bother with them? But, let me guess why you do, Cheap prices maybe? Can you discribe the problems with the job? doubting_thomas--ditto.

Jim, good questions. Sorry I forgot to specify the exact problem in my first post (I'm in a bit of a rant) The problem was they knocked out the pantone 32 red, instead of overprinting 30% black onto it.

First -The pre-press tech was someone that got hired to be a pre-press tech at a print shop, he was not a designer, has no formal training in any either of the fields, had some experience at kinkos, thats about it. They had a 2 plate press and did mostly county government forms.

second - yes this printer is very bad. Why we use them? I dunno, We've been using them since before I came around (I am an in-houser). They mostly handle our single color web press jobs. (when we do a run of 50,000 letters or something) I heard they just fired a lot of people for incompetence, so I'm guessing this job was a casualty of that. And yes, they are cheap, 2 cents a page.

[CamarotaDesign]

Hey by the way guys, I appreciate your help. Sorry if the negativity is rubbing off on you, its been a rough week, and this printer has been a big part of that.

[jimking]

What's sad and what I see often these days are managers or owners of printshops who do not have a clue about what's going on anymore in prepress, nothing at all! The lack of training in this field is rampant let alone the lack of tools to do the job correctly. My gut feeling is 1/3 of offset printers in the US are slowly dieing. It's not the fault of these fired people of their lack of knowledge of printing they were hired for, it is the fault of management, hiring people at a low wage and hanging them out to dry. How humiliating it must be to be thrown into the fire and then be tossed out. It doesn't bode well for the printing trade which should be a noble one. And it sends the wrong message to young people looking for a carreer.

[CamarotaDesign]

I couldnt agree more with you Jim.

I see it so clearly too, because we go through two printers, 1 competant. 1 grossly incompetant.

The first one is that staccato printer I'm always raving about, where the shop manager is a 30 year print veteren, his son who has been working with his dad and learned the trade when he was a kid is the pre-press manager, they have two other skilled pre-press techs. Then, to top that off, their press tech's are all very experienced. Fast turn around when we need it too.

Then, shop two.... constant problems. problems with orders, late turnaround, horrible print quality... a lot of the times thier uncoated jobs look worse than a home inkjet for the photos, I kid you not. So many problems. ugh. I need a beer.

[budafist]

If the black is being knocked out underneath it could possibly be their rip rather than the file set-up.

I've had files where no matter what, something would knock out or not knock out when it should/shouldn't. Normally it's when you've got black - which always wants to overprint as well as a metallic which also wants to be overprinted. I normally trick the computer by changing my colours to 2 other colours like cyan and magenta. Then it won't override my own settings.

Will pay to check with your printer of course. I can mix the colours up and just tell the guys to print black for the cyan plate and silver for the magenta plate because they are down the hall from me, but if you're not hands on there, it may get super confusing!

[stickleback]

in my experience printers assume far too much.

don't let them - set up the document as you want it then go through it with them step by step, then get proofs of everything before you print
time consuming? sure - but not as time consuming as doing everything 2 or 3 times