ALL >> Marketing >> View Article
What You Need To Know About Dotgain

Dot gain (the amount a dot grows when printed on press) is caused by ink spreading as it is absorbed by the paper. To determine the amount of dot gain occurring, you need to know the difference between the tonal values as defined in the file/image, and the corresponding halftone dot size measured on the press sheet.
Measuring Dot Gain
Using a densitometer, dot gain is measured from the 50% patch of each process color on the press sheet's color bar. Dot gain is the net percent increase in a 50% screen. For example, a dot gain of 20% would be due to a 50% screen in the file being reproduced at 70% on the press sheet.
More dot gain occurs in midtones than in quarter and three-quarter-tones. Quater-tone dot gain results in a 25% screen printing at 40% or so; three-quarter-tone dot gain results in a 75% screen printing around 88%. The is good to keep in mind when evaluating tonal values in a 4-color image or graphic.
ICC Profiles
Photoshop automatically compensates for dot gain when an image is converted from RGB to CMYK for print production. How an image is converted is determined by the ICC profile ...
... that is selected. An ICC press profile is a file that characterizes the color capabilities (including the amount of dot gain) of a particular press/paper combination (i.e. web press/coated paper).
Coated Papers: It is recommended using the SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc profile for converting RGB images into CMYK for those images printing on coated paper. The SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc profile can be found on the official SWOP website (www.swop.org), in the Resource Center section (www.swop.org/resources/).
Uncoated Papers: For uncoated paper, we recommend using the U.S. Web Uncoated v2.icc profile, which ships with Photoshop.
Rather than using profiles, Photoshop's Custom CMYK Setup can be used to determine how your RGB images are converted into CMYK; however, doing so will not result in as good of a conversion as using an ICC profile. If your image has already been converted to CMYK using Photoshop's default color settings, it will still print okay since Photoshop will have used its default profile (U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2.icc) for the conversion.
Total Area Coverage (TAC)
In 4-color printing, if you adjusted the darkest area of your image to be 100% of each color (CMYK), you would have a TAC of 400%. In theory, this would result in a very deep shadow area; however, in reality, it would be a mess on press. Having too high of an ink coverage leads to problems such as ink contamination and drying problems. To avoid these problems the TAC for uncoated paper should not exceed 280% and 300% for coated paper. Each of the profiles recommended above use appropriate TAC limits as part of their characterization data set.
Add Comment
Marketing Articles
1. How Digital Experience Agencies Accelerate Modern Business Success?Author: Barry Elvis
2. Web Scraping Instacart Reviews Data | Instacart Reviews Api
Author: DataZivot
3. Torrid Infra Induction Cooktop Top 5 Reasons Why Torrid Infra Induction Cooktop Must Be In Your Kitchen Posted Onmay 16, 2025 May 23, 2025.by Nomit
Author: jpm industries
4. The Power Of Sound On The Go: A Deep Dive Into The Spotify And Uber Partnership
Author: Marketing Godfather
5. 5 Signs Your Business Needs Sales Outsourcing Services
Author: Dr Praveen
6. Why Your Business Needs A Digital Marketing Company Today
Author: Digital Shout
7. Forever Living Products Marketing Plan: A Proven System For Building A Sustainable Business
Author: Marketing Godfather
8. Why Modern Brands Must Rethink Digital Marketing In 2025
Author: 1into2 Digital
9. The Solar Appointment Experiment: Surprising Lessons After 6 Months
Author: Shan Tait
10. Seo Vs Google Ads – What Works Better?
Author: Bizz Buzz Creations
11. Expert Campaign Management In Cross-platform Marketing
Author: Barry Elvis
12. How To Measure The Roi Of Paid Advertising?
Author: Pixelrasa
13. Incredible Seo Packages From A Leading Kent Seo Agency
Author: SEO Agency
14. The Importance Of Rethinking Content Distribution In 2025
Author: tim seifert
15. Dubai’s #1 Branding Agency – Crafting Iconic Identities
Author: Tequila Branding & Web Agency Dubai