Software Workshop-Design For Print (9/10/12)

Colour

CMYK also known as '4-colour' & 'process colours', they work subtractively.

Creating a new swatch:

Mise en place: (pronounced , literally "putting in place") is a French phrase defined by the Culinary Institute of America as "everything in place", as in set up. It is used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients 

Use 'add used colours to add all colours in the workspace to the swatch panel:

To create tints of one of your swatches go to menu>swatch options and tick the Global box, then when you return to the colour slider you will be able to create tints of that colour.

Using the Global link creates a link between the swatch and the artwork so if you edit the swatch it automatically effects every the swatch colour has been used on the workspace, it also changes any tints you may have taken from the swatch. This will be helpful in creating work that is consistent.

Another Colour mode that is used in commercial print is 'Spot Colours'

A Spot Colour is a ready mixed ink that makes up that colour, it is not made of a mixture of CMYK.

The advantage of spot colours is that it is cheaper as you are only using one ink rather than a combination of four. Spot Colours also ensure consistency. Big brands use spot colours so that the colours they use are exactly the same wherever they have been printed, if CMYK was used it would only take +/- 1% of any colour to make the whole print batch inconsistent with the desired colour.

Pantone is a spot colour reference system.

Opening Pantone swatch Libraries:

You can create tints of the Pantone that is still only using one ink, therefore much cheaper:

To save the swatches to transfer to new documents go to menu>save swatch library as AI (adobe illustrator)

You can then open this library the same way as you open the pantone book library, just go to 'user defined'.

'Save swatch library as ASE' stands for Adobe Swatch Exchange which allows you to import the swatches into all Adobe Programmes

In InDesign just go to Load swatches and find where you saved them and they will open up in Indesign.