281: Thou shall learn about dot-gain for different paper stocks

Commentary As far as a digital image file is concerned, dot-gain doesn’t exist. Every dot making up a digital halftone image will stay exactly the same size no matter how many times you duplicate it. However, when you physically transfer the image to paper it’s a different story—they get bigger and the image or color tint gets darker. There are various reasons why dot-gain will almost always occur regardless of the paper stock used, but the main culprit is ink absorption during the drying process. Printing on coated stock will diminish the effect caused by dot-gain as the paper is less absorbent and the ink spreads less. This doesn’t mean that high-quality print should always be paired with coated stock as dot-gain can, of course, be compensated for....TS