Types of printing

When you print a file, Adobe InDesign CS3 sends it to a printing device—either to be printed directly on paper or to a digital printing press, or to be converted to a positive or negative image on film. In the latter case, the film can then be used to create a master plate for printing by a commercial press.

Types of images

The simplest types of images, such as text, use only one color in one level of gray. A more complex image is one with color tones that vary within the image. This type of image is known as a continuous-tone image. A photograph is an example of a continuous-tone image.

Halftoning

To create the illusion of continuous tone, images are broken down into a series of dots. This process is called halftoning. Varying the sizes and densities of the dots in a halftone screen creates the optical illusion of variations of gray or continuous color in the printed image.

Color separation

Artwork that will be commercially reproduced and that contains more than a single color must be printed on separate master plates, one for each color. This process is called color separation.

Getting detail

The detail in a printed image results from a combination of resolution and screen frequency. The higher an output device’s resolution, the finer (higher) the screen frequency you can use.

Duplex printing

Printer-specific features such as duplex printing are available when you click the Printer button in the Print dialog box. Duplex printing is available only if the printer supports it. For information on duplex printing, see your printer documentation.

Transparent objects

If the artwork contains objects with transparency features that you added using the Transparency panel or the Drop Shadow or Feather commands, the transparent artwork will be flattened according to settings in the flattener preset you choose. You can affect the ratio of rasterized images to vector images in the printed artwork.

For more information on printing, see the Adobe Print Resource Center at www.adobe.com/go/print_resource. To troubleshoot printing problems, see www.adobe.com/go/learn_id_printtrouble.