Color Matching Info needed!

[Nohjekim]

Can someone point me to a good easy to understand article on controlling color between Photoshop, PageMaker and on to printing press.

I've never been sure what I am supposed to set to what. I usually don't have a lot of problems when I am using digital printing but when I use offset printing I usually have color matching problems.

I'd like something that clearly states settings in Photoshop, and how I incorporate these into my PageMaker Document and then on to the Printer.

Also what information should I be getting from the printer to help me coordinate with them?

Any help appreciated ...

Nohj

 

[BionicJohn]

Hi, Nhoj,

I don't about easy to understand, but it's all there in the PM Helpfiles which is more of less the same as in the User Guide (p 219).

Using Colour with PM has never been one of my strong points....

Iechyd da! John
17:34 29/03/03 GMT

 

[Nohjekim]

I was hoping to find a shortened and more concise explanation of the basic procedure.

I.e. set photo shop to X, Y and Z and then set PageMaker to A, B and C.

Then tell your printer D, E and F, if you get what I mean?

I usually find that the people doing it can often explain it better then the people who write the manuals. I hope that that is true in this case too.

What prompted this is the fact that my computer crashed a few days ago and I had to reinstall everything, so it seems like a good time to revue this issue since I have to set it all up again. I had over time by trial and error arrived at a setup that worked, but naturally I didn’t write anything down.

Now I would like to see it in black and white, I will go back and review the manuals though as you suggest.

Thanks...

Nohj

 

[BionicJohn]

I don't know if this helps:

Colour Management:

A Starting Point

You need to use PageMaker's color management system. Here are the settings provided to me by Len Hewitt which I have been using with success:

Color Management: ON

Monitor Simulates: Composite Printer

New Items Use: Kodak ICC

Kodak ICC Settings:

Monitor: Select the monitor profile you created with Adobe Gamma from Photoshop

Composite Printer: Select the ICC Profile for your desktop printer (if applicable)

Separations Printer: Select the same profile as your Photoshop CMYK setup (SWOP Coated for instance)

RGB Image Source: Same as your Photoshop RGB working space (AdobeRGB for instance)

CMYK Image Source: The same as your Photoshop CMYK setup.

CMYK Images from Photoshop will then appear pretty similar in PageMaker to Photoshop. It doesn’t matter whether you embed profiles when saving from Photoshop as you are telling PageMaker what profiles to assume.

Do NOT embed ICC profiles in greyscale images from Photoshop - this confuses PageMaker’s color management system and can lead to all kinds of problems.

-- thanks to Len Hewitt for providing these settings

See also:

http://www.cdds.co.uk/adobe/index.html

Iechyd da! John
16:45 30/03/03 BST