Four colors or black and white?
- Thread starter Archer
- Start date
You know, FWIW, I actually prefer my RPG books to be in greyscale. To me, having the text in a pretty color doesn't add anything to the product, just pushes up the production (and retail) costs, and ends up with the pages being that glossy paper that always seems to reflect the light from the nearby lamp in just the wrong way as to make half the page hard to read. 
Give me a good quality paper stock and greyscale graphics anyday. A front or back page in color, for maps and such? Sure, but the whole book in color? I don't think it's really needed, personally.
Give me a good quality paper stock and greyscale graphics anyday. A front or back page in color, for maps and such? Sure, but the whole book in color? I don't think it's really needed, personally.
homerjsinnott
Mongoose
Hurray for grayscale!
The King: You print using four colours to produce the rest.
As for greyscale; I find it suitable for dark fantasy settings. But unfortunately I think full colour is the way to go. You add a whole dimension of information to images.
I do not care if the text is in black and white, as long as images are printed in color.
Having some experience with printing RPGs, I know that the cost does not necessarily has to be that much higher just because you print in four colors.
Page count, number of printed copies (cost goes down the more copies you print), and the quality of the paper are factors that add more to the cost.
This is of course the situation of printing books in Sweden, perhaps it is different in other countries, but I would guess that the same factors are what it revolves around there too.
As for greyscale; I find it suitable for dark fantasy settings. But unfortunately I think full colour is the way to go. You add a whole dimension of information to images.
I do not care if the text is in black and white, as long as images are printed in color.
Having some experience with printing RPGs, I know that the cost does not necessarily has to be that much higher just because you print in four colors.
Page count, number of printed copies (cost goes down the more copies you print), and the quality of the paper are factors that add more to the cost.
This is of course the situation of printing books in Sweden, perhaps it is different in other countries, but I would guess that the same factors are what it revolves around there too.
Wulf Corbett
Mongoose
You probably looked before you got the mail. That marks it read online, so it wouldn't look new. Or possibly someone posted, then deleted.Archer said:
Wulf
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
If you think about it, it is a lot more practical to have rulebooks in black and white - to aid things like photocopying character sheets and the like.
Setting books, OTOH, need a bit of colour to give the setting a bit of richness in the pictures etc.
By the way, I wonder when we'll see the character sheets and if they will produce some previews of Glorantha?
Setting books, OTOH, need a bit of colour to give the setting a bit of richness in the pictures etc.
By the way, I wonder when we'll see the character sheets and if they will produce some previews of Glorantha?
Wulf Corbett
Mongoose
I can't remember the last time I copied a character sheet... probably in the '90s... Between Excel and downloadable PDFs, I never use the books for sheets anymore.TrippyHippy said:
And I'm pleased to say I've never been so fond of throwing money away that I have EVER actually paid for pre-printed character sheets...
So, in short, this is not a factor for me. I'd rather have colour throughout, SO LONG AS there's a damn good artist and layout. But otherwise make it greyscale or black & white (and please, not a mess like the Omni core book or Testament!).
Wulf
Black and white printing, it feels so 90's, or even 80's. And most of all it feels so cheap compared to the standard of printing today.
True, color printing can look horrible, it can be messed up too. That is why it requires good layout, good artists etc.
If you have ever looked inside Legend of the Five Rings 3rd edition, you have a prime example of how a book in four color printing should look, when it looks good.
That is what I hope for, good color printing.
True, color printing can look horrible, it can be messed up too. That is why it requires good layout, good artists etc.
If you have ever looked inside Legend of the Five Rings 3rd edition, you have a prime example of how a book in four color printing should look, when it looks good.
That is what I hope for, good color printing.
King, if you can figure out an economical procedure by which you can create true colors on a mass printing press, then I suspect you will be a very, very very rich man indeed.
Pretty much all mass printing today has those '4 color dots' used -- its just that the technology has gotten to the point where you can't tell it on the real high-end printing presses without magnifying the image.
Some neat info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-color_printing
Pretty much all mass printing today has those '4 color dots' used -- its just that the technology has gotten to the point where you can't tell it on the real high-end printing presses without magnifying the image.
Some neat info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-color_printing
There are six-colour presses in use. In addition to CMYK, they use a slightly flourescent Orange and Green too. Hexachrome from Pantone used this system when introduced, god, probably a decade ago - but I seem to recall that Hexachrome now relies on slightly flourescent CMY inks...
Regardless, (SWOP CMYK) four-colour print is still the de facto standard, as Steve indicates.
Regardless, (SWOP CMYK) four-colour print is still the de facto standard, as Steve indicates.
The King said:
You do not print that way as much anymore.
Now you use the four basic colors, mix them, to get the rest of the color spectrum. And there is no need to use the "dot matrix" printing (I do not know what the term is in english, sorry).
Printing technology has advanced a lot thanks to computers.
The King
Cosmic Mongoose
Then I suppose a computer generated color shouldn't use the 4 primary colour anymore because you should have any colour generated by a binary code as for a graphic card which shows millions of colours.Archer said:
Where I want to lead is that if you compare a old VGA display (16 colours), then a SVGA one (256 colours) and then current display, you see that dots are totally merged in the colours.
That's what I meant in my initial post.
