Need bulk copies of a catalog, brochure, or direct mail piece? Check into a local or regional printer with a web press. The palpable difference between a sheetfed press and a web press is that a web press prints on rolls of paper instead of sheets of paper. They are huge machines that not only print the piece but fold, bind, and trim it in one cycle.

Many of us take jobs that have need of more than a few copies down the street to the type of quick-copy shop you find in a storefront or as an extension of your local office-supply store. The decisive point is that they use a high-quality, high-speed versions of office copiers and they rarely use printing presses.

Adhering ink to paper is different than adhering toner to paper--printing quality, in general, is better compared to copier quality. In addition, having a job reproduced on a copier can be more expensive than having it printed on a printing press.

As a matter of fact, if you regularly print over 1000 pieces at a quick-copy chain, you'll save money by finding a commercial printer with a printing press.

You often pay a premium for the convenience and speed of a quick-copy operation so don't be hesitant to insist on good quality. At its best, a system such as the Xerox DocuTech is capable of producing crisp, clear, copies so you shouldn't settle for less.

When dealing with copy shops and small printers, find out who will print your project. Be sure to ask early on if a printer has the equipment to reproduce your project in-house. If they are sending it out, you may get a better price by going direct the one who does the work.

Complex black and white and all solid-color, mainly 2- and 3-color, work typically requires the better quality of an offset printing press. Many types of projects such as booklets, brochures, newsletters, letterheads, business cards, and envelopes fall into this category. The process is more expensive than a copier because a paper, polymer, or metal plate must be made from your artwork or computer file.

An offset press reproduces the fine detail and subtleties of high-resolution photographs and artwork better than a copier; it does a far better job reproducing large gray tones and solid areas of color; and, because it can print larger sheet sizes, your design can extend or "bleed" off the edge of the paper.

There are two ways to turn up at matching a specific color. You can choose a specific ink color that matches it, called a "solid" PANTONE® Color or you can combine four standard colors to match it as closely as possible, referred to as "process" colors. The alternative method is to print the job using the 4-color process. The process colors are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). This combination of colors can be screened to represent just about any color value across the spectrum. Four-color process is best for printing color photographs and any other material that contains a range of colors that cannot be reproduced using two or three solid colors. The limitation of the 4-color process is that it cannot reproduce some colors as vividly, and is typically more expensive than the solid color method.

Choose the least costly process that can effectively produce a professional-looking job. The cost of printing is based mainly on the value of the equipment and the amount of time it takes to complete the job. Prices increase when you run a simple job on equipment used to print more complex jobs and/or larger sheets of paper. The rule of thumb is to avoid being the smallest job in a big shop or vice versa.