Product Catalog Solutions: How to Get the Best Color Separation Printing on Uncoated Paper

Do you struggle with product color separation, specifically the accuracy of color matching when printing on uncoated paper stock? Making sure the product images in your product catalog match the color of the actual product is key.  

That’s why top brands like Sundance, Patagonia, Prana, and CC Filson trust Artisan Colour to provide expert product catalog color separation and correction that blends artistic photo retouching with realistic digital rendering and the ability to match complex photo composites – especially when choosing uncoated or matte-style catalogs. 

What Is Uncoated Paper?

Also referred to as matte paper, this uncoated paper is often used for printed materials to be written on. It offers a more natural or organic look for your printed piece, and can be made of recycled paper if you’re looking for an eco-friendly edge.

Uncoated or matte paper stock is often the choice for premium brand catalog production. Printing on matte paper stock helps achieve a modern look and keeps catalog cost and weight down. However, this medium is more difficult to print on correctly because uncoated paper stock is quite absorbent due to its porous surface and will therefore soak up more ink. That’s where expert color separation technology and artistry come in.

A few difficulties with uncoated stock that Artisan can help manage:

• Due to ink absorption (dot gain) being much greater on uncoated sheets versus coated, the finished color can turn out quite muted if they are not calibrated correctly for the stock. We adjust the CMYK reproduction curve and PMS builds to align with the paper specification so you’re finished result will reproduce predictably to the proof.
• Ink tends to sink into and spread out more on uncoated paper. This means that heavy ink saturation may affect the detail, contrast, shadows, and highlights of your images.
• Uncoated paper stocks take a little longer to dry, especially with heavy ink saturation. This means the prints are easy to smudge if not handled properly, ruining the batch.

A bonus is that uncoated paper is bulkier than glossy stock, which means it has less show-through.

How Can Artisan Help with my Product Catalog?

Often, companies find that product colors in catalogs (especially on uncoated paper stock) are difficult to get right. Artisan Colour was built on color integrity. The staff at Artisan are prepress experts, using the best color separation technology and equipment to achieve perfect color, every time.

As one of the most experienced companies in the country for uncoated printing, we have earned premedia catalog color separation business because of our unique ability to provide highly accurate color reproduction for those customers that wish to print on uncoated sheets. Some of our top clients printing on uncoated paper are:

• Filson
• Patagonia
• Prana

Artisan Colour can also offer image retouching, product photography, and an in-house proofing system for your project. Your finished product should be exactly what you’re looking for. Our motto is perfect color, every time.

Building Brand Equity: Catalog Premedia Services

In order to compete in today’s market space, brands must convey their message and showcase their products across media accurately and consistently no matter the paper stock.

While many modern brands prefer uncoated paper,  it does require a unique approach when setting up your files to print. Our catalog premedia technical specialists will work with you from concept to completion for both your printed and digital media assets.

Ensuring accurate printability and meeting deadlines while upholding brand standards and regulatory requirements is critical to building equity. Every step of the way, we will provide you with the type of personalized attention and customer service that you can only get from a boutique business.

Color Separation and Catalog Production Solutions

Staying current with changing trends and developing custom workflow management solutions is another reason top brands continue to trust Artisan with their catalog production.

Our proprietary software system named OmniProof allows clients to review and mark-up proofs remotely. Round by round comparison and ensures projects and pages are in one place. Comments are made in real-time by typing or using voice-to-text. Clients can edit, annotate, verify, approve or reject using a simple intuitive digital proofing process on the iPad.

This proofing process makes reviewing images fast and easy, saving you time and money.

Retail Store Support

Brands looking for a comprehensive solution can rely on Artisan to support their retail stores as well. Beyond prepress services and technical specification consulting for uncoated paper, we support many other forms of commercial and fine art printing.

Artisan Colour’s Commercial Printing division provides support for companies who need guaranteed perfect color continuity for everything they do, from point of purchase retail marketing displays to environmental graphics and signage. Because we are well-versed in such a wide range of printing services, we can find the perfect color solution for all different materials. Some examples of what we can print are:

Many of Artisan’s catalog clients also have retail stores–Sundance and Prana are two examples. These businesses use the same matte look / uncoated paper stock for their print marketing and point of purchase materials.

Your Product Catalog Partner

Artisan Colour’s comprehensive premedia and commercial printing services are fully customizable. The workflow options we offer range in scope from providing a high-level advisory role to a day-to-day project management role.

Contact us for a complimentary consultation or to request a quote. You can also download our comprehensive color management auditing tool to help you assess your current premedia needs today.