• 4-Color Process: The reproduction of full-color artwork through the combination of four process ink colors- cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow and black. (CMYK) • 4-Color Separation: The breakdown of full-color copy into individual color plates so that when printed in register, they produce a full-color illustration. Four-color separations refer specifically to the process colors: CMYK. • Acid Etching: A chemical process where a strong acid, known as an etchant, is applied to the surface of a piece of metal to remove a portion of the metal’s surface to create an image, design, or component. • Blank Goods: Refers to promotional products without decoration/imprinting. • Contract Decoration: The process of embellishing a product with one of the many and varied decorating processes whereby clients provide the goods and the decorator provides and charges only for the decoration/embellishment. • Die Striking: A jewelry-manufacturing process that utilizes an enormous amount of pressure to form metal into a die struck mold. • Digitizing: The process of scanning printed text or logos into a computer. Also, the process where a design is plotted in a computer language that an embroidery machine can read. This is the process needed in order to take art from camera ready to a readable format in order to reproduce an embroidered design. Often a cost is associated, but once the original is created, you can reuse the file and avoid costs in the future. • Direct To Garment: Direct to Garment, or DTG printing, is a process by which a digital image is printed directly onto your apparel using cutting edge printing technology and inks. • Engraving: The cutting or etching of designs or letters on metal, wood, glass, or other materials. There are three engraving techniques. Hand engraving, hand tracing and computerized engraving. Engraving is performed with a diamond point or rotary blade that cuts into the surface of the product. • Etching: The product to be imaged is coated with a resist. An image is exposed on the resist, usually photographically, leaving bare metal and protected metal. The acid attacks the exposed metal, thus leaving the images etched into the surface of the metal. Very fine lines can be reproduced by this process and the only tooling is a piece of film, so spec samples are easily made. • Flexography: A form of rotary printing in which ink is applied to various surfaces by means of flexible rubber (or other elastomeric) printing plates. • Full Bleed: This print method is used when you want a design to touch the edge of the material leaving no white edge. Edge to edge printing is used for different projects such as business cards, magazines, books, flyers, brochures, posters, and so much more. DECORATOR AND ARTWORK TERMS YOU SHOULD KNOW DECORATOR AND ARTWORK TERMS YOU SHOULD KNOW • Laser Etching: How cool would it be to say your project was created using lasers? Well, you absolutely can with laser etching printing. With this method, an image or text is engraved onto the item and give it a contrast against the material. • Lithography: A generic term for printed material. Most typically used to refer to offset printed paper that is intended to be mounted to a display. • Offset Printing: A method of mass-production high quality printing in which the images on metal plates are transferred (offset) to rubber blankets or rollers and then to the print media. • Pantone or PMS Color Match: PMS, or Pantone Matching System, provides a universal system for identifying colors across the life of projects from design to manufacturing to the consumer. A PMS number tells the printer how much of each color to use when printing an image. That way you will never have to wonder if the color is correct on a project. • PNG: A .png file (pronounced ‘ping’) does not lose quality during the editing process. The .png file type was designed to transfer images via the internet and, therefore, is the ideal file type for web graphics. • Print-Ready File: The print-ready file, depending on the size of the item, could be extremely large and possibly take a long time to download or even require a special delivery method such as We Transfer, Dropbox, or Hightail. • Proof: A proof is a much lower resolution version of the actual print file, which is ideal for sending via email so the recipient can see a visual representation. • Sandblasting: Uses a pressurized abrasive stream to etch into a glass surface, creating a deep and permanent mark. • Special Effect Printing: The special printing effect gives the stamped lettering or graphics a shiny, professional appearance. • Sublimation: To convert a solid substance by heat into vapor that on cooling condenses again to a solid form. • Vector Image (EPS): A vector image is made of points instead of pixels. What that means in layman’s terms is that a vector image can be blown up to a much larger size without being blurry. The reason for this is that the points join paths (think, connect the dots), whereas with pixels, there is only a finite amount – the total amount that makes up your image. Generally, vector artwork is preferred for imprinting so that it can be sized up or down without losing image quality.
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