Six plates out of a browser tab

A sticker looks like the simplest job in print. One shape, one logo, a cut line. It is also the job most likely to come back.

Here is what leaves Popcorn when you export one, and why each piece is there.

Four process inks

Cyan, magenta, yellow and black, separated. Not an RGB image with a note asking the printer to convert it. The conversion is where colour goes wrong, and doing it at our end means the numbers you approved are the numbers on the plate.

One spot ink, set to overprint

A brand green is usually a specified ink, not a mix. It gets its own separation. And it is set to overprint rather than knock out, because a hairline of white paper showing at the edge of a shape is the most common visible defect in a short run, and it is entirely avoidable.

A die line on its own plate

The cut contour is not artwork. It is an instruction for a different machine, and it belongs on a separation the cutter recognises rather than as a magenta stroke somebody has to remember to delete.

Packaged as PDF/X-4

Which is the format that says: this file is complete, the colour is defined, the transparency is live rather than flattened, and nothing here depends on a font you do not have.

Why this is not a filter

None of the above is a visual effect. It is a set of promises about a file, and each one either holds or does not when the job runs. We check them the only way that counts, which is by printing.