Design Production: Print Workshop 3

In todays session we will be looking at Process and Spot colours in regards to the processes we used last year on InDesign. Preparing our skillset and knowledge for commercial printing.

Always select new document, at least most of the time. Check the settings for your document and make sure everything is correct when setting up, saving time and hassle.

Page size in the document setting is never to be overlooked, you should always know what size your page will be finished and ready, which will help decide what size to make the document.

Columns can be used as guides whilst working and help for layout and placement of the context in your design. Similarly the margins will help to keep a uniform and consistent layout across your document/s.

When setting up the document, take into account whether bleed will be required within the document. Available in the 'More Options' menu, bleed is to be used when you'll be using colour up to the edge of the document, enabling you to be able to trim down the document removing unsightly white edges from your work.

Standard bleed is 3mm... talk to the printer to see how much bleed they require on the document.
Slug is the area around the document which can be used for crop marks and registration.

Facing pages can be useful to show double page spreads enabling easier alignment for cross page content.

This is a clip of the document showing the Margin, indicated by the far left violet line, black line is the edge of the document, red line is for the Bleed and the blue line is for the Slug.

To add colour to the document, you need to use a frame like above. Available from the tool bar to the left, similar to that of Illustrator.

To use your own colours from previous work, you can load a swatch library in the form of an ASE which works across Adobe software.

In regards to colour, colour can be applied in the frame either to the box as a whole or to the type using the box that's highlighted above or the 'T'.

Creating new swatches in InDesign is similar to that of Illustrator, InDesign even states the CMYK percentages as a standard.

To work with Spot Colours, change the Colour Mode and select the library you need. If you know the code for the colour you require then this can help source the colour faster.

Once applied, the Spot Colour will show itself in the Swatches menu, with a different icon to CMYK indicating that the swatch is Spot Colour.

The top icons being for CMYK and the bottom highlighted selection is to indicate a Spot Colour.

Using Spot Colours can help save you money, and to be clever with your inks you can set up 'Tint's of the colour to keep within your ink constraints but give you some flexibility.

Preparation of images into the document you're about to use is key, potentially the most important task. Incorrectly prepared images can cause enormous problems when going to print and maybe even ruining the whole run.

Preparation in Photoshop
Convert your image to CMYK or Greyscale if working within B&W.
Resolution of the image is important and should be set at 300 dpi in Ps, sizing should also be made to be the actual size in Ps so when imported, it will be right size for the document.
PSD or TIFF are the files used for images within documents, PSD enables use of transparency and can be edited still.

Preparation in Illustrator
Save the file as Ai.
Copy and paste is available from Ai to Indd.
Make sure you're working from CMYK mode.
Scaling in Indd from Ai files is enabled due to the files being vectors.