Adobe InDesign CC 2015 User Manual download pdf (Page 479)

474

Color

Last updated 6/6/2015

Keep the following guidelines in mind when specifying a spot color:

• For best results in printed documents, specify a spot color from a color-matching system supported by your

commercial printer. Several color-matching system libraries are included with the software.

• Minimize the number of spot colors you use. Each spot color you create will generate an additional spot color

printing plate for a printing press, increasing your printing costs. If you think you might require more than four

colors, consider printing your document using process colors.

• If an object contains spot colors and overlaps another object containing transparency, undesirable results may occur

when exporting to EPS format, when converting spot colors to process colors using the Print dialog box, or when

creating color separations in an application other than Illustrator or InDesign. For best results, use the Flattener

Preview or the Separations Preview to soft proof the effects of flattening transparency before printing. In addition,

you can convert the spot colors to process colors by using the Ink Manager in InDesign before printing or exporting.

• You can use a spot color printing plate to apply a varnish over areas of a process color job. In this case, your print

job would use a total of five inks—four process inks and one spot varnish.

About process colors

A process color is printed using a combination of the four standard process inks: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black

(CMYK). Use process colors when a job requires so many colors that using individual spot inks would be expensive or

impractical, as when printing color photographs.

Keep the following guidelines in mind when specifying a process color:

• For best results in a high-quality printed document, specify process colors using CMYK values printed in process

color reference charts, such as those available from a commercial printer.

• The final color values of a process color are its values in CMYK, so if you specify a process color using RGB (or LAB,

in InDesign), those color values will be converted to CMYK when you print color separations. These conversions

differ based on your color-management settings and document profile.

• Don’t specify a process color based on how it looks on your monitor, unless you are sure you have set up a color-

management system properly, and you understand its limitations for previewing color.

• Avoid using process colors in documents intended for online viewing only, because CMYK has a smaller color

gamut than that of a typical monitor.

• Illustrator and InDesign let you specify a process color as either global or non-global. In Illustrator, global process

colors remain linked to a swatch in the Swatches panel, so that if you modify the swatch of a global process color, all

objects using that color are updated. Non-global process colors do not automatically update throughout the

document when the color is edited. Process colors are non-global by default. In InDesign, when you apply a swatch

to objects, the swatch is automatically applied as a global process color. Non-global swatches are unnamed colors,

which you can edit in the Color panel.

Note: Global and non-global process colors only affect how a particular color is applied to objects, never how colors separate

or behave when you move them between applications.

Using spot and process colors together

Sometimes it’s practical to use process and spot inks in the same job. For example, you might use one spot ink to print

the exact color of a company logo on the same pages of an annual report where photographs are reproduced using

process color. You can also use a spot color printing plate to apply a varnish over areas of a process color job. In both

cases, your print job would use a total of five inks—four process inks and one spot ink or varnish.

In InDesign, you can mix process and spot colors together to create mixed ink colors.

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Adobe InDesign CC 2015 User Manual Page 479

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