Creative Suite Session 3.

Working in InDesign to commercial print specifications. 

InDesign basics

• Bleed - allows any inaccuracies when trimming the final piece. 3mm is the standard amount but this can change for different purposes.
• Slug - specifies the area outside of the page used for fold marks and crap marks. It is trimmed off after we go to print.
• For saddle stitch publications, the page number needs to be a multiple of four. 
• Facing pages - displays the pages as a spread, how it will be once its printed. useful for editorial publications such as magazines, leaflets and books.
• Primary text frame - will put a text frame on each page on every page of your document. This is good for text heavy publications.

After initially creating your document, it is still possible to go back to document setup to change a lot of options to do with the document.

You can also change the columns and margins by going to layout>columns and margins.

The swatch palette in InDesign is the exact same as in both illustrator and photoshop.

It can be used in much the same way as before, but this swatch palette has an extra option for when working with type, where you can select the area and the 'T' button in the swatch palette and all of the text within that area will change colour.

All swatches, including spot colours in InDesign are global colours, meaning that all objects of this colour throughout the document will change when the swatch is modified.

To create a new tint swatch, you first need to select which colour you want to create a tint of, and then in the optins menu select new tint swatch, and this will allow you to make multiple tints.

When working in Photoshop we need to be aware of:

• Colour mode - converting to CMYK before you save the image(s).
• Image size - need to work at actual size that we nee it to be for our InDesign layout. (shouldn't enlarge or reduce image size in InDesign.)
• Make sure the photoshop images are 300dpi resolution.
• File type - TIFF files or Photoshop files. JPEG files are lower quality and can add to the processing time of an InDesign document, specifically when converting it to a PDF.
• Photoshop documents can have transparency. TIFF files cannot support transparency. 

When working in Illustrator we need to be aware of:

• Colour mode - default colour mode of illustrator is CMYK, but it is possible to use RGB colour mode in Illustrator. Specifically, making sure that the colours used in your document are CMYK.
• Image size - If the file is a vector, saved as an Illustrator file, the image is infinitely scaleable and can be sized and resized within InDesign.
• It is possible to copy and paste the vector artwork from Illustrator over to InDesign, but never do this with a photoshop file.

When opening up spot colour duotone photoshop documents in InDesign, it will automatically bring over the swatch colours from the original photoshop document. 

This same thing also happens when opening up illustrator files in InDesign.

How we get from our InDesign layout, to the finished print.

Separating your colour - Separation

For a cmyk print, we would get 4 print outs. From each one of these a plate would be make to print each colour, much like how you would when screen printing with cmyk.

To view the separations, go to window, output and then separations preview. Then in the pop up box, go t view and turn on separations and you will be able to see the separations of each ink that will be used to print this. 

 This allows you to check that sop colours are actually spot colours, and will not be used up of CMYK. 

When it comes to printing these separations, in file then print we need to select the black and white printer and then go to output. In colour, we can choose the separations option and then we'll see the option to print all the separate colours. If there are any colours in this option that you do not need, such as extra swatches that were not used in the image there is an option to not print these, this would lessen cost.

Frequency (or lpi) is best at 40-60 for screen printing, but for commercial printing it is best 120-170 lpi. 

Moiré patterns can happen when two patterns overlay each other.

On the marks and bleeds option when printing, there is an option to view page information, and so the name of the ink (cyan, magenta etc) would be written so that you know which ink that particular positive is for.

Overprint preview is to do with the decisions that InDesign makes when printing your image. When two inks are printed on top on one another.

knocking out - when inks are laid on top of each other, and so when one ink or spot colour is printed on top of another, the ink below is 'knocked out' so that the colours don't bleed into one another. The one exception is that black ink will always over print.

In attributes, you can choose an object and see how these will over print, or choose the option to over print and not knock out. This means that you can work with overprinting to use two inks, and create an extra colour with only two inks. 

Spot varnish works in the same way, that the thing that you want to be spot varnished needs to be over printed and not knock out the ink behind it. 

You can only see how inks are going to over print or knock out when the overprint preview is turned on.