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Printer FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions about Printer Specs

Page Contents

What printer do you use?

We use the Xerox iGen 3 (v3.6) for most all our products printing. We use the DocuColor for our Pro bound hardbacks.

Where do I find the ICC color profile for Photoshop, etc?

First we recommend, you read what we have to say about color consistency. We previously offered a printer specific profile, however we have updated our processes and suggest the use of industry standard profiles. For RGB, use the sRGB.icc profile which should be available with your application. For CMYK, we recommend using the standard Japanese CMYK 2001 coated icc. The slight yellow cast helps offset the magenta tendencies of the iGen.

As a note: There will be a small (but not noticeable to the non-critical eye) variations in the color density between printings because things such as toner, developer, belts, fuser oil, age, etc can vary from printing to printing. There are also slight variations from machine to machine. The printer is calibrated daily and the color output is measured periodically throughout the day.

As you know, color on printed paper will look flatter than color on your screen. Some members create a small "test" book using a variety of images and color ranges so they can see for themselves the print color vs. the pc screen color. You may want to try that.

I've heard the term sRGB and don't know what it is. Can you tell me?

Our Understanding Color page should explain all you need to know.

Should I set my Lines Per Inch?

Higher LPI is not always better. We recommend 150 lpi which is basically 300 dpi.

I'm confused between dpi and pixels can you give me a simple way to understand the terms?

They are basically the same measurement (kinda). Here is simple way to think about dpi and pixels — you want your images to be at 300 dpi (dots per inch — that is dots of ink per inch). 300 dpi ensures your image is printed crisp and the pictures are not blurry. If the printer puts 300 dots of color in a 1 square inch area the image will be clear.

Here is an example of how dpi and pixels are basically the same.

Say your image is 8.5x11 and you want it to be at 300 dpi so that it looks nice and clear when it prints. If you multiply 8.5x300 and 11x300 you will get 2550x3300. So your image would be at 2550 x 3300 pixels.

Can I specify on which printer my photo book will print so I can adjust my color?

We print most products on the Xerox iGen 3 (v3.6) and the the pro bound hardbacks are printed on the DocuColor.

What is the resolution on the iGen 3?

600 x 600 dpi Though anything over 300 dpi takes so long to upload for not much more resolution output

What is the resolution on the DocuColor?

600 x 600 dpi Though anything over 300 dpi takes so long to upload for not much more resolution output

How do I design my color for the printer?

When designing for iGen3 outputs turn off all color management settings. (Go to the color settings menu under Edit in most design applications and a simple check box or drop-down menu will turn off color management).

The iGen3 interprets colors based on their source profiles, so it is best to leave the color management of a file up to the printer, since that will provide the best color output.

This is similar to colorspace management with digital images. Do not change from CMYK to RGB or vice-versa. When you convert from one to the other certain colors may be out of the other space's gamut thus permanently losing the information.

What is the difference between Print on Demand (POD) and offset printing?

POD technology for color machines typically print at 600x600dpi x8 bit. The iGen 3 dpi is 600 x 4800. Litho presses typically print at 1200 dpi (most commonly 2550 dpi) or up depending on the RIP and the settings. POD technology is approaching Litho and we see vast improvements each year given the market demand for Print on Demand products.

Will I notice a difference between Print on Demand (POD) and my ink jet printer?

Yes, image quality of ink jet printers will be superior to digital press, the trade off is cost. The ink jets can use up to 8 colors, but digital printers are just 4-color CMYK. So they have a very different gamut. In general, ink jet printer will be more crisp than digital presses since the digital printer is toner based and ink jets are ink based which produces a more continuous image.


Comments

newspaper clippings

by , Fri 30 of Sep, 2011 (14:30 UTC)
I am trying to put together a scrapbook of newspaper clippings for this football season for my husband's high school team. Do I need to do anything specifically different than just scanning and uploading the clippings and designing them?

Re: newspaper clippings

by Viovio Support, Fri 30 of Sep, 2011 (19:12 UTC)
Greetings!

We suggest that al images be at least 300 dpi for the best results. We can accept jpegs or PDF files. Best of luck on your project!

Viovio Support

300 dpi or ppi

by , Wed 26 of Jan, 2011 (22:06 UTC)
You say that "We recommend 150 lpi which is basically 300 dpi." However, in the Acrobat 9 pro help they provide a table of conversions where it states that "300 dpi (laser printer) = 60 lpi = 120 ppi" and "2400 dpi(imagesetter) = 150 lpi = 300 ppi". Thus, do you mean 300 ppi or is adobe's help incorrect? Thank you.




Re: 300 dpi or ppi

by Viovio Support, Thu 27 of Jan, 2011 (17:01 UTC)
greetings from viovio and thanks for your interest.

The size of your images are counted in pixels. In order to get a nice crisp picture, your images should be at 300dpi.

If the resolution is higher than 300dpi your upload is soooo much slower and the printer may choke trying to process the file which will be very large and the print resolution won't be better than 300dpi.

If you have anymore questions please contact support@viovio.com

thanks!

How best to prepare grayscale images

by , Fri 30 of Apr, 2010 (21:35 UTC)
I'm seriously considering you for a photo book, all of whose images will come from black and white negative film scans. I will want to be using more than just the black toner, for a richer duo-tri-quadtone look.

I'm wondering what the best approach is to keeping consistent tonality when preparing the images in Photoshop and page layout software.

Also wondering what the best procedure is for specifying accurate spot colors.

Thanks!

Re: How best to prepare grayscale images

by , Fri 30 of Apr, 2010 (23:08 UTC)
An addendum: I expect to layout my pages in InDesign and deliver pdf's.

Re: How best to prepare grayscale images

by Viovio Support, Mon 03 of May, 2010 (17:09 UTC)
greetings from Viovio and thank you for your interest.

We prefer one complete PDF or separate .jpg files. We recommend your images be at 300 dpi.

For all our trim sizes we recommend you make the cover images as well as the interior page images 1/4" larger than your book size. For example if you plan to create an 8.5x11 book the cover image as well as interior pages would be 8.75x11.25 (at 300 dpi).

Most importantly, keep all important items (people, heads, text,borders) away from the outer 1/2" on all sides.

We trim 1/8" on all sides and just keep in mind an 1/8" is a greater percentage of the book for our mini books than it is for say an 8.5x11 book. In other words 1/8" is a greater percentage of 5" than it is of 8.5". Does that make sense?

Interior is better in CMYK, but for the cover RGB is best. All cover images are normalized to the RGB color space because the full wrap covers have to be assembled from several images. We convert everything to RGB, and flatten to a single rasterized image, then make the single composite image from the separate front, back, and spine text, etc.

So saving out your cover in RGB is best. In fact, saving it out as a high quality RGB jpeg is ideal, since that is what we do in the code to make sure the full wrap covers are printable.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

viovio support

Why use CMYK 2001 coated icc

by , Fri 26 of Feb, 2010 (05:54 UTC)
"For CMYK, we recommend using the standard Japanese CMYK 2001 coated icc. The slight yellow cast helps offset the magenta tendencies of the iGen."

For Mac users .icc is the same as .icm, Mac doesn't use .icc. Just change the last letter.

Why would you use Japan Color 2001 Coated? U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) is the world standard.
I must print a 100% yellow ink or toner from my yellow which is the best Photo Shop will give me.

U.S. Web has a CMYK color value of Cyan 4%, Magenta 3%, Yellow 83% and Black 0%.
Japan Color yellow is Cyan %, Magenta 4% ,Yellow 86% and black at 1%.
That's not the direction I want to go in, that's a very cool yellow. I want a neutral to warm yellow.
I need the U.S. Web profile running in the printer or turn it off and run my profile only.
Or send me your printed page with CMYK codes in percentages of the primary and secondary colors.
I can adjust my images to you that way.

Re: Why use CMYK 2001 coated icc

by Viovio Support, Fri 26 of Feb, 2010 (18:08 UTC)
Greetings, this is a little more technical than I can answer. However, I do think it is work reading our page on color matching where we state "Be advised that digital printing has it's limits, particularly in color and consistency. That is the price not paid for such a great per page cost."

DPI

by Heather, Mon 20 of Apr, 2009 (01:50 UTC)
I'm interested in creating a 10x10 coffee table style book of my wedding pictures and want to use photoshop for the layouts and ftp them as pdfs. My one concern is that my professionally taken photos that we bought digital copies of are only 240 dpi and 11x8 inches. i know that 300 dpi is the standard for printing. What should I do? I've heard the difference between 200 and 300 dpi for printing is quite minimally noticable, if at all. I know that photoshop can upconvert my pictures to 300 dpi and that the best way to do that is to use the bicubic sharper tool in the Image Sizing, but I don't want to end up with pixally pictures. If anyone could give me some advice on this, I would definitely appreciate it.