Show...me...your print variations!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by G1911

I don’t know squat about printing so perhaps I phrased it wrong or used incorrect terminology. If they were able to make white in every card in the set, why could they not have simply made this spot white instead of the yellowish color to correct the error? Making an area of the card white does not seem to be difficult, as they were able to do it in every card in the set.

Typically white is made by just not printing an area like the borders.

The way the printed areas are made in a brief step by step

Original art/photos created
Color separations done, photographing the original through a filter to produce blue, magenta, yellow and black halftones. (On some cards, there are non- halftone areas like borders.)
Those generate large negatives known as the mask.
That is used to expose the plate which gets developed.

On the press, the plate gets wet, then inked with oil based ink.
That transfers to the "mat" which is a rubber roller (sort of)
Then transfers to the paper.

Yellow is usually printed first, followed by ... I forget if blue or magenta is next, then finally black (And glosscoat if you're making it at all glossy.)

There may be days between colors on a really big job unless a multi color press is used or multiple presses.

If there's a big colored spot, the two fixes are either making a new mask without the spot.
Or stoning off the spot on one of the darker colors, if you notice it early enough.

Color separations cost a LOT at the time, I wasn't involved in the pricing, but I think the place I worked got a couple hundred even on a small job in 1980-81

Stoning off the spot in the blue plate would give a yellowish spot since yellow would already be there. And you'd probably have to do it for red too if it was there.
A spot caused by debris could be on all 4 colors, or just on one.