West Coast Leaf ad prices
start at $170 for business card size ads.
Click here for a PDF of our regular rates.
See below for a full list of ad shapes and sizes.
Frequency discounts : 10%
off with agreement.
Click here for a PDF of your frequency savings.
Click here for a
handy chart of our ad shapes and sizes.
Click here for technical advice on preparing your
ad for newsprint reproduction.
Partial payments on any ad, special subscription packs, or multiple ad purchase, click below. Please remember to include a note with your payment indicating what the payment is expected to cover. Thank you.
West Coast Leaf: Full Page AdRegular Black and White Price, $2230 Full Color Price, $2650 |
West Coast Leaf: Three-quarters Page AdRegular Black and White Price, $1820 Add Full Color, $2175</p> |
West Coast Leaf: Half Page AdRegular Black and White Price, $1380 Full Color Price, $1640 |
West Coast Leaf: Quarter Page AdRegular Price Black and White, $800 Full Color Price, $960 |
West Coast Leaf: Eighth Page AdRegular Black and White Price, $470 Full Color Price, $565 |
West Coast Leaf: Double Business Card Size AdRegular Black and White Price, $310 Full Color Price, $370 |
West Coast Leaf: Business Card Size AdRegular Black and White Price, $170 Add Full Color Price $200 |
Special Services and Inquiries:Contact us and we will try to accommodate odd ad sizes, as well. Minimal layout and typographic services are included in insertion price. Call 510-215-8326 |
For best results, flatten all image layers and convert the ad into full-size TIFF or JPEG files at 300 dpi in CMYK format before sending your files.
For cleaner blacks and tones in color advertisements: Finish your artwork using CMYK mode, not RGB (that mode is used by computer monitors and the Internet). Newspaper presses use four print runs to make color images: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK). Blended images use multiple overlays of color to make the black portions, but too much ink on the paper makes images look smeary and increases the risk of visual disruption by misaligned color plates. (For more on this, see below.)
Do this: Drag the Photoshop control bar pulldown menu to the "Image / Adjustments / Selective Color" to open the command window. Select "Blacks." If mostly photo or blended output, check the "relative" button at the bottom of the box; click on "absolute" for output that is mostly graphic and fonts. Raise the black ink levels to +75% to +85%, and slide down all the other color settings range to -25%, -35% or lower. Use the preview checkoff box to see how far you can go without hurting the integrity or realism of the image. Set the image size to the specified dimensions of your ad at 200-300 lpi. Save the file, and email it to our offices.
Brighter midtones: Contrary to your onscreen image, too much color saturation in the midtones of a newsprint image can create a muddy look and lose detail. Using less ink will bring out people's faces and other mid-tones. In Photoshop, go to the toolbar and select Image / Adustments / Curves. It will open a window with a crosshair slide. Move the horizontal bar to the left by about 10%, click on the "OK" button, then save the file.
Ink Density: One of the best things you can do to improve newsprint color reproduction is to properly set the ink density. The sum of the percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow and black used in the darkest areas should not exceed 220%. Files submitted with ink densities higher than 220% will be automatically converted and may experience unexpected color shifts.
By default, Photoshop uses a magazine ink density of 300%. So using a Photoshop default setting, a near-black shadow area in a photo might have a CMYK breakdown similar to C: 75% M: 62% Y: 68% K: 90% (A total of 295%.) That's more ink than newsprint can handle. The excess ink that the paper can't absorb spreads out, smears and transfers to the opposite page much like a rubber stamp. So not only does that one image with too much ink density look dark and muddy, but the whole spread in the newspaper becomes an inky mess. You can change the default Photoshop settings by selecting Color Settings … from the Edit menu. In the Working Spaces section, select CMYK: Custom CMYK… and change the settings.
Dot gain and saving the final PhotoShop image: Our printer takes care of the 'dot gain' caused by the ink flow issues discussed above. When saving a file in photoshop, don't check the "embed color profile" checked. If it is checked, don't worry; it's no big deal and we'll fix it on our end.
Verify ink density with Adobe Acrobat: Our recommended settings are pictured below. Due to shifting of layers during import as a file, we do not recommend using PDF files. Send JPEG or TIFF files at full size 300 dpi resolution for best results. If you use PDF, flatten the layers to avoid unwanted changes in the appearance of your ad. For proofing, you can check the ink density on PDF files using Adobe Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader) using the Output Preview dialog box. At the bottom of the panel, turn on Total Area Coverage and change the default 280% to 220%. Anything that turns bright green is too dense. If nothing highlights green, your maximum ink density is correct.
