To help celebrate their 50th anniversary of keeping Madison and the surrounding communities beautiful, Madison Flower Shop commissioned graphic designer Paul Kazmercyk and Madison-based photographer Tom Hopkins to create this striking brochure highlighting the many facets of the busy shop’s floral and landscaping business.

Working with printer George Platt, the creative team decided to print the process color job on a top quality uncoated sheet. But wanting to be sure the photos “popped” they looked at what other creative people had done and found a piece that was printed with a black “Touch Plate”. This solved the problem that often occurs when printing on an uncoated sheet where images look washed out because the ink gets absorbed into the paper. (Unlike with a coated sheet where the ink sits on the surface and generally looks good). It’s often the black plate that suffers the most).

(Note: You can see all of these steps in the step-by-step tutorial  below). Working with Tom’s photographs in Adobe Photoshop, I started with the traditional four ink colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). I duplicated the black plate which became the black “Touch Plate”. Working on what was now a fifth plate, I “opened up” the lighter areas using the curves function in Photoshop until I had roughly about 1/2 to 2/3 of the original black in that plate. I then used Photoshop’s sharpening tools on that plate to add that extra touch of crispness on the uncoated sheet.

No one involved with the project had ever worked with a black “Touch Plate” before so we ran a press proof using the five-plates (four plates plus the black “Touch Plate”). The press proof was a success. The results actually exceeded everyone’s expectations and the brochure was a success.

You can see the process below step-by-step: