CMYK printing allows for a full spectrum of different hues in your folder design. Photo Credit: Konstantin Kokoris

• Design Color For Kitchen
• Design Color Folders
• Design Color Folder Free
• Design Color For House
• Design Color Folder Template

Choose a folder panel from the list above. NOTE: you can add printing to all 4 panels; Click 'Add' to upload your image; Once uploaded, use the grip handles and rotate button to align/resize your image on the folder panel; Click 'Save Panel' or 'Remove' to start over; Select another panel and repeat the 4 steps above, or click 'Next' when finished. All pockets can be full color. In addition, you can print on the inside of the folder in black ink or a color of your choosing. Custom student folder orders must be in quantities of 100 or more. Stock folders come pre-designed and are ready to ship whenever you need them! The designs shown will ship within 2 business days and can be ordered in.

From the name alone you might think that custom, 4-color process folders mean you’re limited to only using four colors in your design. In truth, it allows you to use more colors in your folder design than any other available imprint method.

4-color process printing reproduces the colors in your design by mixing different quantities of cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) ink. The ink is mixed during the printing process itself, much like a color printer from your home or office. This differs from PMS spot printing folders, which use pre-mixed ink and has a limit to the amount of colors you can use in one design.

Why use 4-color process?

4-color process is the only way to accurately reproduce color photography. Photo Credit: Chuck Nivens

The best reason to use 4-color process printing is that it allows you to print color photographs; in fact, it’s the only imprint method where color photography is possible, and it reproduces them with very little loss of color quality.

However, the colored elements in your design may have a slight change in tone when printed in 4-color. This isn’t as noticeable in detailed illustrations and graphics that use multiple colors, but graphic elements like solid colored backgrounds and logos may not look as vibrant, especially when they use only a few colors.

The three color design rule

The easiest way to decide whether or not your folder design should use 4-color process or PMS spot printing is to adhere to the three color rule. If your folder design has three colors or less, then you’ll probably have better results with PMS spot printing because the colors will be richer and more exact. Four colors or more, and you’re going to want CMYK printing.

The same goes for black-and-white photography–it technically only uses one color (black) to create different tones and shades. Even though 4-color process is the only option for color photos, your black-and-white photos should always be printed in PMS for the sharpest results.

When counting colors, be sure not to count two different tones of the same hue as different colors. PMS printing can reproduce a wide range of color tones using different densities of the same colored ink. For example, a greater density of blue ink can look like dark blue, while less density comes out as light blue.

Although the design on this page contains many different tones, they're all shades of the same color, which means you could print it with PMS ink. Photo Credit: Jenelle Koles

Limitations of 4-color process printing

Although printing with 4-color process lets you use multiple colors in one design, there is still a limit to what you can do with it. This is due to the fact that some colors cannot be accurately created from a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink.

These colors include:

• Navy
• Dark Blue
• Orange
• Silver
• Metallic Colors
• Fluorescent Hues

Since 4-color process mixes inks during the printing process, the colors in your design will not be completely accurate. They may be slightly brighter or darker than you expect. This isn’t an issue in a color photograph, but it can make a difference when branding, especially if you want your brand colors to be an exact match to the rest of your marketing materials.

If your design absolutely has to feature these colors and you have to use 4-color processing, your best bet is to choose a spot printing option with PMS. This means that after your 4-color folder is finished printing, it’s run through again and a layer of PMS ink is applied to correct the color issue.

Orange can be a problematic color for 4-color process if you want it to precisely match your brand. Even if you're using CMYK printing, you may want to have areas with orange (or other problematic colors) spot printed with PMS ink. Photo Credit: Paweł Windys

Designing in CMYK mode

When designing your folder in the graphic editing program of your choice, make sure you’re working in CMYK mode instead of RGB mode. RGB mode is intended for digital images and graphics, so it’s usually the default setting; however, submitting a design to your printer in RGB mode will force the printer to convert the colors to CMYK.

It’s much better if you either design the entire project in CMYK or convert your files to CMYK yourself before sending it to a printer. This gives you a better degree of control if and when there are issues regarding a loss of color quality. You can make your own adjustments as necessary instead of leaving it in the hands of your printer.

Request a digital proof to finalize the design and to insure the colors look exactly the way you intended. The digital proof will be what the final printed product looks like, which means it will have already been converted to CMYK.

Using the right resolution for 4-color process

If you’re creating a folder design using photographs, then you want each photo to have the highest resolution possible. Low resolution photos (like the ones you find online) won’t reproduce as nicely using 4-color process printing.

All your design elements and photographs should be in at least 300 dpi, if not higher. This may require you to take your own photographs using a high resolution digital camera or to scan photographs with the scanner set to a high resolution.

If your computer can handle it, try to save the design elements in as high a resolution as possible. You can always go down to 300 dpi when it comes time to print, but you can never go back up in resolution without there being some significant loss of quality.

Be sure to use the highest resolution possible for your 4-color photos and images so they're reproduced with the sharpest possible clarity. Photo Credit: Highscore Creative

Text considerations

Printing with 4-color process requires you to be more careful with the way you use text–especially colored text. Any colored font on your folder should be in at least 12 pt or higher. Anything less and the ink may bleed, causing a sort of aura of color around the text.

The same effect can occur whenever you print light colored or white text on top of a dark background. However, in this scenario it’s the color from the background bleeding into the text itself.

If you’re using a photograph or detailed design as the background for your folder, you may run into some readability issues with your text. Lighten the areas of your design where your text is going to go to make it more legible.

Choosing a stock for 4-color printing

White stock is the best choice for 4-color printed folders. Photo Credit: Linda Hawkins

To reduce any color distortion when printing in 4-color process, pick an appropriate stock. A white paper stock is best since it will have virtually no effect on the color value of your ink.

Printing on dark or colored stock, on the other hand, will distort the colors in your design. Imagine using yellow markers or crayon on black paper; the stock is so dark that the yellow might end up looking more like brown. CMYK ink operates on similar principles.

Likewise, textured paper can also create color distortion. Your best option for 4-color process is a white, smooth, glossy paper stock.

This doesn’t mean that your folder needs to have a white background. You can give your folder a color background that won’t interfere with color quality by incorporating it directly into your design.

Using other imprint methods with 4-color process

4-color process is compatible with any other available imprint method, which helps to compensate for its limitation. PMS spot printing can be applied to your 4-color folder to correct color flaws and to create more accurate branding.

Use embossing to add texture to your design and make certain elements pop out at the reader. Adding a textural element with embossed folders can help make up for the fact that you shouldn’t use a textured stock with 4-color process.

Metallic colors look muted when printed with 4-color process, so apply metallic PMS ink or metallic foil stamping instead. This creates a shiny, reflective effect that makes your folder design stand out.

Add a coating

Folder coatings are applied after the printing process to help the stock stay durable and to enhance the look and feel of the folder. Here is a nice guide to presentation folder coatings.

UV finish makes the colors in 4-color processing look their brightest, much like an actual photograph. However, like a real photo, it doesn’t offer the best durability.

Aqueous coatings are much more durable and different aqueous coatings create different textural effects, but the colors won’t look as bright as they will with UV coating. Choosing the best coating depends on what’s more important to you: the look of the photos or the durability of the folder itself.

Conclusion

The best aspect of 4-color process printing is the amount of options it gives you when creating a color presentation folder.

Four-color process gives you the most freedom with regard to using as many different hues as you desire. Photo Credit: Veronica Varetsa

Color is a strong aspect of design, but it also factors into branding and marketing as well. Emotion and color are strongly related, and being able to use a wide range of different colors means you can invoke a wide range of emotions from a single image.

Was this article helpful for you? Any tips related to 4-color process folders that we forgot to mention? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.

This post is a part of our Presentation Folders 101 product guide.

The desktop is the face of a computer. It shows your daily routine, work process, and kind of your personality. Typical folder icons are hard to navigate through because of their same boring yellow color. The brain processes visuals better, so coloring folders can help you classify and increase productivity. So, how to change folder color?

There is a built-in complex method, and there is a simple one, but it requires the installation of additional software. Let’s talk about both…

Change Folder Color in Windows (the easy way)

Design Color For Kitchen

The easiest way to change folder color in Windows is to use folder colorizer software. In such programs as Folder Marker, you can use ready colors for your folders comfortably and change the color in 2 clicks.

1. Right-click needed folder
2. Choose “Mark Folder” and click on the color you want to apply

If you want to deal with folders this way, then you need to download and install the program here – change folder color in Windows . This will add a new item to the folder’s popup menu: “Mark Folder”, and will be able to change folder color in two clicks.

A free version of Folder Marker is enough to paint in all basic colors (red, green, and blue – in two clicks, but to see the rest – you need 1 more click), and in the Pro version all colors are visible at once + dark and light shades are present. Plus more icon tags and other useful features.

Change Folder Color in Properties in Windows

Windows has a built-in way to change the folder icon. But there are no ready-made colored icons. So, we need to search for them first. We can use icon sites and download something similar from the Internet.

• How to change folder color in properties

1. Go to icon site, for example – https://icon-icons.com

2. Download icons that have different colors. You can find these icons by typing “folder” + color. For example “folder pink” Save in ICO format.

3. Choose the folder you want to colorize
4. Right-click on the folder, select the option – “properties”
5. Click on the “customize” tab
6. Select “Change Icon”
7. Click on “Search”, and find the saved icon
8. Hit “Apply”, and then “OK”. See new icon (with a new color)

Change Folder Color in desktop.ini file in Windows

All of the above can be done manually via editing a text file in Notepad. This may be needed if you are writing, for example, some script and you need to automate folder colorization.

• Hard way for technical guys…

Do the icon search again, or use previously downloaded icons.

1. First, you need to configure Windows so that desktop.ini is visible. For that: go to the Control Panel, open File Explorer Options, and click on the View tab. Check “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files”, “Hide extensions for known file types”. Click Ok.

2. Create a new text file in the folder you want to use a custom icon for, name it desktop.txt and NOT desktop.ini. We will explain later why.

3. Open this text file (desktop.txt) and add two lines:

[.ShellClassInfo]

IconResource=IconFileName.ico,0

where “IconFileName.ico” should be replaced with a real path to the icon file you want to use. For that, you can сlick on the Start button, type “name of the downloaded file”, and click on “Copy full path”.

4. The first line tells Windows there are custom folder settings.

The second line is the full path to the icon file and the icon index inside the file. For ICO file icon index always 0. For ICL, EXE, DLL files, there can be several icons inside and the first one has 0 index. F.ex. if there are ten icons inside a file, the index of the fourth icon will be 3.

5. Save the file, and rename desktop.txt to desktop.ini. It is important to rename the file to desktop.ini and not save a file directly called desktop.ini, or it won’t show the custom icon.

6. Make the next change to see your custom icon displayed. Set the Read-only attribute for the folder itself. We can’t do it from the Windows user interface, but we can use Command Prompt. Press Win+R on the keyboard and type “cmd”. Then just press Ok.
7. You will see the Command Prompt window. Write attrib +r, and past your path of the folder. Use quotes if your path has spaces.

Design Color Folders

attrib +r [pathtofolder]

8. Now you can see that the icon of the folder – changed. If not, it will usually do so after several seconds, or sign out and sign in to restart the explorer process.

Design Color Folder Free

Color-coded folders system in Windows

It is time-wasting to search through all of your same looking folders. It’s better to organize your files in some structure – color structure. Using a color-coded system allows you to organize folders for yourself to easily navigate through thematics. A comfortable way for this process – using color-coded software. Change folders quickly, in 2 clicks.

Design Color For House

If you are interested in this topic, here is a detailed article on how to create it and how to use it –

Conclusion

Design Color Folder Template

Now you know how to change folder color in Windows in Properties, in desktop.ini file, or with the help of Folder Marker utility. Also, you see that you can make your own color-coded folder system for usability. Make dealing with folders easier.