Friday, May 8, 2009

Separation Pallette in INDESIGN

Happy Friday!

Yesterday I was working on a file a 4 color file. We ran into some problems that I was unaware of until it was actually on the press. Then I had to look a little deeper.

The item had corporate logos on it in 4 places. Assuming the logos should all be the same color values, but it was not. First I went to the Indesign file and clicked on the Window tab at top and select output: Separations preview. This will bring up the separations palette. Under view in the separations palette select on. 

In this palette you can hold the arrow over anything in the file and read the values of each color.
This is an excellent pre-flight tool which I use often. Some of the logos were photoshop files and the others were illustrator files. The photoshop file had the correct values. 

When I went to the illustrator file not only were the values set differently in the logos, the document was in RGB mode. I first changed the document to CMYK mode. Then I was able to modify the logos to the correct values. Re-save then update in Indesign. All logos now match.

This is a problem that you can barely see on an actual high-res proof. But some people do not know about this great feature in Indesign. I recommend it to anyone working on files for printing. It is very helpful in pre-flighting and making sure the file has consistent color flow throughout.

Try it sometime if you haven't already discovered the wonderful tool in Indesign. I promise you will love it and it will save on the cost of re-making plates and proofs, etc.

Have a great weekend everyone! See you again next week! Nikki   :-)

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