new to duotone be gentle!! 1

[Benluke]

have been messing around with duotones photo's for said 2 colour jobs. and have read somehwre that it is best to use black and a colour? is this correct? As black is not one of my 2 colours is it ok just to use the two colours selected?? in this case a blue and red.

Also from what i see on screen how accurate is that to what will be printed, from what i have read, Not Very!!

Thanks again

Ben

 

[signal49]

Yeah, it's hard to tell what your duotone is going to look like when it gets on the press. I actually just designed a dutone for print for the first time last year, and I found the Photoshop book REALLY helpful. I searched around online for hours and couldn't find any advice. I had no idea what settings were ideal for the curves for each color, but the book explained it all. You're basically setting up the density/intensity of color in relation to the other. YOU tell it what percentage of Color 2 you want when Color 1 is X%. YOU control how much of each color shows through... It's a really cool process! Definately takes some experimenting. You may want to print out separations to get an idea of how they will overprint each other.

 

[Benluke]

thanks for the reply, when you say "i had no idea what settings were ideal for the curves for each color" is there "ideal" settings then cause i have just been messing with them until i get something that looks pretty cool!

Thanks

Ben

 

[signal49]

No, that's pretty much it!!

It's really trying to figure out how much of one color you want to be printed depending on how much of the other color there is.... Basically, think of your first color as a basic greyscale image. Then you're adding the second color as another greyscale image, but adjusting the curves to line up with certain tonal ranges of the first.

For example, the dutone I did was a yellow and black. I didn't want to the gold to disappear in the black. I wanted it to really stand out and be bright in the light areas, so I increased the percentage of yellow where the black percentages were low. But I also didn't want to yellow to make the black too light in areas of dark shadow, so I decreased it where black was the heaviest. It's all up to you to decide how you want the colors to interact with each other. Look at the book if you can get a hold of one. It's hard for me to explain because I don't do it much!

 

[MarcusStringer]

I think as a guide only....it depends on what you like.
But... you set up your duotone with your two colours, then in the curves drop your less dominant colour shadow percentage to around 40%.
If you leave both colours at 0%-100% then you will end up with a very dark duotone.

But as I said, its only a guide to start from.

And as signal49 said, do whatever you think looks good...

By the way the colours have to be the same as the colours in the rest of the job, if you introduce black into the picture then your job becomes a three colour job.

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[Benluke]

thanks for the info guys,

i have also been looking at maybe purchasing the powertone plugin, the results that you can achieve seem very good. Have any of you used this plug in or had any experience with it. basically is it worth the money?

Thanks

Ben

 

[MarcusStringer]

For the amount of doutones I do (which, on and off, is alot) it doesn't take that long to make them...
you can also set up an action to do all of them in the folder, go get a coffee, come back and their done...
without spending money when you don't have to..
also you printer will put you in the right direction for percentages for the duotones which they like....

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[signal49]

Good advice Marcus