What is knockout printing?
A knockout is the gap left in the colors underneath an object, so that object prints on clean paper in its own true color.
What it means for your file
Knockout is how almost everything prints by default. The opposite is overprint, where the inks print on top of each other.
An example
A white headline on a dark blue background is a knockout: the blue isn’t printed where the letters are, so they show the paper. A light pink circle on black is knocked out too, so the pink prints on clean paper instead of on the black, where it would barely show.
A common mistake
Knocking thin type out of a background built from all four inks. Every plate leaves its own gap, and if they don’t line up perfectly, the letters fill in with colored fringes. Keep reversed text larger and bolder than you would on white, avoid hairline serifs, and build the background from as few inks as you can.
How to fix it
If your printer sent the file back saying “There’s white set to overprint,” the fix page has the step-by-step way to do it yourself, and a fixed price if you’d rather have it done.
Where else it comes up
All print terms in the glossary, or run your file through the free print-ready checker.
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The seven checks every file goes through before it leaves us. Useful whether or not you ever send us a job.
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