Design Production: Print Workshop

Today we had a session in the mac suite on print, specifically focusing on colour.

CMYK known as process colours.

Looking at the use of colour within Adobe programs, Illustrator being the main focus.

Changing colour is achieved via the palette selection tool, under swatches.

Registration is in the swatch palette, used to put registration marks on the document/artwork for the printers reference.

Create new swatch and keep the name of the colour specfic to the CMYK percentages. New swatch via the drop down menu on the colour palette tool.

Preparation of the document before starting artwork, the colour palette should be prepared and ready before you start work.

Mise en Place - French term for having all the ingredients you need at hand, being fully prepared.

Change the way you view the swatches and view their names (CMYK percentages) as opposed to just the colour block.

Sometimes create swatches from your artwork if you need to use the colours later in the project or in a run/series of artwork. Via the drop down menu 'Add Used Colours' adds your used colours to the swatch list, without even having anything selected.

Used colours option adds little triangles into the corner of the swatches in the swatch list. 

 

Edit a swatch by double clicking the swatch you want to edit which opens further information for that swatch.

 

To slightly change a swatch without actually changing the swatch from the swatch menu select the swatch and then open the colour palette, which in effect will create a new colour but not alter the previous swatch.

Global swatch has two advantages over a non global swatch. Applying a global swatch establishes a link between other artworks that share the same swatch/colour. The global swatch links the colour in the swatch to the same colour in the artwork, updating the artwork if the global swatch is altered.

Create tints by selecting a swatch and then opening the colour palette, this will prompt the opening of the tint of the colour, which then can be altered keeping the CMYK codes the same but with a variation of the tint.

Process colour is a mix of CMYK whereas spot colours are just a printed colour, not made up of 

CMYK, a ready mixed ink. Spot colours would be picked due to cost.

 

CMYK requires 4 different layers of inks, spot colours only require 1 ink per colour. 

1 ink = 1 colour = 1 plate = cheaper printing.

Spot colour can keep the colour consistant because of the ready mixed ink made especially for said product, whereas CMYK can vary due to the levels of ink mixed on the page, regardless of the CMYK codes.

Pantone is a spot colour reference. Predominantly used in the UK/Europe.

If you're getting a job done with a certain printer, ask which spot colour references to use.

Reference to the colour via Pantone or another colour reference, will result in the printer matching up exactly to the colour you require.

Metallic and flourescent inks can be printed in spot colours but not in CMYK, certain other colour restrictions apply.

Coated and Uncoated refers to the stock you're printing on, spot colour library dependent on the stock you're using.

If a certain colour is required by a client then the code for the colour can be typed at the top of the colour book.

Selecting a colour and clicking it once puts the swatch you selected into your swatch book.

Note the differences between a CMYK colour and a spot colour.

Never change the reference name of a spot colour, this would make it nearly impossible to match to the exact colour you were after.

You can make tints of spot colours and print in monochrome.

If you want to prepare digital artwork for screen printing, this can be achieved with spot colours.

Once the work is completed, save the swatch library so it can be accessed by other Ai files. Make sure to save the file as .ai.

Saved in user work to make it available to me on other computers.
Moving a tint from a swatch library doesn't work, but the 100% colours will work. Set up tints again.

Saving the swatch library as an ASE means that you can access your colour library across other Adobe Suite.

Gradients, patterns and tints cannot be used on other software within CS, but 100% colours will be fine.