How to work out paper weight in grams

To work out the actual physical weight of a printed item without the aid of scales can be calculated very simply. Paper stock is measured by ‘grams per square metre.’

In order to calculate an individual non-printed item use the following formula.
width(m) x height(m) x stock(gsm) = grams

Example A: a flat sheet measuring 270x613mm printed on 90gsm Matt Art would be calculated by the following:
0.270 x 0.613 = 0.16551
x 90 grams per square metre
= 14.8959 grams

Example B: A standard A4 sheet of 80gsm Bond copier paper would be calculated:
0.210 x 0.297 = 0.06237
x 80 grams per square metre
= 4.9896 grams

Please note that this does not take into consideration ink; special finishes like foiling or spot UV. A general rule of thumb I use is with each process add 1 gram to the equation.

Example A = 14.8959gram + cmyk 2 sides(+1), spot UV(+1) and foiling(+1).
Total weight would be rounded to 18 grams.

custom vinyl graphics

Producing custom vinyl cut graphics are a cost effective print process which is used in a variety of applications to enhance or add graphical information to just about any surface.

Recent applications (below) have been used to apply branding to a office desk and refrigerator.

www.neustandard.com coming soon!

unsharp mask settings for newsprint

Using the unsharp mask filter in Photoshop is the quickest way to employ this necessary step to ensure images are reproduced sharply in newsprint. Sure, smart sharpen gives you more control over the image, however when working within a fast-paced studio environment, time is not always on your side.

Newsprint is produced at a substantially lower quality to that of offset printing and will result in images looking blurred, especially when registration issues (moiré pattern) has occurred.

Before applying unsharp mask to an image; you must ensure that it is placed in InDesign at 100%.This enables the user to apply the correct amount of sharpening to the image.

Select the image, copy the ‘W’ (width) measurement from the control toolbar; open the image in Photoshop and resize the width from the image size menu.

Import the new image and the percentage will now be at 100%.

Open the image in Photoshop and select unsharp mask from the filters menu.

Enter the above settings. Make sure you are previewing the image at 100% to see the final result accurately. When applying the Unsharp Mask Filter the onscreen result should look excessive – but it is necessary in order to reproduce correctly.

+ the original

+ unsharp mask applied

Over the years I have found these settings to work effectively with the majority of shots – and have developed automated workflows which use this as the basis for apply sharpness to images.