Frequently Asked Questions

What are the benefits of Digital Printing?

  • Virtually eliminates the expense and time of lithographic printing preparation.
  • Eliminates colour registration of plates.
  • Makes Just In Time (JIT) delivery and Quick Response possible.
  • Greatly reduces the need for inventory.
  • Reduces risk.
  • Can virtually eliminate the threat of design theft before market release.
  • Facilitates the increase in the number of fashion seasons.
  • Prints directly from easily stored, transmitted, and transported computer files.
  • Reduces the space necessary for archiving art, films, plates, and screens.
  • Is more cost effective for proof and short-run printing than analog printing methods.
  • Reduces proofing time from weeks to hours, thus accelerating design and product development.
  • Permits customization and personalization. Changing each print on the fly does not increase costs substantially.
  • Allows for design correction and modification at any time without significant schedule delays or cost increases.
  • Reduces the over-run waste which analog volume-print pricing promotes.
  • Eliminates the design and process distortions associated with on-contact analog printing.
  • Is cleaner, safer, and generally less wasteful, and less environmentally hazardous than analog printing methods.

What is your Turn-around time?

This depends on what kind of digital printing we will be doing. Speak to our staff, who are well trained and should be able to quickly give you an estimate on the turn around time.

How does Asset Print accept digital files?

The best way for us to use your files is from a CD Rom or DVD.

Can I email the digital files?

Yes, you can email small files (less than 5Mb) to your sales representative.

What do the following Large Format & Digital printing terms mean?

Achromatic: A design without colour or hue. Therefore it is in neutral grays, white, or black.

Analogous: Similar or alike in elements or design.

B/ W: Black and white.

Brightness: The relative lightness or darkness of a colour. It is measured in percentages of black as 0%, and white as 100%.

Channel: Image components that contain the pixel information for any given colour. Grayscale = 1; RGB=3; and CMYK=4.A frequency of band that represents colour value, such as CMYK, or RGB.

Colour Mapping: The terminology that permits the “best match” in appearance to the “source image”.

Colour Balance: A state of equilibrium between colours in a design.

Colour Book: A hard copy of your colours calibrated for a specific printer and useful in colour matching.

Colour Characteristics: Features of defining a specific hue.

Colour Emphasis: Singling out a specific hue or range of hues.

Colour Scheme: The gamut or range of colours that can be seen in the chosen colour picker.

Colour Wheel: The colour picker that is used on the Macintosh to display the entire range of colour space available.

Complementary: The colour directly opposite another on the colour wheel and providing the greatest chromatic contrast to it.

Cool Colours: Greens, Blues, and Violets.

Duotone: Any design or print created by using two shades of the same hue.

Earth Tones: Hues that are representative of earthly colours, such as brown and reds.

Gamut: The range of hues that a device can output. Refers to image devices such as scanners, monitors, and printers that can only display a “subset” of all visible colours. Colours that can see on the monitor can be closely matched to the colours that will be printed out if the devices can “see” the same gamut.

Gradient: Colour in shades from one starting point to another gradually blending in between. A grade change in a hue.

Halftone: A design created by the gradations of that same hue. Lightness of a colour depending on its hue or saturation.

Hue: Colour reflected from or transmitted through an object. It is a measured location on a standard colour wheel and it is expressed in degrees of 0 to 360. A particular gradations of a colour; a shade or tint.

Intensity: Degree of colour saturation. The strength of a colour.

Jewel Tones: Hues that are representative of bright jewel colours, such as gold’s, and blues.

Monochromatic: A design appearing to have only one colour and gradations of that colour.

Monotone: Having a single colour.

Neutral: A colour that lacks hue.

Opacity: The density of a colour or shade. Ranging from transparent to opaque. The reduction of light through a colour.

Pastels: Soft, delicate hues.

Primary Colours: RGB. The true colours developed from a solar beam that can be mixed in many percentages to get secondary and tertiary colours.

Resolution: The DPI or dots per inch of a design. Measured by how many dots or pixels are in one inch of a design. The measurement of the fineness or detail. The higher the resolution the finer the detail.

Saturation: Vividness of a hue. Another name is Chroma, Which is strength or purity of a colour. Saturation represents the amount of grey in proportion to a hue. It is measured in percentages of 0% grey to 100% (fully saturated).

Shade: The degree of a colour a colour is mixed with black.

Spectrum: A range of values of hues in a set.

Tint: A shade or gradation of a colour.

Value: The relative darkness or lightness of a colour.

Warm colours: Reds, yellow, and orange.

Scanning Terms

Contrast: The comparing of light and dark on an image, such as low = gray (light).

Dithering: Creating dots to “fool the eye” into seeing shades of gray.

DPI: The measurement of an image resolution in dots per inch, such as 300 DPI, or 150 DPI.

Grayscale: The range of grays form white to black.

Halftone: Used in the making of black and white images to appear to have shades of gray.

Image: Usually a photograph that is “translated into a bitmapped” image by scanning.

Original: Art, photograph, transparency, or other item to be scanned.

Image Type: This could refer to the options of B/W. or gray, or colour.

Pixel: A single dot on a monitor or on digital image.

Previous Size: Used to control the size of an image to reduce size and/or scanning time.

Resolution: Measuring the fineness or detail of an image. The higher the resolution, the finer the details.

Printing Methods

Digital Printing: Although this is a broad title, it typically refers to micro-sized droplets of inks or dyes that are placed directly onto the surface of the substrate via an ink jet print head. The substrate used and the amount of the droplets applied are directly determined but the date contained in the original image file and therefore translate into colour quality of the print.