Printing from Acrobat 7: color is incorrect!!!

[Nohjekim]

I have just installed Acrobat 7 which came bundled with my new Indesign CS2.

After creating a test menu page and exporting it to PDF it appeared very nicely on the screen but when I printed it out on my Epson C88 inkjet printer, the color was way off.

I then opened the same file in Acrobat Reader 5 which I have been using for some time and the document printed out with very accurate color rendition.

Obviously I need to adjust something in the new reader but I don’t know what is causing this inconsistency in the color. I have always had things print from acrobat pretty much the way that they appeared on the screen.

Any help appreciated…

Mike

 

[MarcusStringer]

Check your Colour settings, under preferences>Colour Management

Make sure they are the same as your Acrobat 5 colour settings.

Also check that your Distiller colour settings also match.

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[Nohjekim]

Thanks: I'll check it out.

Mike

 

[Nohjekim]

Hi Marcus.

I can’t find anyplace to adjust color settings in Reader 7
The options under preferences are…

Accessibility
Forms
Full Screen
General
Identity
International
Internet
JavaScript
Multimedia
Page Display
Reading
Search
Security
Spelling
Startup
Trust Manager
Units
Updates

And I don’t find anything about color in any of these selections.

Mike

 

[MarcusStringer]

Oh...Acrobat Reader is a low end version of the program with almost no features compared to the full version you have with 7.

As such it does not support changing colour.

If you made the test document in InDesign and where happy with the colour in that. then you need to change Acrobat 7's colour setting to match InDesign's

Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[jmgalvin]

I assume that by referring to Acrobat 7, you really mean Adobe Reader 7 tht came bundled with Indesign.

When you dreated the Indesign doc, Did you use CMYK process colors? If so, your Epson probably doesn't recognize them correctly. It most likely only recognizes RGB. The color shifts can be dramatic.

The only way to get reasonable color fidelity on common inkjets is to use all RGB colors in indesign. Double click any swatch and change from cmyk to RGB.

On the Indesign pdf export, click the Advanced tab and select Leave Unchanged in teh Color menu.

Of course, if you're sending this out for professional print, you'll need cmyk colors, not rgb. The only way to get good color matches in cmyk is to purchase a high end color postscript printer whcih will start in the area of about $1100 and go up from there.

Using OSX 10.3.8 on a G4

 

[MarcusStringer]

Wow, people buy the standalone version of InDesign?? and not the Creative Suite??? hmmm


Marcus

http://www.midlandtypesetters.com.au

 

[Nohjekim]

I bought the stand alone because I was upgrading from an earlier version of InDesign and it only cost me $160. Same with PhotoShop CS, it's a lot cheaper to then buying the whole package a total cost of a little over $300 for both.

If the reason that the job prints out strange is because I am using the CYMK model as I always have, then why do the colors come out fine when I print the same document from Acrobat Reader 5? The colors don't look the same at all.

As far as sending this particular job to the printer that isn't really a problem since this job is 3 spot colors. I really make the selection of colors from my Pantone book, not how it prints out or appears on the screen. This is a rare case for me most of my jobs never go to a printer.

All of the jobs I do now, (I’m more or less retired, sold my advertising business years ago and work from my home) are menus, and I supply the restaurants with PDF files on a CD, I stipulate what printer they are to buy, an Epson C series, (because they are cheap and use waterproof inks) and I supply the folders, and a good quality paper for them to print the menu on. They print the menus out as they need them, seldom more then 100 copies.

This works out well since they have to come back when ever thy need revisions (several times a year in most cases) so it generates a steady income and allows them to have a nice 4 color menu with only a small outlay for printing. Once they have the original menu revisions can be handled via. E-mail.

I include Acrobat Reader on the CD I supply them and have never had a problem with color consistency. That’s why it is important to me that the documents print out correctly from Acrobat Reader.

For now I will just tell everyone to keep using reader 5; but I still would like to know why the difference with 7? I have changed many times over the years and not had a problem before.

Mike Hawthorne

 

[jmgalvin]

The easiest thing, for your purposes, woudl be to just work in RGB all the way. Everything should work out fine then.

Occasionally I have ot do stuff that's gonna be run on a regualr inkjet and then duplicated on a color copier. I just use RGB for that.

Were you exporting RGB pdfs earlier (pdf esport window/advanced/ color) possibly? Or perhaps Adobe introduced new color interpretation with Reader 7. They introduced commenting with Reader 7 so it's possible they altered the print engine also.

Using OSX 10.3.8 on a G4

 

[Nohjekim]

I'll try changing one page of this job to RGB and print it out and see what happens.

As I said this job is for a chain so it is going to a printer and is spot color.

But as you say I can do the inkjet jobs anyway I want so I'll give it a try and see what happens.

Thanks...

Mike