Specs & Settings

Our new printing and packaging facility, complete with MAN Roland state-of-the-art presses, began producing the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News in their new sizes and formats, with much more color, improved reproduction quality and other enhancements.

Contact Ric Simon for advertising spec sheets.

Supported Software

We support most software applications presently being used in the printing industry including Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark and Multi-Ad Creator. InDesign documents should be distilled to PDF documents using Acrobat Distiller and should be saved to version 4.0 (1.3), whenever possible. Microsoft Word, Excel, Publisher and Corel documents are NOT acceptable.

• PDF files are preferred for customer submitted ads. All fonts and graphics MUST be properly embedded and OPI comments should be omitted. All color elements should be process colors (CMYK). Acrobat Distiller settings available upon request.
• Quark, Pagemaker and Multi-Ad documents saved to CDs are accepted but must contain ALL graphics and fonts used in the document. All color elements should be process colors (CMYK). Emailed documents should be “stuffed” to reduce file size.
• PDF ads should be submitted to the DMP via Ad Transit, Adsend or ATOL (Ad Tracker On Line). No email documents please. ATOL is the preferred method of ad delivery but, should you decide to use AdTransit, the DMP will pay any costs associated with transmitting the ads. This “FREE TO THE CUSTOMER” option also provides a job ticket with the order processing information to the advertiser and DMP sales personnel. The setup procedure for Ad Transit is available upon request.

Text

Color text should be 10 point or larger and contain only two of the process colors (CMYK), whenever possible, to provide you with the best possible quality and registration on press. Reverse type on a tinted background should be 10 point or greater on a background containing at least a 60% tone value. Type reversing out of a 4-color background should be avoided whenever possible. We recommend that you do not use serif fonts when reversing type.

Type Size Minimum

For readability and clarity, use 6 point type or larger.

Images & Graphics

Black and white pictures should be grayscale mode and be adjusted with regard to the following tonal ranges.

• Highlight 3%
• Midtone 38%
• Shadow 92%

Anything greater than 90% will print solid. Midtone settings compensate for an 18-24% dot gain in the 50% dot area.

Color pictures and graphics MUST be CMYK (process colors). Pixel based pictures and graphics should be at least 200 dpi. Bitmap art should be no less than 600 dpi. (1200 or better is preferred). Color images should be adjusted using the following parameters as a guide.

	Highlight	Midtone	Shadow
Cyan	4%	38%	49%
Magenta	2%	30%	50%
Yellow	2%	30%	49%
Black	0%	2%	93%

Dot Gain Averages

The dot gain in a 50% area:

• Cyan 11%
• Yellow 15%
• Magenta 15%
• Black 15%

Ink Saturation

Total ink coverage maximum 220% with one solid. Secondary color not to exceed 75%. Recommended screen tint minimum 10% and maximum 80%. A 90% screen tint will print solid. The combined screen tints (total ink) not to exceed 240%.

Target Ink Densities

Cyan .90, Magenta .90, Yellow .85, Black 1.05 Magenta/Yellow trap: .90 Magenta, 1.01 Yellow with a tolerance of +/- 3%. Subtract 3 to 4 points for dryback measurement

Color Settings

SWOP Newsprint defaults with medium GCR (Gray Component Replacement) should be used if available. Medium GCR should be used in conjunction with ink densities to reduce overall ink saturation.

Proofing

Detroit Media Partnership WILL NOT ACCEPT digital proofing for matching color reproduction. Spot color and four color materials are proofed in house to provide a visual guide to the pressroom.

Ink

Detroit Media Partnership uses NAA/Ad-Litho process inks only. NAA reference books. Exact match not guaranteed.

Laydown Sequence

The color printing process utilizes an ink laydown sequence of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black (CMYK).