GUI DE T O RISOGRAPHY
First Edition // 200 Printed in Manc hester Januar y 2018 RISO EZ 570
CO N T ENT WHAT IS RISOGRAPHY? 06 MACHINE 07 ORIGIN PRINT PREPARATION 08 MASTER 10 PRINTING 14 INK & COLOUR 16 PHOTOGRAPHS TIME TO 20 24 26
PRINT DIGITAL HARDCOPY MARKS
COLLATE & FINISH 28 CROP MARKS 30 PRINT LAYOUT 32 BINDING TROUBLE-SHOOTING 34
RISO IN A NUTSHELL 0 1 . T a ke you r t i me. 0 2 . m a x. p a p er si ze = A3 0 3 . m i n . d ryi n g t i me 1hr 0 4 . m a x. p a p er w ei g h t 300g/ m 2 0 5 . mi n . p a p er w ei g h t 90g/ m 2 0 6 . O n l y u se UN C OA T ED paper . 0 7 . ima g e resol u t i on 300dpi 0 8 . m i n . t yp e p oi n t si ze 6pt 0 9 . Cl ea n rol l ers → w h ite s pir it 1 0 . Cl ea n screen → WD 40 1 1 . Ch eck you r p a p er s ettings ! 1 2 . Nea t p a p er st a ck, les s jams
OUR CO LOURS BLUE
MARINE RED
YE LLOW
FLUORO PINK
FLUORO ORANGE
BLACK
6
W H A T IS R I S O GRAP HY? MACHINE A risograph is a stencil duplicator and works like a scr e e n-p rin tin g /p h o to co pie r fusion. Depending on your machine, you will be able to print up to two spot colours and two designs at a time. You can achieve similar print textures like you would with screen-printing but at a fraction of the time and cost.
Risography is a cold printing process, the ink will need to settle and dry before you can add more layers of colour or print onto the flip-side of your sheets. Allow one to four hours. RISO inks are soy oil based, non-toxic, and non-archivable. Careful, they will stain your clothes :) . The paper runs flat through the machine which allows you to use paper weights between 80 - 300g. Always use uncoated paper stock.
PRINT LINGO - Spot colour: a single, pure colour which is not created by overlaying CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). Spot on!
7
ORIGIN Riso means ideal in Japanese. The Risograph was invented in 1986 by the Japanese company RISO Kagaku Corporation. Due to its eco-friendliness it has been popular with schools, offices and non-profit organisations alike. In the zero years more and more illustrators and graphic designers discovered the Riso as a tool to create beautiful artist books, flyers and posters.
8
PRI NT PRE PAR ATI ON MASTER The risograph will transfer your artwork - either from a scan of your hard copy or a digital file - onto a stencil or as we call it in RISO lingo: master.
The master will stay the for the entirety of our run. It takes between 30 seconds until the drum is ready.
The risograph burns tiny holes into a very thin paper made from banana fibre to replicate your artwork. This sheet, our master, is then stuck onto the drum. Where the laser has perforated the master, ink can exit the drum onto our paper.
When you send a new file to the drum, the master currently sitting on the drum will be peeled of by the RISO and discarded in the master disposal box. You cannot reuse your master.
PRINT LINGO - Spot colour: a single, pure colour which is not created by overlaying CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black). Spot on!
same print - 90 print
9
MASTER ROLL
PAPER INPUT
PAPER OUTPUT 1 INK DRUM 2 PAPER
1 2
10
PRI NT PRE PAR ATI ON PRINTING Stack your paper neatly and make sure you have set up your feed rollers right. Stiff card is printed at 6 o’clock, thin paper at 12 o’clock. Make sure you also adjust the output paper tray to your paper size.
TIP: Paper Always neaten up your paper stack before putting it in the tray. If your paper is slightly curled make sure the curl is a mountain rather than a valley. This will avoid paper jams.
The ink drum rotates at a great speed while printing (up to 150 prints per minute!) the paper is fed flat beneath the drum. This makes printing on heavy stock possible as the paper will not be bent. The ink then gets pushed through the voids in the master and onto the paper. If you want to add more colours, allow some drying time (1-4 hours) and switch the drum for another. Create your new master and pass the same paper through the machine again.
11 MASTER DISPOSAL BOX: EMPTY WHEN RISO TELLS YOU
1 FEED ROLLER PRESSURE
PRESS TO LOWER PAPER FEED TRAY
PAPER SIZE SENSORS
2 FEED ANGLE 1 FEED ROLLER PRESSURE
Switch LEFT = PAPER Switch RIGHT = CARD 12 o’clock 300 G (CARD) FLAT
PAPER SETTING 80 G - 150 G
CARD SETTING 150 G - 300 G
2
6 o’clock 80 G (PAPER) STEEP
12
IMPERFECTIONS
With a Riso you can imitate Pantone colours and CYMK colour printing, but you will not achieve hi-resolution. What you see on your computer screen will look different from your print. Each print will be unique and slightly different from the others. Overlaying multiple colours will increase the chance of imperfection and make it more difficult to align your designs. The feed rollers are more likely to pick up ink from the printed paper and leave marks on your design. You can avoid or minimise this side-effect by laying out your design cleverly.
The risograph bridges the gap between screen-printing and offset print, cheap and expensive print methods. It is best suited for moderate to high amount of prints. The Riso can print thousands of copies easily. The absolute minimum we advise to print is 25 copies.
TIP: Print Marks If smudges do appear, most of them can be easily rubbed out with an eraser!
13 PRINT TRAPPING Left (No Trapping): The blue circle is exactly the right size to fill the red ring’s white inner void.
Right (With Trapping): The blue circle is scaled 2% larger than it needs to be to fill the red ring’s void.
The RISO won’t be able to align your design perfectly all the time and you’ll end up with some paper flashing out.
Now the RISO has some space for movement. No unwanted paper will show even if your alignment is a bit off.
FEED ROLLER AREA
QUIET SPACE
4MM
The RISO can’t print right up to the edge of your A3 sheet. There will be a »no print« 4mm white margin on the long sides and a 6mm margin on the short sides all the way around your sheets. MAX. SHEET SIZE
SRA3
(450 X 320 MM)
6MM
The maximum print area is therefore 408 mm x 289 mm. Avoid large areas of ink in the paper feed roller area to avoid tracking marks and imprints on the reverse side.
14
TIP: Ink Density
PRINT LINGO
Large areas of solid ink don’t print well as they might look patchy. It often makes the paper stick to the internal drum.
CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, blacK. Inks/toners used for digital and offset printing. RGB: Short for Red, Green, Blue. (only use this scheme for digital displays.)
INK & COLOUR
All Riso inks are semitransparent which will allow you to mix colours when overprinting your designs.
It’s best to save your design as separate PDF files. To make sure you print them in the right colour simply give them a clear title, such as ARTWORK_RED.PDF; If your artwork features more ARTWORK_BLUE.PDF. than one colour, you will have to save each of them as a separate To print solid colours your layer in Photoshop or a similar artwork should be set to 100% application. Black. To achieve paler shades of your chosen colour simply Your layers - no matter what save your design with a lower colour you want them to be percentage. printed as in the end - need to be saved as greyscale images. Even though the Riso was not designed to reproduce complex CMYK images it is still quite achievable. To do so you will have to separate each channel of your image into a different file. CMYK becomes RISO Blue for Cyan, Fluorescent Pink for Magenta, Yellow for Yellow, and Black for Black. You are totally free to exchange the colours and see how your image transforms.
15 ARTWORK_RED.PDF
ARTWORK_BLUE.PDF
35% BLACK 100% BLACK
80% BLACK
HOW IT LOOKS ON YOUR SCREEN
35% RED 100% BLUE
80% RED
HOW IT LOOKS RINTED THE FINAL TWO COLOUR PRINT
16
PHOTOGRAPHS
There are a couple of ways in which you can recreate your photographic image using a risograph.
channel separation. Repeat with another channel you like and see how your photograph will change after overprinting both layers.
MONO-COLOUR
For GREYSCALE IMAGES, adjust contrast, brightness or levels in order to achieve two slightly or drastically different versions of your image and, again, save these versions separately with specific titles.
If your image is a colour photograph we recommend converting it into greyscale with your image editing program. This gives you more control over the outcome. DUO-TONE
TRI/QUATRO-TONE
Follow the same instructions This works with both colour and given for DUO-TONE but create greyscale images: three or four versions of your photograph. You don’t have to For CMYK/RGB COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS stick with RGB (Red Green Blue) simply delete all channels or CMYK (Blue Pink Yellow Black), but one, turn your image try swapping colours round or into greyscale and save your use totally different colours to photograph. Remember to give create a unique version of your your file a specific name so you photograph. don’t get confused about your
17
MONO-TONE FROM GREYSCALE
DUO-TONE FROM GREYSCALE
RED SEPARATION LAYER
BLUE SEPARATION LAYER
18 CMYK IMITATION SEPARATION OF 4 CHANNELS
YELLOW
MAGENTA/FLUORO PINK
CYAN/MEDIUM BLUE
BLACK
19 CMYK IMITATION COMBINATION OF PRINT LAYERS
YELLOW/FLUORO PINK
YELLOW/PINK/BLUE
YELLOW/FLUORO PINK
YELLOW/PINK/BLUE/BLACK
20
TI M E TO PRI NT! DIGITAL
Once you’ve set up your print Adjust the paper tray to fit your files as separate PDF documents, paper size. Make sure you always you’re ready to go. have some scrap paper in the paper feed tray. Place the colour drum you would like to use in the risograph. If The risograph will run two test you’re using a dual drum machine sheets first in order to ink use position No.1. through your master stencil properly.
INFO: Master Disposal Your master/stencil will stay on the drum until it is used to print another image. The risograph will peel it off and discard it automatically in the designated MASTER DISPOSAL BOX. You cannot resuse the masters, so consider twice before making a new stencil. The risograph will tell you when the master box is full. Simply pull it out and discard the master sheets in your general waste bin.
21
HOW TO PUT A RISO DRUM IN PLACE 1
TOUCH THE GREEN BITS
1
2
3
TOUCH THE GREEN BITS
LOWER STRAIGHT AND SLOWLY
ALIGN THE ARROWS OF DRUM AND TRAY
4
PUSH IN CAREFULLY
22 TIP: George Michael Listening to Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou’s album Faith (1986) will drastically improve your mood during printing and chime very well with the risograph idling beat.
DIGITAL
Simply send the first file to print. But before pressing the button you want to adjust/check your print properties: Make sure you select the right paper size and orientation (landscape or portrait) via the Basic/Layout tab in your print settings. In the Colouring section select Mono Colour Black printing. Now is the time to rotate your design by 180 degrees if you think this might be beneficial to avoid print marks. Just tick the little box. Go to the next tab called Image and choose your preferred screening type. The screen-covered style is slightly rougher, grain-touch allows finer details.
But see yourself, there’s an example on the right page. You can achieve the best possible definition for your line-art by selecting solid look style. If you’re printing fine or very fat typography you might want to change the text style from OFF to SLIM or BOLD in order to balance the bleed. The last tab you will want to have a look at is Advanced where you can adjust print speed and density. Don’t go to fast, otherwise your paper might jam. A medium setting like 2 or 3 is a safe shot. That’s it, you’re ready to go!
23
SCREEN-COVERED
GRAIN TOUCH
24 TIP: Alignment You can still change the position of your design slightly. Use the arrows and paper tray dials to achieve better alignment.
HARDCOPY
You don’t necessarily need a Adjust Line, Contrast and Size digital file in order to use the to your liking. Press the master risograph. make button, push number 1 on the dial pad and finally the green You can also use the inbuilt button to start the master making scanner to create a master for process. printing. Make sure you’ve loaded some Make sure you’ve loaded the paper in your paper tray in risograph with the colour drum order to allow the Riso to make you’d like to create the stencil two test prints. for. Place your original face down, centre aligned with the little arrow on the scanner bed. Close the cover.
25 BUTTONS EXPLAINED
M MASTER MAKE
START SCREEN
YELLOW = CANCEL LIGHT BULB WAKE UP RISO
GREEN = START/PRINT
RED = PAUSE/STOP
ALIGNMENT PRINT SPEED
RESET ALIGNMENT CONTRAST
26
MARKS
Marks might occur because your paper feed roller has picked up ink from grabbing your sheets in order to feed tham back through the machine.
Another reason for ink marks on the flip side of your paper might be (again) the pressure roller.
This time it will work like a stamp pressing ink from the In this case, take out the feeder already printed side onto the in order to get to the feed sheet below on the stack. rollers. Soak a piece of cloth with white spirit and rub off the Give your prints some more time excess ink from both rollers. to dry and try again.
27
TIP: DRYING TIME Leave your prints to dry before you apply additional colours or print on the flipside of your paper in order to avoid roller feed marks and paper jams.
The drying time will depend on the amount of ink applied to the paper and the absorbtion quality of your paper stock. We recommend 60 - 180 minutes.
Sometimes your prints will be very saturated. The thick layer of ink will leave marks on the flipside of the next sheet falling on top of it in the exit tray.
A dark ink mark on the paper edge which is ejected first from the machine might originate from the orange paper picker inside the machine.
If you can’t erase the marks afterwards with an eraser, try to catch every second sheet when it comes out of the printer and put it on a separate pile next to the risograph.
This little plastic piece gets really inky from time to time. Simply, grab a piece of cloth and give it a good rub with some white spirit.
28
COLL ATE & TRI M CROP MARKS
CORRECT
Crop marks are useful if you print flyers or posters with a bleed. They indicate where you want to make your cuts, either by hand or a guillotine. Printing with multiple colours they are also a reliable helper when you align your layers. You can create your crop marks manually with your computer programme. Set the paint brush to 3px weight and use ruler guides to draw your lines.
WRONG
29
Poster Design
Poster Design
Flyer Design
Flyer Design
Flyer Design
Flyer Design
Flyer Design Flyer Design Flyer Design Flyer Design
30
PRINT LAYOUT When printing a booklet or zine you want to arrange your pages on sheets double the size of your end format. It’s called imposition. We want to fold our sheets in half in order to staple or thread bind them throught their spine. In order to not end up with blank pages in the end of your
book you want to make the total page number of your booklet dividable by four. If you print an A5 zine on A3 sheets of paper to make the most of your master the total amount of pages needs to be dividable by eight. Follow the layout sample on the right so to get your pages arranged in the correct order.
8 PAGE A4 BOOKLET
FOLD CUT
8
1
6
3
FRONTS
2
7
4
5
BACKS
31
TIP: Amount of Pages Your booklet needs at least 4 pages. It is not recommmended to include more than 40 pages, otherwise you might cut some of your content off when giving the right edge a final trim.
16 PAGE A5 BOOKLET
16
1
12
5
14
3
10
7
2
15
6
11
4
13
8
9
FRONTS
BACKS
32
BINDING If you have a long arm stapler you can simply hold your sheets together by adding a couple of staples along the spine of your folded pages. You can also use a piece of strong thread to sew your booklet along the spine. Your thread length should be 2.5X the lenght of your booklet’s spine.
Mark your holes on the centre fold with pencil dots. One in the centre, the other two about 2 cm inwards from the edge of your sheet.
33
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR BOOKLET FOR SEWING
Use a cutting mat or something similar to protect your work surface. Hold your complete booklet at a 90째 angle, then pierce through the marked dots holding your puncture device at a 45째 angle.
90째
45째
HOW TO SEW YOUR BOOKLET
Start in the centre hole and pull the thread all the way through leaving enough of a tail in order to tie a knot in the end. Next go through the hole to your right. Skip the middle hole and go to through the one on the opposite side of your sheet.
3
4 1
2
Finally come through the same hole we started with, now from the opposite side. Pull out your needle. You should now have both loose ends dangeling from the centre. Tie them around the wiggely long thread with a double know. Et voila!
34
TROU BLE SHOOTI NG How do I turn RISO on?
What if there’s a paper jam?
There’s an ON/OFF switch on the right lower half of the machine. Just flick it.
RISO will tell you what’s wrong with it. Watch any flashing lights or your digital display. Pull out any paper from the feed and/or exit trays. RISO likes attention: you often have to simply open the drum door, pull out the drum and push it back in.
How do I connect my computer? Some RISO machines can be connected with a USB cable. You can download the required software online via www.riso.com Mind though, RISO does not like apples, it won’t hook up with your Mac.
Now double check your paper feed settings and make sure all is set up right for your paper weight and size.
My pages come out blank!
Still jammin’?
Don’t worry. When you’ve not used your colour drum for a while the colour needs up to 10 - 15 prints to come through properly. Always have lots of scrap paper to hand!
Curly paper might be the reason! Take your stack and bend it in the opposite direction to make it flatter. It’s always better for your paper to be a mountain rather than a valley if you can’t get rid of the curl completely.
Still nothing? Try open your file via Photoshop and make sure its layers are flattened. Save it as a greyscale image and check the dpi size is not higher than 300. Maximum dimensions (you know it) 420mm x 297mm.
I get jams when I send my paper through again to apply another layer! Sometimes your paper will start curling if your prints are inkheavy.
35
Try flattening it out by putting it in a press before you send it through the risograph again. Make your custom press with two A3 size flat and smooth wooden/plastic/card boards. Just put something heavy on top for about an hour (cans of beans, encyclopediae, your dog, microwave.) What if I run out of ink? Open the drum door, leave the drum in place, simply unlock the ink cartridge by twisting it in the recommended direction. Pull out the old tube and save it for recycling. Grab your new tube unscrew the black top, push it in the drum and twist it locked. My master roll has come to an end, how do I put in a new one? You’re such a lucky one! RISO have thought of us and left little explanatory stickers on both master roll and the machine itself. Unlock the master unit by opening its separate little hatch. Press the green release button and pull it out. For some machines the master roll and master make unit live next to the ink drum. In this case you can find it by opening the front door. Make sure you put your roll in the rigth way round. The paper wrap will guide you.
RISO is dirty, I get lots of ink marks! Use some white spirit and a piece of cloth to clean your rubber rollers at the paper feed tray. In order to give it a better clean, you can take out the feed spring just below the rollers. Snip the green switch, left and below the rollers, down in order to unlock it first. Give your machine a good clean every once in a while to keep it in shape â˜ş RISO leaves smudges on my paper! Print marks on your paper can be erased with a regular rubber. In order to avoid residue on the feed rollers allow a generous drying time before you send paper through the risograph again. The risograph feeds multiple sheets of paper at a time. Double check your paper settings at the feed tray again. Is it set to card or paper? Paper weights over 120g/m2 work better on the card setting. Fine tune the paper feed dial until the printer runs smoothly.
36
NOTE S
37
38
CHECK OUT THESE RISO EXPERTS: R I S OT T O, Gl a sg ow r i s ott o s t u d i o .c o m
R I S OGRA D, Gra z I ns ta : @ r i s o g r a d
D I TTO Press, Lon d on d r uk .l o n d o n
FO OT PRIN T , Leed s f ootp r i n t e r s .c o .u k
R I S OLVE, Ph i l a d el p h i a r i s ol v e .c o m
R I S O SQUA D
I ns ta : @ r i s o s q u a d
R I S OT RIP, Ri o I ns ta : @ r i s o t r i p
R I S O C LUB, Lei p zi g r i s oc l u b .d e
R I S O PREST O, Pa ri s r i s o- p r e s t o .c o m
D R UCKEN 3000, Berl i n d r uc k e n 3 0 0 0 .d e
p a rti sancol l ecti ve .n e t
t e am t ride n t pre s s . c o m