Print Mechanicals
One of the more important skills when producing a product destined for the printer is understanding and creating optimized files, often referred to as mechanicals. Mechanicals are frequently multi-paged PDFS where each page correlates to a single pass performed by the printer. The exception being the CMYK plate which contains the information for all four passes necessary to produce color images. Special treatments such as embellishments require their own plate. Frequently these plates show the location of the treatment but do not need to contain color information so these plates are generated as black and white images. Below is an example of the mechanicals I produced for a book cover. In addition to the color imagery this book was embellished with foil lettering and embossments for which separate plates where necessary.
Full Composite
This plate is provided to give printers information about the intent of the final product. All text and embellishment are represented on this plate to provide an easy visual reference against which the final product can be checked.
CMYK Plate
This plate is a 4 color composite used by the printer to produce all traditional printing. Any black, white, or color objects are produced using this plate while all embellishments are produced using a different one.
Foil Plate
Additional plates are generated to show the placement of any special treatments. These can include Pantone color passes, gloss treatments, or, as in this case, the placement of foil for a reflective metallic surface.
Emboss Plate
This example has one additional plate showing the embossment. There can be as many plates in a set of mechanicals as necessary to achieve the desired results. Generally a unique plate is generated for each effect.
