Back to Dye Printing Tricks & Tips
Let's go back to Gutenburg. He figured out that if he created little blocks of type--letters--and individually set them as stamps, he could cover them in ink and transfer the ink to paper. Since the type was movable, he could have a library of bunches of each letter, then when he wanted to print, say Page Two of the Bible he didn't have to create one big stamp for the whole page, but recycle the letters over and over again. This gave way to setting type--typesetting--that continued for centuries. Wood type gave way to metal type. Carving individual letters became molding metal slugs. It wasn't until the advent of desktop publishing that text could easily be manipulated all over the page and almost instantly changed from tiny 10 point type to headline large 36 point.
But let's go back to the stamp. You know, little rubber images glued to a wooden handle. You press the stamp onto an ink pad then transfer the ink to paper. With craft stamps you can apply various colors to part of the stamp at a time and create a multicolor image. If you think of each stamp as a printing press's plate, you can imagine how offset printing is done. One stamp per color--whether it's a big blocky image or a teeny, tiny dot that forms a shadow. A second stamp gets you a second color. But do you need a thousand stamps to create a full color rendering of a mountainscape? Nope. A photo or graphic can be created with the primary colors you remember from grade school.
Red, yellow and blue can be mixed in various percentages to create thousands of colors. Add some black and you can darken all the them to shades. Add white and you can lighten them into tints. On the printing press we use four colors, Red, Yellow, Blue and Black. White is the paper so less ink equals more paper showing through. But still, we have our primary colors plus black and white.
So, as far as the press is concerned, you are either going with one color (black), two colors (black plus a specially mixed second spot color), or four color (which equals full color). Each is more expensive than the next. Each lays down one or two inks at a time. Depending on your software, you can specify the number of colors you are using--but don't be fooled into thinking that just because you can import a dozen colors or visually mix a few thousand, that it can be cheaply printed. You have to use colors your printer can replicate. The monitor creates very vivid colors in a gamut that may not be physically possible to print. Check with your printer first. If he's using Pantones, use Pantones. If she's using Trumatch inks, do the same. Save yourself the hassle. Save yourself some money! Why pay for extra film output and plates you don't need? If you just have to have a full color photo plus your corporate logo in Pantone #3435 Green consider making the spot green a process shade--or be prepared to pay for a five color job. It can be done. Eight colors can be done--but it can be pricey. If you're going for awards and you have an unlimited budget, relate that to your printer. I'm sure he'd love to do the job (and probably buy you lunch).