Akuafoil Versus Cold Foil Printing

For some time now cold foil printing has been the go to process when you want to dazzle clients with your printed collateral. With cold foil printing, the printing process uses a standard printing plate to apply an adhesive to the substrate. The adhesive is then used to transfer foil onto the substrate. Finally, a CMYK full color process is used over the foil to create a shiny foil finish with the color of your choice. While this process is still very much a reliable one for long run print jobs, a new process, called Akuafoil, has risen to the top for shorter runs. While the file set up for Akuafoil printing is much like that for cold foil printing there are a few fundamental differences that separate the two different processes.

Akuafoil provides the same elegant foil finish as cold foil printing. However, Akuafoil utilizes a different printing process than traditional cold foil printing. With Akuafoil, a layer of silver ink is applied under regular colors, resulting in glimmering metallic accents on your printed pieces. Like cold foil, Akuafoil uses CMYK colors, offering you the chance to brand your business cards, post cards, brochures and so on with a variety of hues. Akuafoil even offers gradients in any CMYK color.

Setting up an Akuafoil file is slightly different than setting up a normal print file. Here are some requirements you will need to keep in mind:

• Your mask file should use white to indicate no foil and black to indicate where you would like your foil finish to appear.
• Your mask file and CMYK print file will need to perfectly align to ensure the best possible results are delivered.
• Akuafoil looks best in lighter colors. The darker your CMYK color is the less metallic the Akuafoil will look.
• If your CMYK file includes a white that is 100% K, it will appear silver in the finished product.
• You should avoid tiny or thin text as well as small artwork when using Akuafoil. Sans Serif fonts 12 point and higher work best.
• Be aware that if you choose to create knockouts in your Akuafoil mask or in the CMYK print file a thin white halo may surround the area. This may be avoided by stroking the area where the Akuafoil will be printed with extra 1-2 pixels. By doing so you will give the Akuafoil some room to bleed into the CMYK area and ultimately reduce the appearance of the halo effect.  Another option is to fill the knockout space with color to reduce the chances of the halo effect.

Akuafoil printing is simple and affordable for shorter run print jobs. At J.M. Field Marketing we offer both Akuafoil printing as well as cold foil printing for larger jobs. Contact us today to get a quote and brighten up your image among customers with luminous Akuafoil printing.