How to prepare AI images for magazine printing
Can AI-images be generated in a quality that will look good in offset printing? We printed some full-page images in our magazine to know more. Read on and order a free copy of the magazine to experience the images in real life.
Insights from the process
Can AI images be printed just like any image, or do the new image creation methods pose new challenges? As long as the image has high enough resolution or is made in photographic quality – it should be alright, right?
Actually, like any image, the reproducibility of the image depends a lot on the intentions of the artist and the means by which the image is made. Two important basic questions are:
- How much information from the image will be possible to reproduce when transferring it to a different medium?
- How do you keep the colours vibrant when converting them for print?
The first question means you need to look closer at sizes and formats. As for the second one, you should delve into colour management and ICC profiles.
When we produced our customer magazine PAPER #6, we worked together with three AI artists from different fields of the industry, and we were allowed to reprint their captivating images in full page format. The aim was to inspire you and give you some tips on how to make AI images look their very best in print.
You can compare the digital version to the final, printed image, offset printed on our matt, uncoated magazine paper Holmen TRND. Learn more about the artists and the way they use AI in their fields of work, and then find out some of the prepress technician's best behind-the-scene adjustments for moving from screen to paper.
Every image poses its own challenges – shadows and contrast in an architectural landscape, colour hues and skin tones in an image inspired by oil paintings, and sparkling photographic details in a vibrant portrait.
About the images
Learn how to handle these nuggets in prepress to achieve gold in print, not just on screen.
The prepress perspective
How can you validate digital images and enable the best possible image reproduction in print? We asked pre-press technician Jens Jörgensen from content agency OTW to share his best tricks from working behind the scenes with images for print.
Which image size is needed for full page magazine print?
Since we work with professional digital artists, I normally don't ask for a specific format, I just tell them how and in what size it will be printed. In this case, a magazine full page is 200 x 265 mm, and the image needs to be delivered in 300 dpi with bleed 5 mm on all edges. That would mean 210 x 275 mm in size.
All the images we worked with were large enough and rich in information to print well. The artists allowed us to crop their images to fit with the page design. We have included formats and file sizes in each article respectively, palladio villa, woman on couch, and funny man, so that you can compare the digital delivery to the final print result.
What are the challenges regarding shadows and details?
Reproducing shadows and details in print on uncoated magazine paper can be challenging because the colour spectrum isn't as large for CMYK colours in print as it is in RGB for screens. If the shadows become darker in print some details might go missing in the end result. So the brightness or whiteness of the paper also needs to be taken into account before printing the image.
The designer or prepress technician should adjust for the right colour and contrast settings as part of the production process. The best way to do this is to use the correct ICC profile for the paper and printing method, but there are also some fine-tuning tricks that can be used. Read more in the article about the AI-generated palladio villa image.
What are the challenges regarding colour reproduction?
It's not uncommon to experience a "flatter image" result when printing a colour-rich AI image, and it's important to understand why, to make the most of the image. The reason is not just that the screen provides light behind the image in a way that paper does not. The RGB colour scheme, which is used on screen, can provide as many as 16.8 million colour hues, whereas the colours possible to print within the CMYK system are significantly fewer.
When converting an RGB image to CMYK, make sure you know the paper and printing method that's going to be used, so that you can use the correct ICC profile from the start. Every time you convert an image, parts of information get lost, and you want to keep as much information as possible. Two examples of how to work with this are the images woman on couch and funny man.
Jens Jörgensen works as pre-press professional at content agency OTW in Stockholm, Sweden, with an avid interest in images and print for more than fifteen years. We asked him to share his methods for ensuring the best possible print result in three AI-generated images with different motives. See the images in print in our customer magazine!
