Ninefold PrintSpecialty Finishing
Foil Stamping, Embossing and Specialty Finishing
Finishing is where a printed piece stops looking printed. It is also where artwork that was fine for a flat run starts causing problems, because most finishes need their own separate file.
How Finishing Works
Each Finish Is a Separate Pass
Foil is not an ink. It is a metallic film applied with a heated die under pressure, which means tooling, a separate pass through a press, and its own artwork layer. The same is broadly true of the others.
Foil Stamping
A die is made, heated and pressed to transfer foil from a carrier film. Gold and silver are the common ones; matte, holographic and pigment foils exist too. Fine detail and very thin strokes are where it struggles.
Emboss and Deboss
Raising or recessing the sheet with a die, with or without ink. Blind deboss uses no ink at all and reads as restraint. Combination dies emboss and foil in one pass, which costs less than two separate operations.
Soft Touch and Spot Gloss
A soft touch laminate changes how the piece feels rather than how it looks. Spot gloss over it gives a contrast you can see at an angle, which is a common way to make a mark stand out without adding color.
Artwork Requirements
Each finish wants its own layer, as solid black vector, marking exactly where the effect goes. A finish specified in a comment on a PDF rather than as a layer is the most common reason a job comes back wrong.
What Moves the Cost
Roughly in order of how much difference each one makes. No price is published here because the answer changes with quantity, stock and which manufacturer the work suits, and a number that ignores those is a number you cannot rely on.
- Tooling, since a die has to be made for foil, emboss and deboss
- Whether the die already exists from a previous run
- Number of separate passes, as each is a pass through a press
- Coverage area, because foil is consumed by area
- Substrate, since coated and uncoated take finishes differently
- Registration tolerance, when a finish has to line up with printing
What to Send
Enough to get a comparable quote rather than five guesses. If some of it is not decided yet, say so, and it becomes part of the conversation instead of a blocker.
- What the piece is and what it is for
- Which elements should carry the finish, ideally as a separate layer
- Whether you want foil, emboss, deboss or a combination
- Stock, if it is already decided
- Quantity, and whether the piece will repeat
- Any existing die from a previous run
How We Produce It
Finishing That Does Not Slip the Schedule
Plenty of printers run flat sheets well and send finishing out, which adds a second facility to the job and is where schedules slip. We know which partners foil, emboss and die cut on their own equipment, route finishing-heavy work to them, and build the schedule around the finishing step when a second facility is the better route.
Related Reading
Worth Knowing Before You Specify One
What Makes Artwork Print Ready
Finishes are not colors. Each one needs its own layer in the file.
Read it →The Cheapest Quote Is Rarely the Right Shop
Whether finishing is done in house is the question nobody asks.
Read it →Why Your Brand Color Prints Differently
Coated and uncoated shift the same ink, and finishes change it again.
Read it →Get this made
Send us your spec, or what you have so far.