Log on to your account in platemaking. It will take you to your Orders page where the current status will be visible.
Status Explanations:
- Pending – Your order has been started but all the steps have not been completed. This requires further action on your part.
- Received – Waiting for us to review your files.
- On hold and awaiting action on your part.
- On Hold No Files Received – Please try uploading again or call for assistance.
- On Hold Bad Files – Your files need attention. You will receive an email indicating your order is on hold with the problem and asking you to correct and upload new files. File errors may include your files measure too large to plate, not in correct color mode, lines or dots too thin, files are in grayscale, etc.
- On Hold – Credit Card declined or expiration is passed. There is a problem with your payment, please contact us.
- In Platemaking – We are in production making your films to make plates. Your ticket is locked as we are moving ahead.
- Billing complete – Your platemaking job is billed and awaiting shipping.
- Shipping Complete – We have shipped and still need to Invoice your order.
- Order Complete – We closed out your order as we have created a shipping label and your package is out the door. The day your order was completed was the day it shipped.
Your scanner will likely save your image as a grayscale.jpg. Many scanners will only allow you to scan up to 300 dpi. If you can scan higher, choose 600 dpi. You have some options now.
If looking for the crispest and cleanest impression, you will need to convert the file to black and white only (no grey pixels). You have two methods depending on what computer software you have available. If you only have Photoshop, you will need to convert your file to one that is in image mode of bitmap. If your image dpi is currently 300 dpi, you can choose Image > Image Size and change your dpi to 600 or higher without changing the inches. Your file will temporarily be quite large but you will then save as a .TIF with LZW compression and this will resize it to something smaller and more manageable. A higher DPI can help with preserving your details and smoother pixelation while bitmapping. For exact steps to Image Mode of Bitmap, see our File Prep Tips.
If you have both Photoshop and Illustrator, you can convert your image to image mode of bitmap as directed above, then place your TIF into Adobe Illustrator, and convert the file to a vector art file via the Live Trace option. This does not always work with all files to give satisfactory results, so with practice, you will learn to recognize which files will give you a vector result you like. After converting to vector, save the file as a PDF or EPS for upload.
Grayscale is a range of shades of black on a spectrum from 1 to 100. Light gray is in the lower spectrum and darker grays are in the higher spectrum. While 100% black images and text will produce crisp line art and is the norm for letterpress, sometimes you may want to print something where you want to see all the details and subtleties of the shading.
If you are trying to print a photographic image, it’s best to choose one that has areas that provide high contrast between light and dark, that is, the photo has details that are both darker gray in the upper ranges (70 to 100% of black) and lighter gray in the lower ranges (5% to 35% of black). This contrast will give the most depth and interest to the photo. If your photo has mostly shades of black in a similar range (30 – 60% of black), it will look muddy to the eye because it’s harder to discern the shading without a lack of contrast. Experimenting with the image in Photoshop by changing levels of black or adding brightness and contrast can help some with this.
If you are printing a scanned image, where you want to keep the tonal imagery, you can send the file as grayscale and we’ll apply a line screen to it. Your image will be a large shape with the tones created as little dots on the surface of the plate. The films are very sensitive and will capture shades of black down to 5%. So if your background has some color, it may be picked up by the film and show on your plate.
Halftones and grayscale images can be challenging to print with relief plates on the commonly used uncoated papers of letterpress. Call us to discuss your particular image and the results you want to achieve.
We need your files and proofs to appear the way you want your final design to print – commonly called right-reading (no backward text or images). When we create your film negatives, our software does the reversing to create proper negatives, so leave that part up to us.
While using Adobe Illustrator, you will first need to create a rectangle by using the marquee tool (M) in your standard tool palette located on the left-hand side of your screen. Create the rectangle so that its dimensions are your piece’s final trim down size (e.g such as 5.5″ x 7″ for an invitation, etc). Next, while the rectangle is still selected, drag it to its proper location with respects to the artwork. This location should be the correct position intended for the crop marks. Please note that we do not add crop marks to any file at Boxcar Press, as we do not know where or what your intended trim down size is.
While the rectangle is still selected, please select EFFECT>Crop Marks to create the correct type of crop marks in Illustrator. If you need to shorten the length of the crop mark lines or thicken the line weight, you will need to expand the crop marks by selecting OBJECT>Expand or OBJECT>EXPAND APPEARANCES.
Before sending your Illustrator files to us, embed all linked images (an option in the Links palette). If linked images aren’t embedded, they can give an error message that your links are missing and we can’t output your plates! With InDesign, export your file as a press ready PDF.
Sending all your fonts packaged is not fail-safe: all needed fonts aren’t always provided, or all your fonts may not be recognized when we open your file, causing shifting and changes in your design. On the other hand, outlining fonts is fool-proof, safe, and ideal. So outline your fonts! In Illustrator, you do this by selecting TYPE>Create Outlines. This will automatically convert your text into vector shapes. Your type will temporarily look bolder and be highlighted in blue. Click on any white area of your file and it will look normal again.
When opening any new document in Illustrator, choose File > Document Color mode > CMYK. To Check this before submitting your file for upload – in illustrator versions CS4 and CS5, you can open your Output-Separations Preview window. Click on the drop down window showing Off and select Separations. Click off the black eye and everything left showing on your file is not in 100%K. If you select a part of your file that is left, and look at your color palette, anything that shows a percentage of C,M, or Y needs to be corrected. To correct this – go to Select > Same > Fill (or Stroke). It should highlight everything that looks like black (but isn’t). Than go to the color palette and using the eyedropper, click on the black part of the bar (far right). The C, M, and Y will go to 0% and the K should go to 100%. Now this part of the file should disappear because it is correctly set to 100%K.
Our favorite image mode is a .tiff. Or send us vector art images (made in Illustrator or Freehand) instead of raster images (made in Photoshop). Jpeg files will create low-quality letterpress plates that will make you unhappy; its file format is best intended for the web. Files that end in .bmp can also give unwanted results by saving as the wrong size and are also lower quality.
Most of the time, if your file contains an image, you’ll want that image to be in bitmap mode for a nice clean bite into your paper. Otherwise your image will produce a halftone, which means your image will be made up of tiny dots on the surface of your plate.
If you zoom in on your image and it is made up of tiny grey and black pixels, it’s in grayscale. We want your images all in black pixels.
You can correct this by:
- Opening your image in Photoshop and selecting Image > Mode > Grayscale.
- Select Yes if a window asks about discarding color.
- Then Select Image > Mode > Bitmap. A window will pop up looking for info – use a resolution of 600-1200 dpi and an output method of 50% threshold.
- Save your files as a tif (with LZW Compression) and send us the tif. Or insert the Tif into your Illustrator or InDesign file.
Images in higher resolution (600-1200 dpi) will give better, finer results than images in lower resolutions (72-300 dpi). If your images lose a lot of detail, you can either re-scan or adjust your levels of black. A quick explanation about the 50% threshold method. A grayscale image is made up of pixels from 1 – 100% black. When you select 50% threshold, you are telling the computer to change all pixels less than 50% black to be white and all pixels greater than 50% black to be black. So sometimes adjusting the levels of gray pixels under 50% to a little darker and over the 50% mark will keep more details in your image. We suggest experimenting with the following: Image Adjustments > Levels or Image Adjustments > Brightness and Contrast. This may give you more pleasing results in your final bitmap tif.