Printing
Glossary
Here is a list of vocabulary used in world of printing that may be helpful for you if you are new to the printing terminology.
Bleed:
Printing that goes to the edge of the sheet after trimming.
Blueline: A blue photographic proof
used for checking the position of all image elements.
Bluetooth: A technology that
facilitates wireless communication between devices that are Bluetooth
compatible. Bluetooth is used for short-range connections between desktop
and laptops, PDA’s (pocket pc’s), digital cameras, scanners, cellular phones
and printers.
Bmp (Bitmap): An image represented as
pixels in a row and column format.
Bond paper: Strong durable paper grade
used for letterheads and business forms.
Bulk: Thickness of paper stock in thousandths
of an inch or number of pages per inch.
Caliper: Paper thickness in thousandths of an
inch.
Cast coated: Coated paper with a reflective
high gloss finish.
CMYK: The abbreviation represents the
4 major process colors Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black that
generate the color range of an image.
Color balance: Changing the general color tint of an image when it's too
red, too green,
or too yellow.
Coated paper: A clay coated printing
paper with a smooth finish.
Color balance: Changing the overall
color tint of an image when it's too red, too green, or too yellow.
Contrast: Increasing or decreasing the
difference in darkness between one tone and another.
Crimping: Puncture marks holding
business forms together.
Cropping:
Cutting out a portion of the original picture to eliminate distracting
elements or improve composition.
Density: The lightness or darkness of
an image or a portion of an image.
DPI: The short form for dots per inch.
It is a measurement of print resolution that shows
the maximum number of dots the printer can print in a square inch.
Draw-down: A sample of ink and paper
used to evaluate ink colors.
Duplexing: Printing on the both sides
of a page.
Duty Cycle: Number of pages a printer
can handle in a month.
Edge enhancement: An aspect that lets
a printer fill in the space between dots on
the edges of lines and filled-in areas of graphics, generating straighter
edges and making
text, lines, and edges in graphics appear to have a higher resolution.
Flop: The reverse side of an image.
Gamut or color gamut: The range of
colors a printer can generate. A gamut is described
by the ink colors a printer uses.
Gloss: A shiny appearance reflecting
light.
Grain: The direction in which the
paper fiber lie.
Gradient: An area in a graphic that
changes gradually from one color or shade to
another.
Grayscale: Gray values in an image.
Hard copy: The output of a computer
printer.
Highlight: The brightest values in an
image.
Infrared: A connection technology that
allows wireless data transmission from a device
such as a digital camera directly to another device such as a PC or a
printer.
Input Capacity: The maximum number of
pages that the printer can hold.
JPEG: A standardized format for
storing images that is used by many digital cameras. This
format is commonly used for e-mailing and posting images on the web.
Matte finish: Dull paper or ink
finish.
Media Size: The size range of the
paper the printer can handle (letter size, legal size, etc.).
Megapixel: A unit equal to 1 million
pixels.
Memory Card: A storage device used to
store data, like picture and movie files,
available in different sizes, such as 8 MB, 32 MB, and 256 MB.
Monochrome: Having a single color.
Generally refers to a black and white image, but can also be any single
color image.
Opacity: The amount of see-through on
a printed paper. The more opacity or the thicker the paper the less
see-through. (The thicker the paper the higher the cost.)
Optical Character Recognition (OCR):
The process of converting printed characters into the ASCII characters and
other attributes of a bitmapped image of text.
Output Capacity: Maximum number of
pages the printer can handle for one job.
Paper Trays: Number of different paper
holders on the printer (one for letter, one for envelope, etc.).
Pixel (Picture Element): Each single
dot in a digital photo is called a pixel.
PPM (Pages Per Minute): The short form
for the number of pages a printer can produce in one minute.
Resolution: The number of pixels in a
digital photo.
Saturation: The strength or purity of
a color.
Shadow: The darkest areas of a
photograph.
Sharpness: Creating the appearance of
sharper focus.
Super-Tabloid-Size Paper: Any paper
comparatively larger than tabloid size (11 x 17 inches).
Thumbnail: A miniature copy of a page
or image, which gives you an idea of what the original looks like without
having to open the original file or view the full size image.
TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): A
graphic file format originally developed specially for scanners. It can be
used to store grayscale and color images and has become the graphic standard
image file format supported by most applications, printers, and scanners.
Transparency: A positive photographic
slide on film allowing light to pass through.
Transparent ink: A printer ink that
does not conceal the color under it.
Trim size: The final size of a printed
image after the last trim.
USB: An input/output bus capable of
transferring data at up to 420 megabits; used for
connecting peripherals to a microprocessor. It can connect up to 127
peripherals through
a single port.
Yield: Number of pages that can be
printed with one toner or inkjet cartridge.
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