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The rate card will also tell you the line screen requirements of any photographs in the ad. If you look closely at every photograph in a newspaper, magazine, or any printed piece except an actual photograph, you'll notice it's broken into a pattern of dots. The better quality of the paper, the finer the dots can be. Because newsprint isn't the highest quality paper out there, the spaces between the dots have to be bigger or the dots will bleed into one another. That's why a newspaper has a fairly noticeable dot pattern or screen.

It's called a screen because it used to be produced by laying an actual screen over the photographic paper before it's exposed. Most likely your newspaper has an 85 line screen and any magazine your might print on glossy paper would be 133. Check your rate card for your paper's exact line screen. You won't have to worry about this if your art department is putting the ad together from original artwork.

Next: Odd sizes

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