Tintbooks

The color brown sparks attention. It’s currently featured for fashion and clothing, showing up on everything from t-shirts to women’s evening dresses to military uniforms. Interior design trends emphasize brown on wall treatments, furniture and home accessories.

Brown leather colors and earth tones like sienna and hemp are examples of shades that are everywhere in print media. In one of the best-known examples, “What can brown do for you?” UPS features its corporate color in major branding campaigns.

But brown can be tricky to print. Dull and muddy results from improper screen builds, can have clients seeing red and designers feeling the blues.

Printing Browns in 4-Color Process
Recently, Tintbooks helped a graphic designer with a print project where the cover included a brown background with an inset photo of a multi-cultural group of people with varying ranges of skin tones.

When the job went to press, the initial results produced a background that turned muddy brown and the flesh tones appeared dull. The designer had selected brown tints using 4-color process CMYK formulas.

Tintbooks recommended eliminating the cyan component, and building the background brown using only a 3-color (MYK) tint formula. When she adjusted the color components this way, she achieved much better press control, and the flesh tones printed more realistically.

The background was a rich brown, producing the exact results that she and her client were striving to achieve. This simple adjustment to her CMYK formula was the solution. The change also eliminated the need to add a fifth color, which would have added expense to the client’s job.

With over 40 years of experience in the printing industry, Tintbooks were specifically developed for both coated and uncoated papers to solve this kind of color confusion when selecting CMYK color formulas.

Working with your print vendor and a Tintbook at the start of your project can help identify potential press layout and ink-control problems – saving everyone time and money while delivering the best possible finished print product.

Avoid Getting the Blues Over Your Brown!
Beware of blue (cyan)! Cyan is the ink color that can produce dull color results on press, especially affecting shades of brown. This is a common occurrence that particularly impacts facial tones in shadow areas.

For a richer, cleaner brown, create process color combinations by choosing only 3-color components. Specify brown tint color combinations that are built with magenta, yellow and black.

Back to Earth Tones
Alternatively, if your design calls for a rustic shade of brown, then you may want to choose a combination that does include cyan, by selecting 3- or 4-color tint values.

Tintbooks show you the difference between 3-color-brown color combinations created with and without cyan on the following example. You’ll notice how the browns print cleaner when cyan is not chosen as part of the CMYK formula.

The color formulas on the left side of this chart contain cyan (C) components. Black (K) replaces the cyan component in the color formulas on the right side of the chart.

Simplify CMYK Judgments
The color conversions from software applications that you may be using now to create brown colors can produce disappointing color results on press. It’s unlikely that you can accurately judge brown color tints on your computer monitor, because what you are viewing on your monitor is formulated in RGB, and what you will finally print is manufactured by CMYK ink on paper.

Tintbooks contain brown combinations that are made with and without cyan. A reference guide from Tintbook is an ideal CMYK process color-selector source for print projects where you can choose from hundreds of pre-printed brown shades in 3- and 4-color combinations.

Colors, Colors, Colors from Tintbooks
Of course, there are also over 25,000 other CMYK color formulas inside your Tintbook. All you have to do is select a color, then enter the Tintbook color formulas into the color palette of your software application. Tintbooks work easily with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign and Quark XPress.

Next time you’re designing for print, make sure that you are not disappointed because you trusted only your monitor or laser output for accurate color results. Tintbooks dependably show you the actual representation of how the color you specify for your finished client brochure, corporate identity, package project or ad job is going to look before you send it to the printer.

PaperSpecs Limited-Time Offer!
As a special offer for PaperSpecs’ readers, you can purchase Tintbooks now for only $40.00 each. (Shipping is $9.80, whether you purchase one or both volumes.) Tintbook Coated is printed on 100 lb. gloss paper, and Tintbook Uncoated is printed on 80 lb. uncoated paper. (This is a savings of $15.00 per book off the 2010 price.)

This offer is valid through March 1, 2010.

Go to the Order Page at www.tintbooks.com/order.asp. Next, enter “Paper” in the Promo Code Box of the Order Page. Then press the “Validate Code” button, and you will see your special discount.