Printing (Photoshop); About Printing - Adobe PHOTOSHOP 6.0 Manual

Chapter 14: Printing (Photoshop)
P rinting is the process of sending your
image to an output device. You can print
on paper or film (positive or negative),
to a printing plate, or directly to a digital
printing press.

About printing

Whether you are providing an image to an outside
service bureau or just sending a quick proof to a
desktop printer, knowing a few basics about
printing will make the print job go more smoothly
and help ensure that the finished image appears
as intended.
When you print a file, the Adobe
Types of printing
Photoshop application sends your image to a
printing device, either to be printed directly onto
paper or to be converted to a positive or negative
image on film. In the latter case, the film can be
used to create a master plate for printing by a
mechanical press.
The simplest types of images,
Types of images
such as line art, use only one color in one
level of gray. A more complex image, such as a
photograph, has color tones that vary within the
image. This type of image is known as a
continuous-tone image.
To create the illusion of continuous
Halftoning
tones when printed, images are broken down into
a series of dots. This process is called halftoning.
Varying the sizes of the dots in a halftone screen
creates the optical illusion of variations of gray or
continuous color in the image.
Artwork that will be commer-
Color separation
cially reproduced and that contains more than a
single color must be printed on separate master
plates, one for each color. This process is called
color separation. In Photoshop, you can adjust how
the various plates are generated and create traps.
The detail in a printed image
Quality of detail
results from a combination of resolution and
screen frequency. The higher an output device's
resolution, the finer (higher) a screen ruling you
can use.
A valuable resource for all aspects of print
publishing, from early planning through prepress,
is the Print Publishing Guide, an Adobe Press book.
For information on purchasing Adobe Press
books, visit the Adobe Web site at www.adobe.com
or contact your local book distributor.
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