Printing... Do's, don'ts, experiences and tips.

Michael Posted: 23 May 2014, 12:40 PM   Thanks Fraser. It seems that OOM calculates the result of one colour on top of another in a different way to OCAD. I didn't try to understand alpha blending and whatnot, I was interested in whether there are any unexpected results. So I repeated the exercise above, a new map with default symbols etc. In OOM with the default view settings I see a blue stream and a blue pond on top of yellow. Making a pdf I got a blue pond but a green stream. (I think this arises from OOM having two blues - one with overprint on and the other with overprint off.) In Adobe Reader the green-ness was less evident on the screen than on the paper, and didn't respect the Adobe settings. There might be pitfalls in OOM too.   Martin Posted: 28 May 2014, 3:16 AM   Does anyone have a spare hard copy of the IOF print test sheet?   Michael Posted: 10 November 2014, 2:08 AM   There's some discussion of the Kawakawa Bay map printing (Auck Champs) in the mapping thread. It seems sensible to spin off printing matters to this more specific thread. To recap, the map was fuzzy and some of the colours bad, particularly green. Martin provided a pdf for the KB map and others have printed from it without those problems. This seems to point to the specific printer used. I have very occasionally encountered problems at a normally very reliable print shop. The conclusion must be that the work must be submitted and picked up in time to do something about it if the result is unsatisfactory. At least an extra day is required to ask the printer to re-do the work. And no agreeing to last-minute changes to a whole set of files! Planners and controllers note that you have to complete your work in time for a printing process that takes some time, and has to have a buffer in it for printer breakdown and human error.   fraser Posted: 18 November 2015, 11:57 AM   Been checking some colour settings this afternoon and reading a few old posts here. So just to answer your question 18 months later Michael, yes there is more than one blue used in OOM and the stream uses "Blue above Brown". For some reason the "knockout" option is not turned on for this colour in the default colour settings. Once selected it should have the desired effect.   fraser Posted: 18 November 2015, 12:43 PM   I was looking at the default sprint colours there. I see the default colors are setup differently for the 1:10,000 symbol set. Not sure why that is, but both have the knockout turned off for the colour used by the stream symbol.   Michael Posted: 30 March 2016, 6:16 AM   The map paper and printing at the 2016 nationals looked great! Would be good to know the bones of the process - course setting software, how print-ready files were produced, the type of paper, etc. I presume the 1:10,000 maps used 150% symbols, was there further enlargement for the 7500 and 5000 ones, or not.   mcroxford Posted: 30 March 2016, 2:25 PM   I'll try and respond soon, once the rest of the wrap up happens. IN the meantime though the printing was done by Red Kiwis' printer in Fielding on Teslin. This was after inspecting test prints from four printers from around the country. All courses were set on Condes to ensure consistency and the layout for all maps was completed by Bryan Teahan. We all had to go through a rigorous checking procedure of every course file. Uncertain of the mapping approach in OCAD. I'll write up more soon. Big thanks to Bryan Teahan on the formating and to the mappers - Bryan, Jason Markham, Nick Hann and Carsten Jorgensen.   Bryan Posted: 16 April 2016, 12:43 PM   Used 1:4000 and 1:10000 Ocad master maps with standard symbol sets. All layout done in Condes 9 - in my opinion a lot easier to create final layout than using background maps in Ocad with no problem with raster images/logos and vector lines. Easy to cut and paste logos / layout / text between condes files and between courses in a condes file and to create multiple customised layouts quickly by masking parts of the Ocad map. No issues with saving as PDF and printing. I now have Ocad 12 but I haven't tried the layout menu - has anyone used it before? Compared to my experience in 2014 (using Ocad mainly), this was a lot quicker and easier to produce finished maps and we were able to go to printers on schedule 10 days before the nationals. The printer (Fisher print in Feilding) were able to print on their digital printers in two days (and I also requested the printers do a quick check of the files as a final QA - eg no duplicate files, no funny layout). Printing looked to be better than any printing we've done on Teslin before and almost the same quality as offset printing. Duplex relay pdfs were created in Condes (with race numbers printed on the back). For each event, a checklist was created and checked by planners, controller and myself each time a new version of either the Ocad master map, or the Condes file was created with a final signoff from planner and controller for printing.   Michael Posted: 18 May 2016, 1:49 PM   Might be a bit outside this topic but... white shadows on control numbers, good, esp on sprints. I always thought that white shadows on circles were bad (hiding detail). The Tio mila maps have them, with transparent purple and non-transparent white. At least this is so on the maps on the TV coverage. Where a circle cuts a contour you get two little breaks. Comment?   fraser Posted: 18 May 2016, 2:31 PM   I would say this is a topic for the mapping thread, that is where the rules are for how to print courses on the map. The map looks great for online viewing, and they also have subtle relief shading which I really like. I would have to assume these are not the race maps at all. It would be a bad idea for the competition map to include white shadows on the circles. Pretty much all major events in New Zealand are printed incorrectly with non-transparent purple as it is.