Express Offset Printing is the process of offering substantially discounted prices for high quality, full color, offset printing thru combining small format print orders together into one large format print run. Thus, spreading the setup costs across one print run.

By combining orders, the printing cost is reduced tremendously. This process however is not without limitation. Combo printing works within a “pleasing color” spectrum. Because particular attention to each individual print job cannot be maintained without affecting the colors of the surrounding print jobs. This means color output may vary from run to run (See our Terms and Conditions - Color Accuracy).

Because of the inherent limitations with the process of combo printing, and the differences in equipment, ink, paper, and neighboring image ink requirements, the accuracy of color reproduction cannot be guaranteed. Color variations are slight, but color is subjective, so we are unable to guarantee matching colors. The “pleasing color” standard is an accepted practice with all printers who utilize the Express Offset Printing process.

Color CAN be achieved through our digital Epson Color Proofing approval process. Please contact us for details.

Large, solid black areas and text over 36 point should use Rich Black to prevent the color from looking gray. Rich Black consists of 40% Cyan, 40% Magenta, 30% Yellow, 100% Black. For smaller text, we recommend using 100% Black only.

4 Color Blacks (Rich Blacks): If you have small, thin text below 36 point in your design, it is STRONGLY recommended that you do not use 4-color black. Although, using a 4-color black is recommended on larger areas, using 4-color or rich black on small areas will make your text blurry and at times, unreadable.

Why Does this Happen?: Process printing uses 4 primary color inks that overlay each other to provide the full color spectrum on the paper. Although precise, the registration of the 4 color inks will shift during the printing process, If you use all 4 colors to create your black, they will not line-up precisely, creating a blurring effect. (See Illustration on the right)
This is especially evident on small text, or small lines, 12pt. and smaller. In order to fix this, we require that all small text be created 100% Black Only, which is 0% Cyan (C), 0% Magenta (M), 0% Yellow (Y), 100% Black (K). This way, as the primary colors shift, it will not affect the black color.

Always convert fonts to outlines/paths when possible. By converting fonts to outlines or simply exporting as a Press Ready PDF document, you will avoid having to send the fonts with your file. When converting to outlines, the text becomes a vector shape and will look no different than its original state.
In Photoshop, text can be rasterized and therefore does not need the fonts. Keep in mind that after rasterizing or outlining text, no changes can be made to the text so ALWAYS DO A SAVE AS. and keep a copy of the original files.

If your fonts are not converted to outlines or rasterized, your design may not be printed / viewed the way it was meant to be.

Bleed & Trim
1/16" on all sides will be trimmed off, this is called the bleed. Make sure you do not have any important content in this area. Please adjust your text and graphics to be 1/8" inside of your document size on all four sides. We suggest you use our design templates. Download Here

Trim Line
The trim line is the actual size of your document. When your document is finished, the trim line will be the edge of your piece.

Layout Area
Your layout area starts 1/8" inside the trim line. The layout area is the space where it is “safe” to put your design, content and type.

Resolution
Smart Levels Media uses state-of-the-art technology to produce each printing order. We require all submitted files to be 300 dpi (Dots Per Inch). If you design a job under 300 dpi, when printed it will turn fuzzy and at times unreadable. See the example to the right, where the first image was created at 72 dpi and then interpolated to 300 dpi. The second image was created at 300 dpi.

Many customers will use a picture from a web page and enlarge it to fit their print design. All images taken from web pages are 72 dpi, and if enlarged will look like the first example image to the right.

Design programs will “interpolate” a low res image to make it high resolution. Interpolation is adding pixels that do not exist and “guess” their color by sampling the color of the surrounding pixels. On large areas of similar color, this can be acceptable, but in areas where the colors are different for each pixel, the program makes a wild guess - and the result is not likely to be particularly good - the image will just look fuzzy and blurry.

Size
Your print files should be designed in the size that is being ordered. Please refer to our Design Templates for exact sizes and formats.

Borders
If your job requires a border, please note that in order to have your border almost exact, we recommend AT LEAST a minimum of .25" on all sides. Our cutters are specialists in their field, however due to unstable substrates and paper shift, we can not guarantee it would be exactly balanced/equal on all sides.