A printer in Seattle told me my file was 'too clean' and it messed up the job

I was dropping off a big batch of flyers at this local print shop, the one over on 3rd Ave. The guy behind the counter, an older man with ink stains on his apron, opened my PDF and just stared at it for a solid minute. He finally said, 'Kid, this is too clean. Your blacks are all 100% K, no rich black mix. It's gonna look flat and might even crack on the fold.' I had no idea. I always just used the default black swatch in Illustrator. He showed me on his screen how he adds 40% cyan to the black to make it deeper and more durable on the thick paper I picked. The whole job cost about $300, and I would have been really upset if it came out wrong. Has anyone else had a printer give you a simple tip that saved a project?

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1 Comment

elliot_harris251h ago

That's just how experts work... they know the tiny details.