This is one of the most commonly asked questions in the printing industry. The answer is very simple. First of all, there are millions of different types of monitors and monitor settings. Some are very bright, some are dark, some are average quality, some are great quality, etc. Also monitors use RGB, Red, Green, Blue, to show colors. Taking this into consideration, the most important thing now is the fact that a monitor has the ability to create a more vivid and intense color than actually possible. The reflection of the light going into your eye from the monitor, will give you a different color and brightness than the light reflecting the paper then going into you eyes. The monitor creates a light, while as the paper relies on the reflection of the ambient light, which is also different from place to place, to reflect an image into your eyes causing a different appearance.

No. We do not match any proofs on press. We print directly from your digital file.

When designing with a border, the more space you leave around the card, the better the card will look. If you leave very little room, any minor factor will cause the card to be slightly uneven either to bottom or left to right. This is completely normal in the printing industry. There are many reasons why this occurs. First of all, whenever you buy paper it comes cut to a size many times by a guillotine. If it is guillotine cut, there is a very good chance that the paper will be slightly smaller or uneven in some parts. After this, the paper is fed into printing machine. There is some tolerance also in the press. The next step is UV coating (if applicable). After, it gets either slit or again guillotine cut to get to the final size. Any minor movements thru out these processes may make a difference even as large as 1/16th of an inch in any type of printed piece. Ultimately, it is not recommended to design with borders, but if its necessary, we will make a great effort to try to keep the job as good as possible but always remember there is some inevitable tolerance that must be taken into consideration.

ElitePrintPros ONLY prints in CMYK. No Pantone, PMS, RGB, etc. Very important, when sending colors that are not in CMYK the computer will often try to convert them to cmyk, but most of the time the computer conversion looks nothing like if the designer would physically try to make a cmyk combination out of it.

UV coating is a liquid like a varnish with a lamination-like appearance used to instantly dry and shine printed paper. The liquid is applied with a coating tower on to the paper. After it passes through extremely intense Ultra Violet lights that instantly dry the ink on the paper. With the UV liquid we use, you well get extremely high gloss and shine as a standard for business cards and postcards. UV has many advantages. When UV coating is applied, the printed material will never fade off in someone's wallet or hand or even the sun.

Although some customers have done this, City Colors does NOT recommend this at all!!! We do not recommend writting and/or printing on UV coating.