Printing Specifics [ ALL INTERESTED IN PRINTING READ THIS ]

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

Setup fee: 20c per booklet

A4 B/W with paper = 8c
If you provide the paper = 7c

A4 Colour with paper = 43c
If you provide the paper = 40c

A3 B/W with paper = 18c
If you provide the paper = 14c

A3 Colour with paper = 84c
If you provide the paper = 80c

Paper provided by us is normal stock ( that is standard laser paper, no gloss, 80gsm ).

For those providing their own paper, we won't accept "low quality" paper in the printer, so it has to be reasonably good stuff ( I'd expect that if people were providing paper, it would be Hi-Gloss etc ). We can cope with a fair variety of things, but we will need to see it first ( a sheet ), and check that everything will go fine. If your paper causes jams in the mechanism, or is too thin we will not accept it.

For duplexing just double the prices.

With the prices like that you could print a double-sided piece of A3 colour for $1.64. For a work consisting of 5 pages of A3 full colour, booklet style, you would have a total of 20 discreet A4 pages and a total cost of $8.20 not including setup fee. If you did 20 booklets at that price you would be charged $164, not including setup fee.

These prices are seriously low compared to ANY non-publisher printery, and we will accept short runs with no additional cost. I will check for discounts on high-volume jobs, but I don't expect to get a concession on that.

I would expect someone to provide high-quality paper, with a higher gram sheet for the cover, which we could then print on. The final results are exceptionally high quality, so if you have a smudge, it will appear. If you use blue lines, they will appear. It is recommended that you use A4 sheets when creating a booklet as we can feed it right into the scanning section of the printer system at high speed. If you use A3 we can also cope, but it will take us a lot longer to setup things, as there are a lot more steps required to ensure the booklet pages are in the correct order etc.

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*old*If you wish to make a BLACK cover, we suggest you don't pass it our way, as making such pages is extremely difficult due to ripple and wave effects that can and will appear at the edges of the page. This is a limitation of the machinery, but we can make a faux leather looking cover with only minor problems that require minimal trimming. If we get additional equipment that can print white, then we'll be able to offer plenty in the way of black pages.*old*

We have perfected a process to give you black pages for the cover at roughly offset quality. So this limitation no-longer applies. Still can't print white though, but we are expecting a new printing press in 2009 which may fix this.

A special note on your work:

Due to the location of the printing system it is important that your work is not overly explicit. Jobs can be run with these works, but plenty of warning is required, otherwise when the files are opened up it can be quite a problem if the wrong person is nearby.
The interesting publication, Devil Bats, almost cut a few years off Bobs lifespan [ excellent work though ].

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

Clarifications made on www.graphicnovelcafe.co.nz

Quote::

i don't really get the last bit, does that mean u prefer us to give u the finals in originals?
or can we still give it to u in digital files? like a PDF with every page in place already

If you provide the originals we can do things faster with A4 sheats, A3 ones will take us longer ( an would probably add a few dollars to the setup fee ).
We can also take PDF/BMP/TGA/JPG files with no problems, and simply print them ( JPG is a bad format, so I'd advise you not to use it ). The Colour and B/W units are seperate, however, so we would prefer to print the colour pages, then feed them into the machine that does the B/W pages + stapling/trimming/folding.

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2. stack of papers stapled at the middle of the pages, so u fold it in half to make a book half in size of the whole printed sheet

Thats the booklet stapling option. We can also do ugly stapling down the side, or the corner if you like Wink

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n myself was wondering about as for the normal paper stock u said
is it one of those normal laser printing paper u normally get for schools or warehouse stationery?
will u be able to give us a few printed sheet of examples on the meeting day?
or just few blank sheet will do, just want to see the texture n stuff, if u can :3

Thats correct, it's basic laser paper, which is why it's so cheap to print runs with. I'd suggest bringing your own good stuff, that way we can make sure that the final result is the correct texture and thickness you wanted.

Now, one of the reasons we are doing stapling at the moment is because the perfect-binding unit ( the glue spine option ) is litrally being developed in R&D, so we will be getting one as soon as we can. Absolutely unlikely we would get it before July, but if we do, we will use it with as much as possible ( on artist request ).

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

From www.graphicnovelcafe.co.nz forums:

Just for clarification, we can indeed do short runs. Don't forget your requirements, and whether you will be providing your own higher quality paper.

I'd also be interested in sizes, and the medium we will be working with to produce the prints from. If via CD we would ask for high DPI images ( 300 DPI will do ), and the pages as individual files in one of BMP, TGA or PSD.

Make sure your image scale is correct, but be aware the printing system can auto-scale on the fly as required. It can also shrink scans to a page with imperceptible differences in appearence, so that is also an option if you want to provide A4 images, and B4 paper ( B3 if you want a booklet, as it's two pages a side in that mode ).

If you need a colour cover, but B/W internal pages, then we can do that fine.

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

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Zelovel of www.graphicnovelcafe.co.nz forum:

Umm, few questions just to be sure because I lost my track a bit...

1. What's the exact deadline of handing the works in?
2. In what route do I send the works to print to you?
3. If I want to do a booklet, should I arrange them in the way that it can be directly printed and folded? ie if it's 16 pages A5 booklet, page 1&16 in A4, then page 15&2, 3&14, 13&4 and so on?
4. Can the colour printer print on any kinds of paper? eg snowgold, pearl, etc...(because inkjet will go messy on those)

...Actually I haven't even started on mine...If I start from this moment then I'll have to go crazy on working(...) I just want to know the deadline so I can decide whether I should try on booklets or end up with some postcards and bookmarksOTL

1) I'd suggest at least 2 weeks before July 9, the sooner the better in any case.

2) A CD, or the original paper ( I can pick it up from the GNC and transport it to the school ). If you have a fast enough connection you can always send it as an attachment to me, PM me for details.

3) The system has a built in scanner system with can take A4/A3 etc sheets, then automatically arrange the output in the correct order in the booklet. If you provide A4 single pages this would be best, as that way we won't have to mess around editing page layouts etc. ( don't forget to number your pages, we wouldn't want an accident. )

4) The system uses colour toner in a laser process, so it'll print on basically any type of paper, but we prefer papers which will not stick in the mechanism, so nothing over 240 grams, that curls etc. We can test paper for you if you require, you just have to pass a sheet our way.

You can make a large Art-Book, that would print quite nicely. If you wanted to do so, we could print A3 single pages, duplexed, and put staples down the left side.

mesa-chan · Guest

is it okay if the file is a BMP and is like 5000ish pixels? The bigger they are the better it will turn out when shrunk? I would have had it as PSD only that the file is too big to get sent to me over msn in that format.

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

An A5 300DPI image is 1754x2480 pixels, or 4349920 pixels... if you did 5000 pixels it would would look seriously ungodly... now, if you send the BMP image at A5 300DPI res, there will not be a problem, but be aware that if you reduce the resolution you will see it I'm afraid.

Kamairie · Slave Joined: Apr 02, 2007 Posts: 7

Are you willing to print on glossy sticker paper? I want to sell stickers for DO'08 and was wondering if that option is available. It should be like printing on normal glossy paper.

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

Hmmm, that would be interesting, could you drop off a single sheet to the GNC, then I'll see what happens to the equipment when we print ( if its all right, then its a go ).

Kamairie · Slave Joined: Apr 02, 2007 Posts: 7

Nuke_Bloodaxe wrote:

Hmmm, that would be interesting, could you drop off a single sheet to the GNC, then I'll see what happens to the equipment when we print ( if its all right, then its a go ).

I haven't gotten my hands on the paper yet and hopefully it does exist. ==;;; I'll try sniff around a few stores for it. I just really want to print some stickers for sale.

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

HP Deskjet photo paper melts in the fuser unit, so please do not provide it.

Dokuganryu · Slave Joined: Jan 11, 2009 Posts: 3

Would you take PNG files? :3

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

Yes, PNG files are fine, just make sure the compression ratio is not set high ( or no-compression ).

If you have InDesign files, with the supporting materials, all pre-done we can take those also.

Dokuganryu · Slave Joined: Jan 11, 2009 Posts: 3

Would photopaper be a suitable paper type for covers?
Could you tell me what GSM and paper type would be the most suitable for a cover? ^^

Nuke_Bloodaxe · Site Admin Joined: Jun 19, 2005 Posts: 310

One important thing to note is that you are dealing with a Laser based system, and as a result you need to make sure the paper concerned is not coated with any kind of plastic or material that can melt.

generally I have found that most Photo-papers work quite well, and for a cover I would recommend over 140 GSM Gloss White, or an exotic paper type.

Dokuganryu · Slave Joined: Jan 11, 2009 Posts: 3

Is there any difference if the paper "works well with most popular Ink-Jet printers?" or does it not affect printing?
I'm unsure of buying paper if it states this since your system is laser-based D: