What is total ink load?

[blackened]

I received a spec from the printer that says "Total ink load is 240%". What does this mean and how do I create an artwork in Illustrator to ensure this?

The artwork spec is 200mm(w) x 130mm(h) with 3mm bleeding and must be saved as PDF @ 300dpi in CMYK.

[Lukas Engqvist]

It is difficult to measure total ink in Illustrator even if we now have separations. But in Acrobat and Indesign you can view total inc coverage.

What it means is that the paper is not able to absorb more ink than 240%

a colour of 50% C 50% M 50% Y and 70% black would have 220% ink coverage. Since printing ink contains about 80% that is "gooo" and 20% colour you are adding alot of stuff to the paper.

ICC profiles usually handle the conversions, since in RGB there is one deffinition per colour. But in CMYK you can obtain some colours with severeal different recipies. (these recipies vary slightly depending on paper and process)
50 40 40 0 would be a gray using 140% ink
0 0 0 58 would give same colour but with 58% ink

Overprinting black on a red would give 0 100 100 0 + 0 0 0 100 = 300%

You can open your illustrator in acrobat and view with inklimit to 240% and see what areas you need to adjust.

[blackened]

Thanks Lukas,

I am quite new to this concept of total ink load. I do not have access to Acrobat and Indesign. We only use Illustrator, Photoshop and Adobe Reader at work. Is there another way to view with inklimit to 240%?

What about the images being used in the artwork? Do they get affected as well?

We used to send artworks to other ad companies before and they never had the total ink load specified in their specs and our artworks used to print alright. We are basically sending the similar artworks with same colours this time around. Why are some printers are so specific and others can print whatever you send them?

[eugenetyson]

Illy CS4 has a Separations Preview panel (Window > Separations Preview) it's similar to InDesigns, but it doesn't show the Total ink. If you want to view the total ink for a file created in illustrator you have to open it in Acrobat Pro or place it inside InDesign and view the separations panel there.


You need something like this http://www.astutegraphics.com/produc.../features.html

[Lukas Engqvist]

Answer:
Usually it can be 2 reasons why one would specify and InkLimit.
Either they want to make a good job knowing the limitations of their process
or they want to keep their backs covered.
(Could be that they had a job ruined from too much ink and that makes them heads up for the problem)

Why some don't care is either because they have a process or technology (ink limiting, drying or finishing technology) that is not sensitive to the ink limit, or because they simply don't care (using the principle you get what you sent).

You can work out your ink limit in Illustrator, by sipmly adding the values in the separations window, but it does not give you an overview. Some of us have been asking for these things to be more readily availabe in both Photoshop and Illustrator (and as eugene mentions there are pluggins that do this)

I would love to see this as an added function in the recolour artwork, alowing to adjust colours for a specific ink limit.

I would recommend aquiring Acrobat Pro 9.
Using Acrobat Pro you will quickly see if you need to adjust your illustrations.
In Acrobat you can convert to another output intent and still keep pure black and primaries, therefore you can set up your workflow to your most common CMYK in Illustrator and convert the colours colometrically when you need to.

Background (this is quite technical, but you are not happy with an answer without a why):
The ink limit has been a problem for a long time but because of the communication missing between departments it has not been considered so often.
Some factors like environmental concerns (inks have been moving to organic oils) and cutting drying times mean that the risk of jobs being spoiled in the post press due to too much ink is higher. Also todays presses print faster and so there is less time to dry between inks.
Previously a printer would just cut the amount of ink to make the job able to print, this gave variations in colour, and as the industry moves to standards it means designers will have to take the responsibility of the prepress.

Lately in the industry there are specialised servers and technologies to reduce the amount of ink by re-separating images. The need arises because of what is stated above coupled with that many are separating images to CMYK without fully understanding that process. To separate an image to CMYK one needs to know the limitations of the substrate that one is targeting. (And here I am navigating in an area where many feel sore, as it threatens their workflows). The supplied ICC profiles that you get with your applications such as FOGRA 27 or SWOP coated have too much total ink in them for most offset printing and paper, even more so if you "tweak" your pictures after converting them to CMYK. Working in RGB and then converting to a CMYK profile with the correct ink limit (and if it is specified as 240 it seems likely it is an uncoated or newsprint profile) is the safest way. This still is not totally risk free since there are some specaial colours you would want to keep pure (eg black). Unfortunately even by using the correct ICC profile as your CMYK profile is not a guarantee that you will not exceed the ink limit while creating colours or by using overprint in Illustrator.

Having total control of colour in Illustrator is probably the most advanced colour management.

[phantasm]

Originally Posted by eugenetyson

You need something like this http://www.astutegraphics.com/produc.../features.html

Sorry I'm a bit late to this thread, but the Illustrator CS to CS4 plugin Phantasm CS Studio caters exactly for this. For another overview, there's the following movie:

www.astutegraphics.com/movies/11_print_output_previews.mov

You can specify ink limits and it will visually display areas which exceed this.

As Lukas mentions, this is also possible via Acrobat once you've exported/saved the file as a PDF.

Best wishes,

Nick