Western Web Printing

Products & Services

Web Offset Printing  |  Digital Printing  |  Prepress  |  Bindery

Prepress Services

This state-of-the-art department will take your publication from the computer screen directly to plates, bypassing the need for negatives. This means greatly improved quality in your finished product and less time from computer to loading dock and it will save you money as well!

Our helpful professionals in the Prepress Department are always willing to answer your questions and can offer excellent advice to assist you in producing a quality publication.

This department is well qualified in layout, design and typography to help you as well.

ECRM CPT Western Web Printing creates ultra-violet plates directly from your PDF files in the latest technology called computer-to-plate. This affords us the ability to create "soft" electronic proofing for your approval, as well as “hard” paper proofs if desired. This technology allows us a faster turn-around time and a more efficient workflow.

File Support
Though we ask that all projects be submitted in PDF format, we can also work from documents created in InDesign or Quark, as well as Pagemaker, Illustrator, or Photoshop.

Electronic File Transfer
Uploading your files is as simple as clicking on the “Upload” button on our website. First-time publishers, should contact the prepress department via email or telephone to obtain a password.

Prepress Checklist
Before uploading your files, please check for the following information:

  1. Have you embedded ALL fonts in your job? (This will make larger files, but the files will be accurate.)
  2. Did you check your linkages before creating the PDF? If an image is not properly linked before distilling, problems may ensue in the printed job.
  3. Have all RGB and Lab color images been changed to either CMYK or grayscale? Though our system can separate RGB to CMYK, the quality will suffer.
  4. Have you created your publication in the correct page size? Have you brought page bleeds past the page trim by a quarter inch?

When you upload to the FTP site, be sure to complete the questionnaire, which allows us to know ahead of time what to expect from your document when we create proofs.

Black & White and Color Adjustments
A maximum of 90% dots in the shadow areas and a minimum of 5% dots in the highlight areas will go a long way toward improving the quality of your images, both black-and-white and color. Images are printed with a 106-line screen. Total ink density should not exceed 220%, UCR 240, GCR 85%. When adjusting image quality in either levels or curves in Photoshop, be sure to adjust your shadows, midtones, and highlights to achieve slightly more contrast then you might normally expect.

Dot Gain
Our dot gain averages around 25%. Dot gain occurs when the ink is laid down on paper and, under pressure of the rotating presses, spreads a little over the preferred dot size. Our Trueflow system compensates for normal dot gain.