Green printing tip no. 49: When do you print offset instead of digital?

We are back today with a new tip on our weekly series of green printing tips, where we bring you information on green printing in collaboration with Greg Barber, an experienced eco-friendly printer.

Today Greg is discussing one of the key elements in printing and the question it brings up:offset or digital?

When do you print offset instead of digital?

Tip #49

Printing environmentally encompasses a lot of printers and a lot
of printing presses. The key is how you use those presses and
when to use them. I start off by asking you, what is your job look like, and then I offer to run your job on the correct press.

Let's start with a few questions I might ask you.

Is your art work in CMYK or spot colors? If your art is 1 or 2 pantone
(spot) colors, I might ask, "Are these your corporate colors?"

If your answer is that you do have corporate pantone colors, than I may decide that your job belongs on a 2 color, offset press. Offset printing uses soy or vegetable based inks. Offset presses can run the correct pantone color by buying that color ink from an ink company, like Superior Ink.

We have a better chance to hit the color you want by printing 1 color at a time. Digital printing creates your color, by printing 4 colors to create your 1 color. We are basically printing 4 colors on top of your font to create the 1 color you chose.

If you have small type and we needed to print 4 colors to achieve your 1 color printing, the registration is tougher to achieve printing in CMYK versus 1 spot color.

We have seen art work given to us that is in 5 point type and later the client complained that they can't read the copy. Maybe the job they needed would have printed better on a spot color press.

How do we go Green on our spot color press? We buy low VOC Soy or Vegetable Based inks. We use recycled paper and encourage 100% post-consumer waste paper. We buy our paper from certified mills that use renewable energy, like Wind Power or Biogas. We will offer direct to press technology.

What is the disadvantage of printing, using spot colors? It usually comes down to price. Digital printing is getting better each year and we are really good at digital printing. If you needed business cards, we can print them cheaply converting your spot color to CMYK. But, sometimes it is a lot
better to hit the exact color every time you print, by using the same ink from the same can of ink.

Sometimes, you need to print your type using 1 color and not 4 colors for perfect registration. Sometimes, you need to realize that your clients can't read the copy as well as you can, and small
fonts need perfect registration. Sometimes, when you print heavy solids in pantone colors, the ink lay down is better on an offset press.

Let us decide if we feel you should print on an offset press. We don't want our clients to be disappointed and we want you to come back again for another job. We may ask you to make your font bolder and larger. We may say pay another $100 and use our two color press for this job. We may say it is worth it to wait an extra day for your printing.

But, also like all printing jobs, once a job needs more than 500 sheets of 13 x 19 paper to achieve your quantity, offset printing will be less money than digital. The break even point is around 500 sheets. So if you need 10,000 postcards, I would say you are on our offset presses for both quality
of your pantone solids and for the best price.

Again, let me advise you, which way is best. Let me balance your budget and your quality expectations. But, whichever way you go, I will encourage you to use the most environmental paper, and the best inks or toners, and FSC paper and Green E energy.

For additional information, please visit www.gregbarberco.com and www.ecofriendlyprinter.com. You're also invited to contact Greg via email at greg@gregbarberco.com

You can find links to all the tips at http://www.ecolibris.net/greentips.asp

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green printing!

Why HP wants us to print more and more? Why it's a lose-lose offer?

Printing is a major money maker for HP - more printing equals more printers and ink sold. The printing division of HP, reports the New York Times, accounts for about a fifth of its revenue and a third of its profits.

HP is now introducing "a fleet of printers with Web access, their own e-mail addresses and touch screens. These products should open up new ways for people to print from Web services like Google Docs, and from smartphones and devices like the iPad from Apple."

I believe that this is a bad move for HP, a lose-lose strategy that is both bad for the environment and their business. Here's why:

1) Individuals and companies use less and less paper. And it looks like an irreversible trend.

According to figures provided by Paper Industry Association Council (PIAC), the supply of paper is declining since 2004. Just look at the figures (000 tons):

2004 - 101,884
2005 - 99,613
2006 - 100,665
2007 - 97,007
2008 - 89,838
2009 - 78,902

From 2004 to 2009 the supply of paper in the U.S. saw a 29% decline. Now, you can see that it didn't start with the latest recession, a good indicator that individuals and companies find printing more and more unnecessary even when economy thrives.

The reasons? Very simple: It's expensive to print given the user-friendly alternatives we have thanks to the progress of technology.

So the idea of HP is something like 'if you can't beat them, join them' - we'll look at technology as a platform for producing more print, not as an obstacle. But with all the respect to their new features, I doubt if any of this changes the basic assumptions: a) printing still costs more money than other options b) we really don't need to print that much as we used to.

2) Printing equals more waste and more carbon footprint.

As both individuals and companies are looking for further ways to reduce their waste and their carbon footprint (win-win - less expenses and less impact on the environment), HP's new offer looks a bit counterproductive with regards to these efforts and hence not too attractive.

HP tries to look as it is heading forward, but actually by encouraging individuals and companies to print more it moves backwards. I have no idea why the world's largest technology company, which is known for being so innovative, doesn't look for sustainable innovations that will generate not only income but also eco-friendly solutions.

In all I'm somewhat disappointed that a company like HP, which is considered a relatively green company, is taking such an approach. I understand printing makes them a lot of money, but they can do better - they developed advanced eco-friendly digital printing devices and they design data center, which uses rainwater collection and recycled materials to reduce energy demands, so they can definitely find better ways to generate income rather than just encourage us to print more.

Last but not least, I would encourage HP directors to look into the way JP Morgan is working to assist businesses to switch into paperless operations, saving these businesses a lot of money and creating a new source of revenues for JP Morgan. Win-Win? Definitely!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!

Green printing tip no. 12: How to prepare files for your next Green Digital run?

Today we have another new tip on our weekly series of green printing tips, where we bring you in collaboration with Greg Barber, an experienced eco-friendly printer.

Today Greg is talking about the preparation process on your side when it comes to digital printing.

How to prepare files for your next Green Digital run?

Tip #12

Digital printing has increased my Green printing sales. Most of our clients are smaller green entrepreneurs, and many are brand new to printing in general. I get a lot of questions from these young entrepreneurs, who want to do the environmentally correct print job, but struggle with preparing the files for us. This is also a good review for the seasoned designer.

When preparing your files, that have solid pantone colors in the graphics, do "not" convert your files to CMYK. Most designers that know digital is printed in CMYK or RGB, think they need to convert the files to what they think we need.

But, we prefer you don't do that. Our pre press equipment will automatically convert your files to what we need. We prefer to see your pantone color(s), and we then have your colors as a guide, as we do the conversion ourselves.

Sometimes, our equipment might convert to RGB, and sometimes your digital pictures will be printed as RGB automatically. You wouldn't be able to foresee that we prefer that option.

We want to make being Green easy for you. We will do the extra work.

The same holds true on printing our 100% PCW or Tree Free business cards. Just give us 1 up files. Don't impose them for us. The imposition is automatic.

The only thing that can hold you up is forgetting to add 1/8" bleed when the ink goes to the edge of the sheet. And, don't put your copy closer than 1/4" from the edge. Remember - digital printing needs a little margin.

If you have any further questions following our tips, or you have a specific question you want us to address, please email us to info@ecolibris.net .

Links to the last three green printing tips:

Green Printing Tip #11 - What are your green options when it comes to promotional items?

Green Printing Tip #10 - Are you buying environmentally sound business cards?

Green Printing Tip #9 - What to look for when selecting a green printing vendor?

You can find links to all the tips we published so far on our green printing tips page, which is part of our green printing tools & resources.

You can also find further valuable information on Greg Barber Company's website - http://www.ecofriendlyprinter.com.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: promoting green printing

Greg Barber and Eco-Libris present: your weekly green printing tip

You want to print green but you're not sure how? we convinced you that greening up your printing practices is the right thing to do, but you don't know where to start? you wonder if eco-friendly printing is necessarily more expensive?

Well, you got to the right place!

Today, in collaboration with Greg Barber, an experienced eco-friendly printer, we're starting a new series on our blog entitled "green printing tips".

Every week we'll bring you a new tip of Greg Barber on how to make your printing more eco-friendly.

We'll try to keep it as informative and practical as possible and we hope you will find it valuable. If you have any further questions following our tips, or you have a specific question you want us to address, please email us to info@ecolibris.net.

You can also find further valuable information on Greg Barber Company's website - http://www.gregbarberco.com.

And finally, if you miss a tip or two, no worries! All the tips will be archived and saved on http://www.ecolibris.net/greentips.asp

So without further ado, let's go to Greg's first green printing tip:

Tip #1

Any printing that can fit on, up to, 500 sheets of 13 x 20 paper, is probably a digital job. I would check our offset pricing at around 300 sheets. We can fit 4.25 x 6 postcards, 9 up, on 13 x 20 cover, which will yield 4500 postcards.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
www.ecolibris.net