It's More than Just the Media that Makes for Your Best Output

By Jon Gerber

Getting good prints involves more than just selecting the proper media, it is a function of both the media and ink used plus appropriate color management. A great substrate may look terrible and a mediocre substrate may look great depending on how they are imaged. With a little knowledge and effort, you can make any appropriate ink and media combination look good. (See Figures 1 & 2.)

Media Considerations
There are several things to consider when deciding on an appropriate media. First, assess your needs and the needs of the client. Does the project involve graphics for indoor or outdoor display? Does it involve signage, floor graphics, banners, POP, vehicle graphics, display graphics, fine art, or photography? The answers to these questions, plus budget, and quality considerations, help determine the type of media you will need to use—a scrim vinyl banner material, canvas for fine art, or a backlit film for instance.

Another consideration involves the budget. Do you need a higher quality, higher cost media, or can you use a lower quality, lower cost media? This will be a function of both your budget and the client's needs. Have reasonable expectations, you might want to use a cheaper media-especially if you're a sign company using uncoated media and solvent ink-but remember you often get what you pay for. Cheaper uncoated media often have surface flaws and other artifacts that may be okay for some projects and clients, but not for the pickier ones. (See Figures 4a & 4b.)

Finally, consider your printer and ink type. If your printer is set up with water-based pigment ink (referred to simply as pigment ink for this article), you must use coated media since pigment ink won't adhere properly to uncoated substrates. If your printer is set up for solvent-based pigment inks (referred to as solvents for this article), you can use either media type-although you will probably want to use uncoated since it costs less.

Generally, pigment inks are more appropriate for fine art and photographic work, due to their broader color gamut and lack of odor/vapor issues. Solvent inks are more appropriate for signmaking and display graphics because they print on uncoated surfaces, have better abrasion resistance, and tend to have better durability—especially outdoors; however, solvents don't have the color gamut of pigments and do have odor/vapor issues.

Other Considerations
As mentioned above, if you are using solvent ink, almost any media can be printed upon—coated or uncoated. Pigments will require coated media. The price of either media type will depend again on your client's needs, the project type, and budget.

Rule of thumb: it is more important to have a quality ink set than it is to have a quality media. Cheap, low quality ink makes it much more difficult to get acceptable results—even with appropriate color management and quality media. If the ink lacks a broad color gamut (range of colors the ink can reproduce), adheres improperly, or dries poorly, it doesn't matter how good the media is, you probably won't get acceptable prints, wasting both time and money. On the other hand, a cheaper media can look great with a quality ink set and appropriate color management-whether solvent or pigment. (See Figures 1c & 2c.)

Consider also whether the ink comes from a reputable source. Printer manufacturer OEM ink—and media for that matter—is not always the best solution, but it is the easiest one and you will probably get positive results. Often, however, the cost for this convenience is higher supply and print costs. Because these manufacturers make much of their profit from supplies, they encourage users to purchase OEM media and ink. But, it is possible to get results that are just as good—and sometimes better—when using third party ink and media with a little knowledge and preparation. You have to decide for yourself if the cost difference for convenience is worth it.

Most large format printers come with a simple printer driver or limited RIP, making it easy to use OEM media and ink because the driver or RIP comes with profiles preloaded for each company's proprietary supplies. Often they make it difficult to load third party profiles for other ink or media. If you use third party supplies, you may get flat or muddy prints—not necessarily because the third party supplies are poor quality, but because they haven't been set up properly to work with the proprietary driver or RIP. (See Figures 1a & 1b, 2a & 2b.)

You can achieve good results either way—by using OEM ink and media or by taking advantage of quality third party products. The trick for achieving good results with third party supplies is to ensure that you get correct profiles loaded into your printer's RIP or driver. This may mean creating your own profiles or getting them from your supply source. It also may involve upgrading to a more fully featured RIP. This would be the case if your printer's current driver or RIP solution doesn't accept third party profiles.

It's important to remember that third party supplies often cost less than manufacturer supplies and many have similar or better color gamuts (see Figures 3a, 3b, 3c), drying characteristics, and longevity. But be sure you purchase from a reputable source that can help with the technical issues if you want to switch. There are some very low quality, inexpensive supplies that are not worth their low price in the long run because of the potential problems they may cause.

Color Management
Having a properly color-managed workflow is probably the most important tool to get acceptable results from any media—cheap or expensive—and any ink set—solvent or pigment. It can also potentially save you a great deal of time and money in the long run.

By color management, we mean using an ICC-profiled workflow along with an appropriate RIP to interface with your printer. Using a quality RIP, plus good ICC profiles, and a profiled monitor, can end the cycle of reprints that many imagers have to go through before getting acceptable results. Correct color management will increase color consistency from print run to print run as well as from one media type to the next. For example, wouldn't it be great if the color of the banners for a project matched the colors of the backlit materials, posters, stickers, and floor graphics?

To make this a reality, at a minimum, you will need an output profile for each media type and resolution you are using; a RIP that allows for linearization, ink limiting, and the use of ICC compliant profiles; and an appropriate input profile for each file your are imaging. Additionally, a calibrated and profiled monitor, plus the use of a graphics program that uses profiles for soft proofing—such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator—can increase both productivity and profitability. Soft proofing allows you to simulate how a file will look when printed before actually sending it to the printer— providing the ability to make color decisions before committing to your ink and media choice.

Conclusion
Deciding what media to use isn't a decision that can be made in isolation. Choices must be carefully made based upon the requirements of the project and client, plus available budget and tools. With a little knowledge, an appropriate ink set, a decent RIP, and ICC profiles, you can get great results from both higher cost and more affordable substrates.

Apr2005, Digital Output