Davino
Member
- Joined
- 2026
- Posts
- 31
- Geo
- Los Angeles, Taipei, and Riga
Some of you have seen my earlier posts. I'm starting fresh here as I think it's best to present the larger picture for outside perspective before responding to my printer.
Project: a scholarly illustrated edition, now 5 years in development, 400 pages, 21cm x 26 cm with 240 new or archival architectural photographs. Stock is Arctic Volume White (AVW) 130gsm – chosen specifically for its natural, matte-like finish despite being a coated sheet. The aesthetic intent of this book sought to reflect that tactile, non-glossy quality (not specifically with regard to images, but everywhere else). I can accept the UV gloss and saturation on photos, but not the text gloss and resultant glare, and the rest of the virgin areas of the pages should preserve the natural character of AVW, and not undergo added coating. We moved production from Taiwan to Eastern Europe specifically to preserve the option of using this stock and preserving its attributes.
The European printer, I later learned, uses UV printing. I was never informed that UV LED inks cure to a noticeably glossy finish. The matte character I was paying a premium for, with the design intention to remove every impediment to readability (such as glare) in this challenging, detailed text, with annotations in a separate Pantone grey spot, is being undermined by the ink sitting glossy on the surface. It was the printer that unilaterally chose to print UV, when in fact, they have both traditional offset and UV Heidelberg presses. No warning was given on this inevitable outcome of UV, nor even that it was being employed and that this would make a difference.
It was at the point of printing a wet scatter proof that the issue of UV LED printing's gloss was revealed for to us: all text has visible sheen affecting readability under certain lighting, a problem we invested great effort in designing out from the start. The overall look contradicts what the stock was chosen to do.
The printer's response has been to shift all responsibility to us. They've proposed a UV matte varnish overprint as a potential solution – but have acknowledged they've never applied this as an overprint before, saying they cannot guarantee results, and expect us to fund all testing. And the implication is clear: if it doesn't work, that's my problem.
I need to be clear about our situation: finishing this book is the priority, at all costs. I'm committed to seeing this through. I also cannot afford to lose this relationship with the printer – we're locked in now; cascading effects of the process to this point have bound me to them: the contract proof, the detailed calibration of all 241 images to their UV LED proof, representing hundreds of hours of photo editing work with very capable photo editors, all at great cost. Walking away isn't an option. But the next test of their matte overprint varnish will run $1000-$1400. And the process itself adds another $3000 to the production run, this time, and for all subsequent printings and foreign language editions. This is on top of already paying a premium for the Pantone grey spot ink on the hundreds of margin notes (annotations in the scholarly edition). All this will force the book to remain a complex and expensive to reproduce edition.
So my questions are practical:
Thank you for any insight.
(Below: scatter wetproof on a 900 x6030mm sheets below, for further context. The arrangements for these images took years and in some cases, contacting very elderly photographers in Switzerland and Germany now in retirement homes to gain their permissions. Extensive efforts involved in producing this work on every front.)
Project: a scholarly illustrated edition, now 5 years in development, 400 pages, 21cm x 26 cm with 240 new or archival architectural photographs. Stock is Arctic Volume White (AVW) 130gsm – chosen specifically for its natural, matte-like finish despite being a coated sheet. The aesthetic intent of this book sought to reflect that tactile, non-glossy quality (not specifically with regard to images, but everywhere else). I can accept the UV gloss and saturation on photos, but not the text gloss and resultant glare, and the rest of the virgin areas of the pages should preserve the natural character of AVW, and not undergo added coating. We moved production from Taiwan to Eastern Europe specifically to preserve the option of using this stock and preserving its attributes.
The European printer, I later learned, uses UV printing. I was never informed that UV LED inks cure to a noticeably glossy finish. The matte character I was paying a premium for, with the design intention to remove every impediment to readability (such as glare) in this challenging, detailed text, with annotations in a separate Pantone grey spot, is being undermined by the ink sitting glossy on the surface. It was the printer that unilaterally chose to print UV, when in fact, they have both traditional offset and UV Heidelberg presses. No warning was given on this inevitable outcome of UV, nor even that it was being employed and that this would make a difference.
It was at the point of printing a wet scatter proof that the issue of UV LED printing's gloss was revealed for to us: all text has visible sheen affecting readability under certain lighting, a problem we invested great effort in designing out from the start. The overall look contradicts what the stock was chosen to do.
The printer's response has been to shift all responsibility to us. They've proposed a UV matte varnish overprint as a potential solution – but have acknowledged they've never applied this as an overprint before, saying they cannot guarantee results, and expect us to fund all testing. And the implication is clear: if it doesn't work, that's my problem.
I need to be clear about our situation: finishing this book is the priority, at all costs. I'm committed to seeing this through. I also cannot afford to lose this relationship with the printer – we're locked in now; cascading effects of the process to this point have bound me to them: the contract proof, the detailed calibration of all 241 images to their UV LED proof, representing hundreds of hours of photo editing work with very capable photo editors, all at great cost. Walking away isn't an option. But the next test of their matte overprint varnish will run $1000-$1400. And the process itself adds another $3000 to the production run, this time, and for all subsequent printings and foreign language editions. This is on top of already paying a premium for the Pantone grey spot ink on the hundreds of margin notes (annotations in the scholarly edition). All this will force the book to remain a complex and expensive to reproduce edition.
So my questions are practical:
- UV LED on premium matte-finish stock: Should a professional printer have flagged this gloss risk, noting its departure from conventional offset printing's behavior, particularly when the stock choice itself signals aesthetic intent?
- Accountability: When a printer's technology creates an outcome the client didn't anticipate and wasn't warned about, where does responsibility lie?
- The matte varnish proposal: Is asking me to fund an untested solution reasonable? What should I expect in terms of confidence and guarantees?
- Placing responsibility back on the printer: If the consensus is that some accountability legitimately belongs with the printer, how would you recommend I frame that conversation without damaging the relationship I need to preserve?
Thank you for any insight.
(Below: scatter wetproof on a 900 x6030mm sheets below, for further context. The arrangements for these images took years and in some cases, contacting very elderly photographers in Switzerland and Germany now in retirement homes to gain their permissions. Extensive efforts involved in producing this work on every front.)
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