Comics Formatting FAQ

[humanoid]

I'm not a spokesperson for Lulu, but I assure you that grayscale printing falls under the B/W pricing. It's a matter of how many inks the printer will need to use, to reproduce your files. The most finely modulated grayscale printing still only needs one kind of ink: black. Whereas color demands four: cyan, magenta, yellow, & black. Therefore, color printing is more expensive on the face of it.

The craft of printing allows numerous other ways to ramp up the costs on a project, e.g. duotone, varnish, spot colors, etc., but this explanation represents the basics.

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I think at this point the most helpful thing would be for Lulu staff to produce a very few simple sample images, with notes as to what costs the B&W price, and what costs the Color Printing price. Other notations would be: how to save the file (file type, dpi, RBG or Grayscale, or 1 bit, etc.).

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After doing a great deal of research, nosing around these fora, etc., I've come up with the following (which should be taken with a grain of salt).

Line art: the original file should be no less than 600 ppi, saved as a 600 ppi Bitmap-mode GIF.

Grayscale: the resolution of the original file should be no less than 300 ppi (pixels per inch), saved as a 300 ppi Grayscale-mode JPEG at the Highest Quality JPEG setting.

Color: the original file should be no less than 300 ppi, saved as a 300 ppi JPEG, Highest Quality.

At http://www.lulu.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=191913 John Morris explained that Lulu had changed its recommendations from using the RGB colorspace to CMYK, and that's reflected at the FAQ page http://www.lulu.com/help/index.php?fSymbol=make_sure_pdf_prints_right

Note: these instructions are Photoshop-specific, and should be adapted for other applications.

I'm not absolutely certain I have everything right, but at least this can serve as a starting-point for fine-tuning the specifics.

Cheers!
Ken

[dr_wally]

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Grayscale: the resolution of the original file should be no less than 300 ppi (pixels per inch), saved as a 300 ppi Grayscale-mode JPEG at the Highest Quality JPEG setting.

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Thanks Ken, again a good explanation, but I think somebody from Lulu should weigh in on the Grayscale issue, your recommended speciifications, and how it effect pricing, and if they can print "clean" grayscale images without pixelation (jaggies) at a B&W price. There is also this -- images with much gray and black do not need the more expensive color ink as you say, Ken, but they do require a certain volume of ink.

I think you are right about how printing grayscale should not (in theory) be more expensive than Color, but I think it is clearly a function not just of how the file is saved, but also how Lulu prints files.

There are currently two contrasting bits of information on Lulu's site: Lulu recommends saving Grayscale Mode images as RGB to avoid pixelation in the finished printed image, and Lulu also in another place makes your recommendation on various FAQs and threads. At this point, some clarification by Lulu would be appreciated (or they should put you on salary, Ken, thanks for the great info!)

Again, Lulu staff input on this issue would be greatly recommended. I think Ken has laid out the basic parameters, we just need a final word from the printer on how it comes on their end and what Lulu charges for what.

It should really be basic, like a carpet store, wallpaper store, or fabric store -- a few simple samples are shown, specifications for submissions are given (RGB vs. 1 bit B&W, Grayscale, etc.) and a price assigned to each. We now have CYMK thrown into the RGB vs. Grayscale confusion.

If Lulu wants to say: here are the various options we can provide, at these prices, all in one spot on the site, that's fine, but the confusion doesn't help, and I think leaviing people guessing instead of submitting doesn't make Lulu any money either.

Lulu's answer on this issue, much appreciated. Or hire Ken! He gives good info. But on this one, I think we need word from the printer...

[humanoid]

I appreciate your appreciation, Wally! I try to do what I can. I certainly understand your frustration with trying to get good info out of Lulu, since I too have put a lot of time into trying to figure this stuff out.

I think part of the problem is that most print-on-demand publishers started out handling text, and only moved into printing graphics as the technology improved, so they don't always have a firm grasp on the issues involved with printing artwork or photography. They don't always know what questions to ask their printers, and the printers don't necessarily know what information graphics professionals need to produce the best results, much less what the average layperson, who doesn't know his way around graphics and printing, might need.

Beyond that, Lulu seems to be depending on this new business model where customer support is handled by the customers themselves, through FAQs, bulletin boards, forums, classes, etc. In other words, shifting support costs to the customer base. Not what you'd call great service, but it does help keep the prices down, I suppose.

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I think somebody from Lulu should weigh in on the Grayscale issue, your recommended speciifications, and how it effect pricing, and if they can print "clean" grayscale images without pixelation (jaggies) at a B&W price. There is also this -- images with much gray and black do not need the more expensive color ink as you say, Ken, but they do require a certain volume of ink.

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I've never known a printer to charge more for printing a solid black page than a pale gray page-- keeping track of the quantities of ink used would be prohibitively complicated, especially when you consider that different jobs are often "ganged up" on the same press, and there's a lot of wastage as the printer fine-tunes the results.

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There are currently two contrasting bits of information on Lulu's site: Lulu recommends saving Grayscale Mode images as RGB to avoid pixelation in the finished printed image, and Lulu also in another place makes your recommendation on various FAQs and threads.

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Lulu FAQs have been annoyingly clueless about colorspaces, but I don't remember any of them saying that doing that would prevent pixelation. That's more a matter of resolution and file-saving algorithms than anything else. A high-rez image saved without compression will have a minimum of artifacts-- anything you do to reduce the file size, such as lower the resolution or use lossy compression, will result in trade-offs regarding quality. But I bet you could print a 200 ppi JPEG at Medium Quality and get very acceptable results. (Line art, however, would pose a different set of concerns.)

I think I can confidently assert that saving a Grayscale image in RGB (or CMYK, for that matter) would be boneheaded. It would bloat the file size and demand lots more processor power while providing no benefits whatsoever.

Hmm... I wonder if there's any way of contacting Lulu's print contractors directly to inquire about prepress specs?

Ken

[dr_wally]

I think we are in agreement on all points, Ken! Thanks again -- yes, you are appreciated.

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Lulu FAQs have been annoyingly clueless about colorspaces, but I don't remember any of them saying that doing that would prevent pixelation.

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Sorry I can't produce the link at this moment, but somewhere in this site is a "Flash Tour" that says that grayscale should be saved as RGB to prevent pixelation. Now that I go to find that particular Flash Tour for you, I can't find it very quickly, as there are all kinds of different Flash Tours here which present the "simple how to" information, but not very simply, and rather inconsistently.

Ken, I think you are completely right in saying that online POD publishers like LULU are very text based in what they offer and know, but ... doesn't help us picture people much, eh? Oh well. Will wait for a bit, and see if Lulu get's it's head around this one...

And a consistent, definitive answer on the cost of GRAYSCALE and what FORMAT to save it in would be great from a Lulu staff person... probably they may be trying to figure that out now...

[pirukon]

I have a question concerning the use of Bitmap mode in Photoshop, to prepare my comics for print. I'm asking this in advance, since the comic isn't anywhere near finished yet.

When you select the Bitmap mode option in Photoshop, you get several options to choose under "Method". I assume that the correct method should be Halftone Screen, but here's my question:

What number should I enter in the Frequency box? <- something you need to fill in after choosing Halftone Screen as the method and clicking OK.

Screenshot:


The image is scanned at a resolution of 600dpi. The book size I intend to use is 6" x 9" (15.24cm x 22.86cm).

I have a second question too. I'm drawing my comics on A4 paper and I want to print them as 6" x 9". In the Lulu FAQ, they mention that you should have a margin of at least 0.5" and a gutter of 0.2" to 0.3". So.. should I be applying all this to the A4 comic drawings? Will it work out once it's scaled down?

[humanoid]

Hi, Piru!

The first thing you have to decide is whether you want your comics art to be in solid blacks and whites, or in shades of gray. The former is called line art, the latter, either halftone or grayscale.

The classic comics style, rendered in ink using a pen or brush, is best reproduced as line art. Painted comics, on the other hand, are tonal. The old way to reproduce tonal art was to photograph it thru a screen that broke it up into dots, a process called halftoning. Nowadays, tonal art is scanned as grayscale image files, and printers turn them into halftones by ripping (Raster Image Processing) the files.

(It is possible to add dot screens to line art, as a sort of graphic "special effect." That used to be done physically, with Ben Day or Zipatone, but now is usually done digitally, in Adobe Illustrator or the equivalent. These screens should still be considered line art, as opposed to halftone/grayscale.)

Since you're talking about using Bitmap mode, I'll assume your comics are line art. Therefore, you don't want to introduce halftoning at any point after scanning, because it just makes your line quality fuzzy. The "Method" option you should choose is "50% Threshold."

Here's a quick run-down of the process. I'll assume that you've done your original artwork larger than print size. (Between 125-150% is the common practice.)

Scan your line art as grayscale at 600 ppi (pixels per inch). Sharpen the image in Photoshop. Use Threshold to make your blacks and whites solid. (You can play with the threshold level, which is the point where gray pixels jump to black or white, to make your lines thicker or thinner.) Downsize the image to print size, then convert to Bitmap mode using 50% Threshold. Save as a GIF.

This will give you a sharp, clean image that will print very well at 600 dpi (dots per inch).

As for your second question, about margins and gutters, I haven't been able to get an authoritative answer out of the Lulu staff or forums, so I too am confused about the best way to handle that.

Cheers!
Ken

[pirukon]

Thank you for the quick reply, Kenneth!

I'm thinking of digitally adding halftones (= screentones?) in Photoshop after scanning the A4 pages. If I understand your explanation correctly, this counts as lineart and it means I should use Bitmap, right? I want to replicate the so-called "screentones", which is commonly used in manga (japanese) comics. The method I intend to try out is described on this page: http://www.tokyopop.com/147.html

I was wondering, does it matter if I reduce the image from 600dpi to 300dpi while editing the picture? I can do this by unchecking the "Resample Image" box. Only the dpi will change, while the pixel dimensions stay the same. This allows easier editing, since 600dpi tends to slow down the computer and might become problematic when inking digitally. But then I will have to switch it back to 600dpi (keep the Resample Image option unchecked) when I want to use the Bitmap option. Do you know if this procedure will affect the quality of the print?

About downsizing, just to make sure: I have to change the numbers under "Document Size" in order to downsize my image, right? Are all my settings correct? (the document size hasn't been changed yet in the image)


However, all my A4 pages will include a bleed area when I scan them. Before I downsize, am I supposed to trim off the bleed areas in Photoshop first if there is no case of an image bleed?

So what I mean is, for a 6"x 9" paperback:
A4 has no image bleed -> trim off bleed area -> Downsize to 6" x 9"
A4 has an image bleed -> Directly downsize to 6.25" x 9.25"
( Referring to: http://www.lulu.com/help/index.php?fSymbol=book_formatting_faq#FAQLink5 )

Hrrm, I don't exactly feel safe about starting to draw the comic pages until I know how the gutters and margins will work out. Hopefully there will be an answer soon enough...

[humanoid]

That's an interesting technique Pop Mhan has worked out, Piru. It's amazing how many different ways you can approach the same problem. Personally, I assemble my comics pages in Adobe Illustrator, so when I want halftones, I create shapes and fill them with Postscript grays. If I wanted a coarser screen, for that old-fashioned Ben Day look, I'd fill them with Postscript patterns.

The advantage to letting Postscript handle dot-screening is that the dots will always rip to a size that's appropriate to the print-out, whereas (as Pop points out) if you need to re-size the artwork that's screened using his Photoshop method, you risk annoying moires.

I notice that Pop seems to be delivering 1200ppi grayscale art to his printer. Lulu staffers advise 300ppi, but I don't think they quite grasp the different approaches line art and tonal art require. 300ppi is fine for photographs, for instance, but makes line art look fuzzy (if it's in Grayscale mode) or jaggy (if it's in Bitmap mode).

As I mentioned previously, I use 600ppi bitmap art, because it gives clean-looking lines. It also has the advantage of creating smaller filesizes than grayscale images do. 1200ppi grayscale files may be appropriate for the sort of presses that are printing Pop's artwork, but they appear to be entirely too bloated for Lulu's printers.

I'm afraid that there are few hard and fast rules for how to handle digital prepress-- it's much more a matter of balancing one factor against another and trying to determine what trade-offs will most dependably give the results you want. I'd suggest looking at a book such as DIGITAL PREPRESS FOR COMIC BOOKS, by Kevin Tinsley, to get a better idea of how these things work.

As for your other questions--

I don't think resizing the image with "resample" turned off will affect anything at all, either the quality of the image or the speed of your computer. The file is still exactly the same size, it has the same number of pixels to keep track of, the same number of bits and bytes to store in memory. But for the love of Mike, don't upsize with resampling! When Photoshop has to interpolate new pixels, it can never be as good as what you had before.

Yes, you downsize an image using the Document Size dialog. Actually, in my version of Photoshop (CS/Mac), it's called Image Size. I can't speak to the specific numbers in your screenshot, since I don't know the exact particulars of what you're trying to do. Ditto with your question about bleed.

I'd suggest you have a Live Chat with a Lulu staffer and see if they can clarify that for you.

Ken

[pirukon]

Thanks again for your help! Ah, changing the dpi indeed doesn't change anything. And no worries about the upsizing, haha, I've heard and read enough warnings about that. I just didn't really understand the Resample Image option. I've read about the "Digital Prepress for comic books" too, but didn't know whether it would be of any use to users like me. If I can find one at a reasonable price, I might buy it.
I'll try to reach Live Chat when I can to ask about cropping and such.

I've thought about the margins and bleeds matter today and I've come to the conclusion that the measurements Lulu mentioned in the FAQ, are measurements that should be applied to digital documents, content that is already on the computer. I based this conclusion on the assumption that Lulu is more aimed towards text authors and text authors use text editors such as Word, which equals the use of digital documents.

I'm going to elaborate what I've come up with.. sorry if I sound redundant.

Comic artists (that draw on paper) can't really add in the margins later in their digital document like text authors can, especially if they want to add drawings with bleeds to their page, which they might prefer to draw on paper - not digitally on the computer. And that's where I faced the problem with Lulu's given measurements, which is for digital documents and not the paper working size.

Has anyone ever thought about calculating the scaling/multiplication factor of their final book size and paper working size? That's what I decided to try out, though I am not sure whether this is the correct method of doing things.

Hm, the given measurements count for ALL booksizes, don't they? Anyway, I assumed so. Here's a quote from the Lulu FAQ concerning margins and gutters:

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How big should my margins be?

Leave at least .5" margins on all your pages. Most books will require a gutter of .2" to .3". A gutter provides a little bit of extra margin on the spine edge of your pages, making your book easier to read without putting too much stress on the spine. For coil-bound books, the coils bite about 5/16" (8mm) on the spine edge, but we would suggest a gutter of 3/8" (9mm).

http://www.lulu.com/help/index.php?fSymbol=book_formatting_faq#FAQLink7

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Those are the measurements you should apply if you are editing digital documents. In order to get the measurements I need for my paper working size, I've calculated the multiplication factor of my final book size and my paper working size.

These are my calculations:
Book size = 6" x 9" (15,24cm x 22,86cm)
Paper size = 8" x 11.5" (21cm x 29,7cm)

I want to know how much bigger the paper size is than the book size, so this is the formula I used:
Multiplication factor = Length of paper (/) Length of book
Multiplication factor = 11.5 (/) 9 =~ 1.3

So now all I have to do is multiply the measurements given by Lulu with the multiplication factor in order to get the measurements I need for my paper working size.

MARGIN = 0.5" --> 0.55"
BLEED (leading edge) = 0.25" --> 0.325"
BLEED (top + bottom) = 0.125" --> 0.16"
GUTTER = 0.2" --> 0.26"

I've tested this by drawing the measurements on 8" x 11.5" paper, scanning it in on 600dpi and then downsizing the document to 6.25" x 9.25" (since the paper included a bleed edge.. but I have yet got to ask Live Help about this matter). After downsizing the image in Photoshop, I measured the margin area again. And tadaa! It had been scaled down to the size measurements Lulu gave. All the other areas too, btw.

Okay.. confused yet? Haha.

What are your thoughts on this, Kenneth? Think it might work? I'm not sure what your question is about the margins, but I think this method might just solve the problem I had. The only thing is.. I have no idea how it will look like once it's printed. Ack.

I quickly drew myself an "art board" on A4 paper to see what it would look like. I've included the bleed edges, margins and gutter. Click -here- to see. I don't think the bleed area is supposed to touch the edge of the paper, but ignore that in the image example.

[humanoid]

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I've read about the "Digital Prepress for comic books" too, but didn't know whether it would be of any use to users like me. If I can find one at a reasonable price, I might buy it.

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I recommend this particular book because it's almost alone in being addressed to the specific needs of comics creators, but any research you can do into prepress would be worthwhile. Search online, check out a book from the library, etc.

I commend your attempts to work out proportions and margins and so on. I agree, it's worth the time and trouble to figure these things out ahead of time, because fixing them later can be a total bitch.

The main thing to keep in mind is that you're creating your artwork bigger than it'll print, so once you've finished a page, you'll want to reduce it to fit, just like you might use the reduction capability of a photocopier to make something the size you want.

If you can make up a master template that shows the live art area, the margins, the crops, and the extra bleed, then you can blow that up on a copier to a comfortable working size and feel confident that whatever you draw on that basis will work.

I wish that Lulu would provide officially approved comics templates, but whenever I've had a chance to ask them directly, they've acted like I was asking for a page of their user IDs and passwords. I don't understand their problem, but obviously other artists have managed to successfully publish thru them, so we can too.

Sorry I don't have time to say more right now, but I've got a comic book to draw!

Cheers,
Ken