We did a lesson on trapping, so here is the information on it that I learned! Trapping is something that you can do when you are printing out materials. Sometimes when things overlap on your designs, the printed out version may look different from what you see on the screen. Here are some things to keep in mind.

1. When printing, you can have a black or a rich black. A rich black will appear more “black” on a printed piece of paper compared to regular black. The regular black uses 100% black ink, but rich black uses a mix of the CMYK inks to get a richer color on paper.
2. A tutorial on how to do trapping: add a stroke onto the object, convert the stroke to a path, fill that stroke with a mix of the two colors needed for trapping, then use the pathfinder to subtract the shape of your stroke.
3. You can mix colors by setting a color of the stroke that is a mix of the two initial colors.
4. When printing, some mis-registration can occur when the paper shifts. This is important to include trapping so that if there is shift, you don’t have to worry since you have an overlap.
5. Sometimes when two colors are overprinted on each other, a third color is created. It can be intentional, but most of the time this third color that is created is not wanted. Trapping would prevent this appearance of a third color in your print.
6. In a spread of a letter, the above object gets “knocked out” of the object below it and the above color is extended out. In the choke of a letter it is the opposite; the above color gets “knocked out” and background color is brought in to ensure proper trapping.
7. There is a different between knocking out a color versus overprinting it. Knocking out will just have the top color, while overprinting will have a mix of the two.
8. When you are overprinting, a third color will appear. It will be a mix of the two colors printed on top of each other.
9. It is better to overprint any small text that you have than to knock it out and shrink. You want the text to be able to be read.
10. In trapping cases involving any smaller type, your eyes easily register changes in the shape of dark objects. To avoid your type being overly bold when spreading your letters, instead choke the background.

And that is all I learned about trapping! It helped me learn more about print, and I hope it helps you too in your next printing project!