I am very new at this. I am making some small cards and bookmarks and I just figured out that printing coulor might be different from what I see on my screen.
Before inserting cards into Corel Draw, I do preparation either in Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks, because I am some familiar with those programs. Some images are CMYK and some are RGB.
I am not going to print it on my printer but take it to local graphic bussiness so they will do the printing. All I know about their printer is that it is digital.
So my question is... what is the best thing to do to prepare my work for that. And if there are some questions that I need to ask them in order to prepare it right, what are the right questions to ask?
if it's for a digital printing (and if you are sure is digital) you don't need to do a color separations. That's is only for traditional offset printing (in this case, you need to have all you work only on CMYK, never use RGB). Digital printing allows you to use a wide range of formats and effects, but if the images have low resolution, the results will be wrong. 300 dpi for images is the standard value (since Fireworks is for web, is useless for printing)
ll thta you need is to set up you page at the real size on CorelDRAW. If you have a background, this must exceed the limits of the page (fo avoid problems when cutting the cards)
First I want to thank you both for your quick responses! Thank you!! I really appreciate your help!!!
David Milisock said: Photoshop will screw up your type as it is a raster program, (no don't listen to those who say it keeps vector fonts) it does this only in Photoshop file formats when you output the small type will look like crap.
Photoshop will screw up your type as it is a raster program, (no don't listen to those who say it keeps vector fonts) it does this only in Photoshop file formats when you output the small type will look like crap.
I only prepare background in Photoshop, I like to use brushes and things like that to make something nice as a background. And then I just put that background of the card in Corel and that is where I write over it.
David Milisock said: Fireworks is a web tool inappropriate for print.
Fireworks is a web tool inappropriate for print.
I use Fireworks only for preparation of the background of the card. I cut pictures in that program only because I am used to using it from before.
Ariel said: if it's for a digital printing (and if you are sure is digital) you don't need to do a color separations. That's is only for traditional offset printing (in this case, you need to have all you work only on CMYK, never use RGB). Digital printing allows you to use a wide range of formats and effects, but if the images have low resolution, the results will be wrong. 300 dpi for images is the standard value
if it's for a digital printing (and if you are sure is digital) you don't need to do a color separations. That's is only for traditional offset printing (in this case, you need to have all you work only on CMYK, never use RGB). Digital printing allows you to use a wide range of formats and effects, but if the images have low resolution, the results will be wrong. 300 dpi for images is the standard value
Yes, I am 100% sure that its digital. They told me that. And yes, all my images are 300 dpi.
Let me just make sure I understood what you said. If it is digital does that mean that it can print RGB so that I dont need to transfer it to CMYK? If that is correct that would be great!! And so if that is correct, does it mean that when I go to Color Management/Color Management Off, and then what it appears to me on the screen is the same thing that I will see when printed?
Ariel said: ll thta you need is to set up you page at the real size on CorelDRAW. If you have a background, this must exceed the limits of the page (fo avoid problems when cutting the cards)
Yes, I didn't know that before, but now I know so it means that I need to do everything all over again, but it is ok, better early then late.
Pink said:Let me just make sure I understood what you said. If it is digital does that mean that it can print RGB so that I dont need to transfer it to CMYK? If that is correct that would be great!! And so if that is correct, does it mean that when I go to Color Management/Color Management Off, and then what it appears to me on the screen is the same thing that I will see when printed?
No, digital printer will convert from the original color profile to their on internal color profile, ie if you have an image with AdobeRGB and your printer use sRGB as internal color profile, only will convert to sRGB. And, if you have not any color profile, it will asign a new one. But that doesn't mean that you will print the same color brilliant colors that you see on your screen on RGB mode. Digital printers receives RGB images and convert to their internal color profile only.
Some plotters (such as most Roland) uses six colors instead 4 (add light cyan and light magenta) and allows to print a widest gamut of colors. But for most laser printers, the gamut is allways CMYK space
Ariel said: Some plotters (such as most Roland) uses six colors instead 4 (add light cyan and light magenta) and allows to print a widest gamut of colors. But for most laser printers, the gamut is allways CMYK space
So, do you think that it would be the best for me to do all in CMYK, would that be closest to what I will see printed out? So shall I set Color Management to "Optimized for professional output" CMYK?
What would be your advice for me to do?
For laser printers the best way is to use CMYK allways. For plotters, altough you can have better results with RGB colors the results is realtive to the configuration of each company, some printing services use only RGB, others uses all on CMYK and other use both
"Optimized for professional output" is a quite good configuration for most, but if you want the best results you must calibrate your sysem, including a good color profile on CorelDRAW. You can read some articls about color management on http://graphictechnology.com/
If printing digital you should be able to have everything in RGB. Use the printers ICC profile to get an idea (soft proof) of what the colors will look like when printed. Add that profile to the composite printer in the CM dialog and point the arrow to your (calibrated and profiled) monitor.
Thanks for your help!
I get the idea what I have to do. I guess the rest I will just have to learn from my own experience.
Thanks again!