Illustrator to Print
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- welded
I'm designing my first set of business cards and would like to know what kind of surprises I might expect when printing. The document colour profile is set to CMYK and I'm choosing my colours from one of the Pantone swatches which as I understand will help minimize the difference from screen to print. My test prints are coming out quite a bit darker, but it's just off my $150 Canon ink jet onto plain paper, but is this at least a bit indicative of what I can expect?
Did I mention I know next to nothing about print?
- function820
If your moniter isnt calibrated to your printer you're going to get colour differences, its a given.
if you're taking the project to a printer, call them and ask what format they require, and any other info you might need.
this link might be useful to you http://www.ddap.org/
- BonSeff0
did you pick your colors from the pantone swatches in illy, or a real pantone swatch book? it also depends if you are choosing a coated or uncoated paper. coated papers are more shiny and vibrant and uncoated papers are more matte. i think if you get some nice epson inkjet paper to run your print off on your epson, you can trust it a lil more than plain paper
good luck
- welded0
The printer I'll likely be going with likes .ai or .psd, so no problem there, and it'll be on solid coated paper. I don't have an actual Pantone book so I'm going with the Illustrator swatches alone, but I can get ahold of one pretty easily for reference if that's recommended. I guess what you're getting at is to cross reference the colours, eh?
I don't have time at this exact moment to look into it myself, but how would I go about calibrating my printer and/or monitor?Thank so much for the input.
- keespallie0
don't forget to include or outline your fonts (type -> create outlines / command shift O)...
...
- welded0
Ya, no kidding, eh? There's a bunch of us getting them done at once for a deal and as much as it's been told to us time and time again I can promise you there will be one or two dullards who won't.
- bedenken0
Hey welded... you will also want to set your output attribute to 800+. F11 will show Attributes. Also, delete all colours you are not using from your colour palette so that you do not pay for film with you will not be using.
- welded0
bedenken, can you clarify what this output attribute to 800+ thing is? I've got the help open but I don't really even know what I'm looking for here. There's only one apparent field to enter a number, under the pallete options, and it's something about the number of URL...
Usually I'm not this helpless, really!
- glenroy0
i think he is referring to the dpi output for your printer. don't worry about it. just trust your illy swatch (more or less) cuz without a color postscript printer you'll never get a great match at home.
how many colors you using? the main things to remember are that using transparencies are terribly tricky for a printer, as are overlapping gradients unless its printing in full CMYK.
and don't forget to convert fonts to outlines, as said before.
good luck.
- rabattski0
only use pantone if you're really going to print pantone. rgb/cmyk printing is a calculation of the colour and not the actual colour. since pantone is a fixed ink and not a mixed ink.
choosing pantone based on your screen can be very tricky. depends on your screen calibration. either way it's never 100%. in case of pantone printing it's better to use a pantone swatch book for reference instead of screen reference.
if you're going to print cmyk and you're using pantone colours convert those colours to cmyk before sending it to the printer. you prolly still have to readjust the cmyk values since quite a lot pantone colours don't really have cmyk equivalents.
calibrating a screen depends on the screen you have. if it's a good one you prolly have a manual or software for calibrating. calibrating isn't easy. best way is to compare printed swatches with what you see on your screen. experience of the outcome is another way.
- ********0
Most printers have printers that will accept .EPS/.AI files that they can print well. depends on your hardware, but your settings at CMYK seem ok. don't mess with .PSDs. Communication with your actual printer is the key. Depends on their hardware. some printers will rock 300DPI jpgs.
- welded0
I've been doing my best to get as much info from the printer as possible beforehand. I emailed them over the weekend asking for a Mac .icc colour profile if that would help.
In regards to Pantone colours, I read on my printer's site that they want files in CMYK, not Pantone so it seems the people who did the initial research didn't pick that up. I converted my 5 solid colours and visually they look the same on screen so I guess it's still worth getting my hands on that Pantone book.Thanks so much for all the great info! I shouldn't let the rest of my class know any of this and let they're cards print like crap. ;)
- kld0
Or you could help them like you've been help here and be a hero, humm.... tough call