Any US firms doing 4-color offset?

[PCPB]

I recently got an email from a state printing office soliciting bids for editing, designing, printing, and binding a book by a state senator (hope they’re not using taxpayer funds for this). I had to laugh at a lot of the requirements for presenting a bid. I think I’d rather not get involved with this tar baby. But I was curious about one of the requirements: this book has to be a high quality, coffee table thing, 4-color interior, but has to be manufactured in the US. To me that means offset, not digital. Are there any printers in the US doing 4-color interior, offset, hardcover? Aren’t all such project farmed out to Asian firms?

[Cory Smith]

Lots of book printers in the US.

check out PrintAccess if you are looking for one.

Print Access

[hansman]

Your kidding right

[Craig]

Nobody prints with that many colors in the US..... I'm almost positive the US Govt. only allows for 3 colors, anything more must be approved but the Government Printing Office and they have NEVER approved any US company to print more than 3 colors at a time.

Only North Korea under the great leader Kim Jong-il obtains the ability, resources and knowledge to print in more than 3 inks colors at one time!

[Jimbo]

Seriously, this is a joke, right?

[discountprinting]

Nobody prints with that many colors in the US..... I'm almost positive the US Govt. only allows for 3 colors, anything more must be approved but the Government Printing Office and they have NEVER approved any US company to print more than 3 colors at a time.

Only North Korea under the great leader Kim Jong-il obtains the ability, resources and knowledge to print in more than 3 inks colors at one time!

Don't know where you are getting your information from but I think you've been sniffing the blanket wash bottle a little too much...

[GazKL440]

Sarcasm: the great equaliser!!!

[DavidMa]

we actually only use 5 colors, including black AND white.






LOL

[GazKL440]

we actually only use 5 colors, including black AND white.LOL

On fridays pre press do single dot PMS seperations, and we print it dot by dot by dot... its time consuming but eliminates density issues that can be caused by running the imperfect filters of cmyk over each other...



We also start the beers early friday

[gordo]

Well, when you look at printing done to the G7 specs in the US you might not realize that it is 4/C.
This is because printing to G7 means that all the images on the press sheet have to be gray balanced. This means that there should be no visible color bias in the images.

For example, look at the press sheet below:



Note the very poor color balance - the red and green color bias. This is unacceptable printing. A total color disaster suitable only for recycling.


Now, compare that sheet above with the perfectly gray balanced G7 certified press sheet below:



That's quality printing any shop would be proud to produce. Perfectly neutral right through the tone scale with no color bias at all. Beautious and a sure Benny award winner.
But, as I mentioned, the untrained eye would probably not recognize that this is indeed 4/C printing at all.


best, gordo