Some Prepress, Preflight problems that can be fixed in Photoshop... 1

[misirlou]

Hi...I looked for some of these problems with the keyword search and was unable to find any advice that helped or made sense with my specific problems...so here they are, described as best I can, given that there is A LOT I don't know about production/prep work for printing. Basically I have this catalog layout, which includes PS files, and I just got back the Prepress-Preflight Summary from the printer and there are some problems, some of which are specific to Quark, but several that can be fixed through Photoshop. Any PS help or advice would be most appreciated. Also a preface...I am working with Photoshop 4.0.

1. The main logo for the company's catalog is printing as 4-color process. The catalog (and the logo) is two colors...black and a spot color, Pantone 356 CV. How do I get this logo to print as such? To make it more complicated for me at least, the logo file is flattened and I do not know how to distinguish the text (which should be black) from the graphic part (which should be P356CV)...they suggest two things which I will quote, as I only halfway understand either of them: "Convert to CMYK in Photoshop. Adjust colors in Photoshop using a CMYK color guide" and/or "Eliminate Pantone/CMYK in native files/EPS." On that last one, the CMYK is circled, meaning I suppose that I should eliminate the CMYK, but that rather conflicts with the first suggestion to fix the image...in anycase that's the basics of that problem, and I hope I've not confused anyone else nearly as much as I've just confused myself.

2. Also, this has more to do with Microsoft Word, but I'll throw it in anyway...we used some WMF files and the printer says these need to converted into EPS files...any way to do that in Photoshop?

3. Several of my graphics have a background fill of "none" and they say could therefore possibly print with jagged edges. How do I change these in Photoshop to having a background fill of white or such? They also suggest making a clipping path around the picture in Photoshop, which, given the types of drawings these are, I am not sure is possible or would even be a good idea. But advice on either method or a new way entirely would be appreciated...

Thanks for any and all help...

The Inexperienced Misirlou

 

[WizyWyg]

After reading your first problem the conclusion I came up with is to buy Adobe Illustrator if you're trying to print. Photoshop as great as it is is very limited when it comes to printing. When Im about to go and print logos and layouts for publishing, I alwasy bring my project into Illustrator to fix up or to change it so I can control how I want things to print.

Illustrator can handle printing out for publishing better than photoshp can

 

[blueark]

Yeah, you need Illustrator. But assuming you want to stick with Photoshop, let's take this one step at a time, keeping in mind that I haven't used version 4 in years!

1. You want your entire job to print out as two colors, which means that every element of that job MUST be one or both of those two colors. What you seem to be doing is inserting a four color logo into the mix. It doesn't matter if it only looks like two colors -- once it's CMYK it will be technically four colors.

There are a few ways around this. If the text and the graphic are separated enough, you could change the color mode to grayscale or bitmap, save it as a TIFF (NOT EPS!), bring it into quark, and color it in there.

If you have to do it in Photoshop, then you'll have to begin by changing it to grayscale. From here, you could change it to duotone and specify your two colors there. Save as an EPS file. Accuracy can be a problem though so don't count on it. A better way, if it's supported in PS 4, is to convert your grayscale image to multi-channel and in the channel palette, choose New Spot Channel. Make this pantone 356 and cut and paste the relevent parts into this channel. Save as a DCS file.

2. WMF files are predominantly vector based, so what your printer probably means is open them in Illustrator or Freehand and save them as EPS files from there. You may be able to import them into Photoshop, but they'll become pixel based images which may or may not be a problem.

3. Do you mean the background has been set to none in Quark? This can cause problems, because Quark never really does a good job of cutting out an image. To change it to white, you don't need Photoshop, just select your picture box in Quark, choose Item > Modify... and change the box color from none to White.

If the image has to be cut out, then clipping paths are definately the way to go. If it's on a white background already, you don't have to be too accurate.


Finally, if you can get this to work, you can take comfort from the fact that you will have learnt some very valuable techniques. Prepress work can get very complicated, especially when using spot colors, so I wish you the very best of luck with it!

 

[misirlou]

Wow, thanks so much for the responses, particularly to you, blueark, for taking so much time to spell this all out for me. I just talked to another designer that I was working with about the Word files...the reason we had them as word files was because they are originally drawings from AutoCAD, which is tricky to convert so that it will appear in Quark right, so I think I know what to do about those now. And I will definately try the Illustrator route, but I think I am going to have to do this logo in Photoshop...I've not tried the advice yet but it sounds like it will work for my purposes.

Thanks again...you've definately saved a stressed out designer from worrying her way through the weekend.

 

[afral]

I, too have not worked in PS4 in years. Blueark -- was there Grey Component Removeal and or Under Color Removeal in color settings? I just today had to create a two color snap from a process file. It was rather tricky with channels at first. Then I changed the snap to RGB -- set the Grey Component to MAX -- changed the mode back to CMYK. This routine yield a full tone black channel which helps many times in this situation. Let freedom ring!

 

[johnserna]

Illustrator or freehand or any vector based program is the way to go. If you're stuck with a pixel based logo, this is what I suggest:

CMYK files produce 4 plates. Any element that in photoshop is painted at 100% in any of the four colors will render 100% solid once the plates are separated. In other words, if an object is 100% yellow in photoshop it will render 100% black on the separated plate. The printer can use this plate with any spot ink regardless of the color.

I am assuming that the company logo is composed of solid black elements and solid green (PMS356) elements. By solid I mean with no gradiations.

A quick solution in potoshop would be to make sure the elements you want to separate in your logo are either 100% cyan, 100% magenta, 100% yellow or 100% black. If I have two separate elements in my photoshop file painted 100% of two of the basic CMYK colors what I'll get is two separate solid plates (which are all black)

Make sure the type in the logo is 100% black and the graphic element 100% of any of the others. In photoshop, delete any pixels in the other channel so you get just two plates. Then you can tell the printer to use the non-black plate for the PMS 356 run.

It is not so much what color it looks before separation what matters but how the color composition falls in the target separation.

I hope I just didn't ruin your weekend!
Best!