U – Glossary of Print and Design Terms
Welcome to our comprehensive glossary of print and design terms. We are continually seeking to grow and improve this glossary, so if you spot any definition you do not agree with, a term that is missing, or have any comments in general, please email our reference team.
| Uncalendered | Papers that are not smoothed by going through the calendering process |
| Uncoated Paper | Paper that has not been coated with clay. Also called offset paper |
| Undercolour Addition (UCA) | Technique of making colour separations that increases the amount of cyan, magenta or yellow ink in shadow areas |
| Undercolour Removal (UCR) | Technique of making colour separations such that the amount of cyan, magenta and yellow ink is reduced in midtone and shadow areas while the amount of black is increased |
| Underside | Surface of seb paper which receives the impression of machine wire on papermaking machine |
| Unsharp Masking | Technique of adjusting dot size to make a halftone or separation appear sharper (in better focus) than the original photo or the first proof. Also called edge enhancement and peaking |
| Up | Term to indicate multiple copies of one image printed in one impression on a single sheet. “Two up” or “three up” means printing the identical piece twice or three times on each sheet |
| Upright | A term given to books bound on the longer dimension |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator, i.e. the address of a Web page or other Web resource |
| USB | Universal Serial Bus. A standard connection between computers and peripherals such as mice, keyboards, printers, hard discs and scanners |
| User Interface | The point at which the user interacts with a device or piece of software viewed on a monitor |
| UV Coating | Liquid applied to a printed sheet, then bonded and cured with ultraviolet light |
| UV Ink | In printing, solventless inks that are cured by UV radiation. They are used extensively in screen printing, narrow web letterpress and flexographic printing |
