I did this piece for today's Los Angeles Times. Lola Di Giulio De Maci wrote the delightful short story about rainbows. Each image brings its own challenges (this one: how not to be too "sweet" or cliched with an image of a rainbow). The LA Times' pieces also get printed on newsprint, which can significantly alter the colors and contrast of an image. I've tried to compensate with each of the pieces I've done for them, but I think this one reproduced the best so far. Any advice is most welcome!
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Newsprint
I did this piece for today's Los Angeles Times. Lola Di Giulio De Maci wrote the delightful short story about rainbows. Each image brings its own challenges (this one: how not to be too "sweet" or cliched with an image of a rainbow). The LA Times' pieces also get printed on newsprint, which can significantly alter the colors and contrast of an image. I've tried to compensate with each of the pieces I've done for them, but I think this one reproduced the best so far. Any advice is most welcome!
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Because Newspapers are printed on very absorbent paper and no coating, they use a screen ruling (the dot pattern you see to represent continuous tone) that is very course. For example, newspapers use a screen ruling of 65 to 85 dots per inch, whereas a magazine might use 133 at the low end of quality to 250 dots per inch at the higher quality end because the paper can handle keeping a really fine dot without spreading or not having enough ink. The courser screen ruling for newspaper means that the lowest screen (or grey value) that can be done and not break up or disappear is 10%. The highest screen (or grey value) before spreading and becoming all black is 80 to 90%. So all those subtle tones you include at the dark or light ends of the value range will become either solid or have no ink at all. Make sure your whites are solid white, black or dark colors are solid, and that any values next to white or black will have a dot pattern of at least what is mentioned above. This also means any screens of the four process ink colors should also start at 10% and go up to 80 or 90%. You can check with the printer or art director to work with them, maybe testing out some color patches.
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