IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! I'm Claudia McCue.
Welcome to Print Production Fundamentals.
| | 00:08 | The world of printing is a fascinating but
complex one, and its requirements can be
| | 00:12 | full of surprises for a designer who
just wants to submit a job, and in printing,
| | 00:16 | surprise is usually not a good thing.
| | 00:19 | In this course, I'll walk you through
this world so that you can deal with it
| | 00:23 | sanely and with successful results.
| | 00:25 | You'll see how jobs flow through the
printing plant, you will understand how to
| | 00:29 | meet different needs depending on the
type of job, and you will see what happens
| | 00:33 | to the files that you submit.
| | 00:35 | We will talk about the different
types of printing, including letterpress,
| | 00:38 | sheet-fed, web press and some others.
| | 00:42 | I'm going to show you how to think
about print as you're designing and how to
| | 00:45 | create files that will come out
the other end without surprises.
| | 00:49 | I'll be talking about process color
versus spot color, how ink behaves on paper,
| | 00:54 | and the mechanics of printing, including
why it's important to build to the
| | 00:58 | correct size to anticipate the
requirements of folding and trimming.
| | 01:02 | And setting up for die cutting and also
preparing for other specialty finishing
| | 01:06 | processes such as embossing and foil stamping.
| | 01:10 | I want to show you how to find
problems before they become catastrophes.
| | 01:14 | And finally, we'll take a look at
InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat
| | 01:19 | as they relate to
building healthy files for print.
| | 01:22 | I'm excited to share my knowledge with you.
After all these years, I still love
| | 01:26 | printing, and I hope you'll see why by
the end of Print Production Fundamentals.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | Just a quick word about the
sample files we'll be using.
| | 00:03 | If you're a Premium Member of the lynda.com
online training library, you'll have
| | 00:08 | access to the files used in this title.
| | 00:10 | By the way, not all of the
chapters have exercise files.
| | 00:13 | Since some of the chapters are devoted
more to informational content than hands on work.
| | 00:17 | But here you can see in this
chapter, I've given you a starting point
| | 00:22 | and then also given you the
finished piece so that you can compare.
| | 00:25 | Now, if you are monthly or annual
subscriber to lynda.com, you don't have
| | 00:30 | access to these files, but of course you can
easily follow along by using your own files.
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1. Understanding Print ProductionWhat is print production?| 00:01 | So what is Print Production exactly? Well,
it's more than the design process, it's design
| | 00:07 | with the desire to build files
that print, fold, and trim correctly.
| | 00:12 | That means that the designer needs
to understand the printing process.
| | 00:15 | A designer who is well-versed in print requirements
will communicate with the staff of the printing
| | 00:20 | company both before and during
the progress of the print job.
| | 00:24 | And that designer will create print ready
files that are the correct trim size and have
| | 00:28 | all the other features
that are necessary for print.
| | 00:31 | They're going to prepare files for finishing
processes such as folding, gluing, and binding.
| | 00:36 | And they should understand the process and
spot colors. Understand the difference and
| | 00:41 | use those inks appropriately.
| | 00:43 | A well informed designer asks the right questions when
talking to a printer at the beginning of a project.
| | 00:49 | And that designer has more realistic expectations
of the print process because they know how
| | 00:53 | the printing plant works.
| | 00:55 | And so there are really two
recurring themes in this video course.
| | 00:58 | I want you communicate with your printer, I
want you to ask questions, don't be embarrassed
| | 01:03 | don't be afraid to ask questions.
| | 01:04 | The truth is that printers appreciate a designer
has a curiosity about the print process, wants
| | 01:10 | to make sure that they give
the printer healthy files.
| | 01:13 | And they're really going to value their
working relationship with you as a result.
| | 01:16 | And you have to keep in mind that
printing is a physical process.
| | 01:20 | Huge machines apply ink to paper, other huge
machines fold that paper and trim it and glue
| | 01:25 | it, and because of that, there are some limitations
to what you can do and what can be accomplished
| | 01:30 | on a printing press or in a bindery.
| | 01:32 | So the behavior of paper and ink
are really your governing factors.
| | 01:37 | And when you start designing with the
realities of the physical printing processes in mind,
| | 01:41 | your print jobs are going to run more smoothly,
the quality will improve, you'll meet your
| | 01:45 | deadlines, and most importantly, the stress
quotient will go down for you and for your printer.
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| Understanding roles and responsibilities| 00:00 | In the olden days, by which I
mean before desktop publishing, job
| | 00:04 | responsibilities were very clearly divided.
| | 00:06 | Designers designed, photographers
took photographs, trade shops performed
| | 00:10 | composition and created final
films, and printers printed.
| | 00:14 | But desktop publishing changed all
that and suddenly designers found
| | 00:18 | themselves responsible for performing tasks that
we're previously performed by trained craftsmen.
| | 00:23 | Now designers had to perform color
correction and retouching and set type and
| | 00:28 | build completely print-ready
files going directly to the printer.
| | 00:31 | So how are the responsibilities divided now?
| | 00:34 | Well, the designer, and that's you,
creates print-ready files to the correct
| | 00:38 | dimensions, adds the correct bleed,
uses the correct colors, and then you
| | 00:43 | should check your work.
| | 00:44 | You've been working on it for a long
time, it's easy to overlook things.
| | 00:48 | Always check for common problems such as
typos and spelling and size and so forth.
| | 00:54 | You want to be sure that you submit
the job in the format specified by the
| | 00:57 | printer, and you want to provide the
printer with all the pertinent information.
| | 01:00 | Such as the stock that you've agreed on,
inks to be used, and finishing that's
| | 01:05 | going to be required on your work.
| | 01:06 | You should always provide hard copy to
the printer just print out inkjet prints
| | 01:11 | or lasers just something so they
have something to look at so they have an
| | 01:14 | immediate idea of what kind of
jobs they are going to be running.
| | 01:17 | And always be available for questions
when the printer calls or your client
| | 01:21 | calls and be available if
necessary for press checks.
| | 01:25 | Now what are the
responsibilities of the printer?
| | 01:27 | The salesman is usually
your first point of contact.
| | 01:30 | He should obtain all sorts of necessary
information from you about your expected
| | 01:34 | run date, what you want the job to
look like, and that's when you sit down to
| | 01:38 | have a conversation about the comps and
make sure that he understands the nature
| | 01:42 | of the job that the
printing plant is going to do.
| | 01:45 | The next person to touch your job is
usually the customer service representative,
| | 01:48 | referred to usually as the CSR.
| | 01:49 | They're going to enter your job into
the schedule at the printing plant and
| | 01:53 | usually they remain your primary
contact point for the remainder of the job.
| | 01:58 | Next, the job is handed off to a
planner or estimator to estimate the job cost
| | 02:03 | and set the required schedule. Because
they understand all the processes, all
| | 02:07 | the equipment used in the printing
plant, and they're going to determine what
| | 02:10 | the appropriate press is, the
appropriate finishing equipment, and they have to
| | 02:14 | keep in mind that there are other jobs
running in the plant at the same time
| | 02:17 | your job hits and have to determine the
individual deadlines for each segment of the job.
| | 02:23 | Usually, preflight is performed on
your job, and that's essentially a game of
| | 02:26 | what's wrong with this picture.
| | 02:28 | The preflighter wants to find general
problems that you might have missed like
| | 02:32 | typos and misspellings, but they're
also looking for aspects of the job that
| | 02:36 | could affect the printing.
| | 02:37 | For example, if there are large areas of
the job that use black ink that may not
| | 02:42 | look quite heavy enough when the job is printed.
| | 02:44 | So often the preflighter will indicate
that it rich black needs to be created.
| | 02:49 | So this is not something that you've
done as a mistake, it's something that the
| | 02:52 | printer does in order to ensure
that the job prints as you expect.
| | 02:56 | After preflight is performed then
the job is handed off to prepress and
| | 03:00 | prepress is essentially a catchall term
for everything that happens before the
| | 03:05 | job hits the press.
| | 03:06 | So the prepress operator will
perform any required job modifications.
| | 03:10 | They may have to scan supply
transparencies or reflective artwork that you want
| | 03:15 | to include in the job.
| | 03:16 | They will also perform any color
correction or retouching the images might need
| | 03:20 | and usually this is a specialist with
long experience in color and retouching.
| | 03:24 | Trapping, briefly speaking is where
two colors abut there needs to be a little
| | 03:28 | bit overlap so that you
don't see a gap in-between.
| | 03:31 | So it's up to prepress to
determine those parameters.
| | 03:35 | Once everything is all set up
prepress is going to generate proofs, and this
| | 03:38 | is for you look at and make sure
nothing's been missed that you haven't left
| | 03:42 | anything out that they haven't changed
anything that you don't want them to change.
| | 03:45 | They will also create something called
a folding dummy if it's a multipage job
| | 03:49 | so that you can see how pages look
next to each other in the finished piece.
| | 03:54 | Once all that's approved they'll set
up the imposition also called pagination
| | 03:58 | for printing plates.
Page 2 doesn't print next to page 3.
| | 04:01 | That's something we're
going to talk more about later.
| | 04:03 | They need to make sure that the pages
are in the correct position so that when
| | 04:07 | the plates are made the papers
printed that everything falls into place.
| | 04:11 | Once the papers is printed the press
operator is responsible for mounting
| | 04:15 | plates, setting up the press to
establish values for ink coverage, and
| | 04:19 | registration and then performing what's
called makeready, which is getting the
| | 04:23 | press up to speed, getting the ink
coverage up to those established values, and
| | 04:27 | making sure that
everything is running optimally.
| | 04:30 | Then of course the press operator is
responsible for running your job and making
| | 04:34 | sure that it matches that
contract proof that it's been approved.
| | 04:37 | Once the paper is printed then
finishing takes place and finishing includes
| | 04:41 | everything from simple trimming, folding,
and binding to specialty work such as
| | 04:45 | die-cutting or embossing and foil stamping.
| | 04:48 | Now some finishing work such as folding and
trimming may have been in-line at the press.
| | 04:53 | Some of its handled offline which is
after the paper is printed and handed off
| | 04:57 | to a separate department.
| | 04:59 | So as you can see your design is really
just the first cog in this giant machine.
| | 05:04 | Many people touch your job and
multiple processes are set in motion with that
| | 05:08 | very first mouse click.
But don't let that intimidate you.
| | 05:11 | Really, you should find it exciting.
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2. The Life Cycle of a Print JobCommunicating with your printer| 00:00 | While your design is very important,
communication is the crucial ingredient in
| | 00:04 | the success of any print job.
| | 00:06 | You need to know the capabilities and
limitations of the potential printer, and
| | 00:10 | your printer needs to understand
your vision of the final printed piece.
| | 00:14 | That's why there are no dumb
questions, please don't be afraid to ask.
| | 00:18 | Printers appreciate designers that express
curiosity and have concern for a successful job.
| | 00:24 | If you're tackling a project that
isn't plain vanilla, if you're using
| | 00:27 | nonstandard inks or you've
interesting folds, pick up the phone.
| | 00:31 | It's your most valuable graphic
tool at this stage of the job.
| | 00:34 | Especially, if you've chosen an exotic
paper or you require a special finishing
| | 00:38 | start that conversation as early as possible.
| | 00:40 | Speak with the technically knowledgeable
customer service rep, describe what you
| | 00:44 | have in mind, create a comp, a dummy
if it's a tricky job, and schedule a visit
| | 00:49 | at the printing plant.
| | 00:50 | The CSR may schedule a meeting with
representatives of the departments that will
| | 00:54 | touch your job from sales and
customer service to electronic prepress and
| | 00:58 | Pressman and binary managers.
| | 00:59 | They are the ones are the best equipped
to analyze the needs of your project and
| | 01:03 | advise you on the best
ways to create your files.
| | 01:06 | If the stock requires special
handling during the printing or finishing
| | 01:09 | process, they may suggest modifications to
your project or perhaps a better behaved stock.
| | 01:14 | Remember that disappointment is
all about expectations after all.
| | 01:18 | The more realistic your expectations,
the happier you'll be with the results.
| | 01:22 | So here are some of the
topics you may need to address.
| | 01:26 | Is your stock going to present any
problems? Is it difficult to print large
| | 01:29 | areas of color on it because it's
highly absorbent or highly textured?
| | 01:33 | Remember that specialty papers with
introduced components, such as flexor fibers,
| | 01:38 | might cause a little problem as
those little parts fly loose on press.
| | 01:41 | Some synthetic stocks may
present issues with complicated folds.
| | 01:45 | Colored stock of course is going to
affect the appearance of graphics and art
| | 01:49 | but that may be what you've in mind.
| | 01:51 | Offset presses can print up to 12
colors or more if you're going to use a spot
| | 01:56 | colors keep in mind that certain inks
require special handling, and you may need
| | 02:00 | to modify your files to allow for this.
| | 02:02 | For instance, reflex blue--which is sort
of the navy blue--often requires extra
| | 02:07 | drying time which might mean that other
inks can't be printed until that dries.
| | 02:11 | Fluorescence, sometimes require a
second pass to get full strength, and some
| | 02:16 | inks are prone to scuffing, so
especially, if it's a piece that's going to be
| | 02:19 | mailed you might want to have them
applied a coating, that will prevent that
| | 02:23 | scuffing and some metallic
inks require special handling.
| | 02:27 | Digital presses are usually but not
always limited to CMYK, some of them now
| | 02:31 | can handle spot colors.
| | 02:33 | Once the piece is printed then
folding and finishing take place.
| | 02:37 | Simple folds such as 3-panel
brochures are pretty common.
| | 02:41 | Your printer might have a standard template,
if they do, use that as your starting point.
| | 02:45 | But if you're going to do
something complicated such as packaging or
| | 02:49 | special pieces with little pop-up
areas, that's when you want to consult
| | 02:53 | with the binary managers.
| | 02:54 | You might find that you've to modify your design
somewhat to accommodate the finishing process.
| | 02:59 | And if you're going do something like
die cutting or embossing keep in mind that
| | 03:03 | those dyes have to be created.
| | 03:04 | And that may require a bit of lead time
that might impact your deadline, and you
| | 03:08 | need to make sure that your file is
based on the artwork that's going to
| | 03:12 | accomplish that process, the piece it's
actually going to serve as the basis for
| | 03:16 | the actual physical die.
How far ahead do you need to plan?
| | 03:20 | Keep in mind that press time is scheduled
far in advance of the actual printing date.
| | 03:25 | So make sure that you keep up with
your deadlines, and you understand what the
| | 03:28 | printer's deadlines are.
| | 03:29 | If the printing company is going to
provide fulfillment, that is storage and
| | 03:33 | shipping services for you, make sure you've
make those arrangements far ahead of time.
| | 03:38 | So please remember there really are no
stupid questions, don't be embarrassed to
| | 03:42 | ask the printer what they need.
| | 03:44 | They'll be pleased you asked questions,
they like having customers who want
| | 03:47 | to do the right thing.
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| What does the printer do with my files?| 00:00 | Once you've given your digital file one last
tweak its time to submit the job to the printer.
| | 00:05 | A lot of happens between the time
your CD lands on the salesman's desk.
| | 00:08 | And the moment when that first trimmed and
folded piece lands in a hopper in the bindery.
| | 00:13 | First a customer service representative--
also known as CSR--will enter your job in
| | 00:18 | to the printing company's job tracking system.
| | 00:21 | The CSR will be your main
contact during the life of the job.
| | 00:25 | Next, either the CSR or member of the
prepress staff will preflight your job.
| | 00:30 | Preflight is an industry term
for what's wrong with this picture.
| | 00:34 | At the stage the preflighter is
looking for simple problems such as
| | 00:37 | missing artwork or fonts.
| | 00:39 | And more serious problems such
as a file built the wrong size.
| | 00:43 | If problems are found the CSR will
contact you and ask you if you want to
| | 00:46 | fix the problems or whether you prefer to
have the prepress staff perform the surgery.
| | 00:51 | The more serious the problem of course,
the more potential there is for it have
| | 00:55 | an impact on the overall job schedule,
that's why preflighting is performed to
| | 00:59 | catch those problems early.
| | 01:01 | Next, a planner or estimator will lay
out the lifecycle of the job scheduling
| | 01:06 | each part of the manufacturing process.
| | 01:08 | At this point target dates are set for
each stage, prepress, plating, press run,
| | 01:14 | bindery and so forth and the
cost of the job is established.
| | 01:18 | Next, prepress staff will process
your files perform any needed surgery and
| | 01:23 | generate a contract proof.
We'll talk more about contract proofs in a bit.
| | 01:27 | Keep in mind that if the prepress
staff has to modify your files that doesn't
| | 01:31 | mean necessarily that you made a mistake,
sometimes is to accommodate printing needs.
| | 01:36 | They may also generate a folding
dummy which shows all the pages in final
| | 01:39 | position, if it's a multi-page
project such as a brochure or magazine.
| | 01:44 | Once the contract proof is okayed
the imposed files pages arranged in the
| | 01:49 | correct order for printing are imaged to
plates. Unless the job is printing on a
| | 01:53 | digital press which doesn't require plates.
| | 01:55 | Next, plates are mounted, ink is
applied and the press is run up to speed.
| | 02:00 | And after makeready which is setting
up the press the ink density and the
| | 02:04 | register and so forth.
| | 02:05 | Finally, printed paper
begins to come out of the press.
| | 02:09 | If you've never seen this you really
should visit a printing plant to see what
| | 02:12 | all happens to your job.
| | 02:15 | Finally, some presses perform in-line
finishing such as folding and paginating
| | 02:19 | the printed paper some don't.
| | 02:21 | Most jobs will be finished in the
bindery department where folding, trimming,
| | 02:24 | stitching and other finishing
processes such as embossing may take place.
| | 02:29 | Now it's really a printed piece.
| | 02:31 | Now that you have an overview of your
jobs' lifecycle we'll focus on one of the
| | 02:35 | most important milestones in the
life of your job, the contract proof.
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| Understanding the importance of contract proofs| 00:00 | Before your job goes to press, the printer will
usually give you something called a contract proof.
| | 00:06 | And that contract proof is what's going
to be used to guide the job on press.
| | 00:10 | So you want to look at this really carefully
and make sure that there aren't any changes
| | 00:13 | you want to make, make sure that there
aren't any problems that need to be fixed.
| | 00:17 | So, for example, here the designer has looked
at the first round of the contract proof and
| | 00:21 | decided, well maybe they
don't want hyphenation.
| | 00:24 | And they have an alternate version of the
image, so they want to replace the image of
| | 00:28 | the guy with the red shirt with another
version that shows him in a green shirt.
| | 00:32 | And they also want to spread
some text out here on this panel.
| | 00:36 | All of these things are chargeable, because
the artist has made changes at this point,
| | 00:41 | they're going to be charged for the
alterations that the printer is going to have to make.
| | 00:45 | But you also want to look for things that are common
concerns when you're looking at a contract proof.
| | 00:50 | You want to make sure that
there's adequate bleed.
| | 00:53 | You want to check for missing text and graphics,
you want to make sure there are no typos or
| | 00:57 | spelling errors, and
check for font substitution.
| | 01:02 | Make sure there's no text reflow
and check for any incorrect graphics.
| | 01:06 | If there are any images that you think need
color correction or retouching, this is the
| | 01:10 | time to bring that up.
| | 01:12 | The printer may also give you something called
a folding dummy, and that shows all the pages
| | 01:16 | of the job in their final position.
| | 01:19 | So when you're looking at the folding dummy,
make sure there's no content that's too close
| | 01:23 | to a trim edge or a fold.
| | 01:25 | If you have artwork that crosses over pages,
make sure that it lines up from page to page,
| | 01:29 | and of course you want to
check your page numbers.
| | 01:32 | If there are simple corrections or simple
alterations that need to be made, it's probably
| | 01:36 | all right to just mark that first
contract proof okay with corrections.
| | 01:40 | But if there are complex changes, and I think
this falls into that category, have the printer
| | 01:45 | make the corrections and then
make you a new contract proof.
| | 01:49 | Keep in mind that the contract proof is a
really important milestone in the life of
| | 01:52 | your print job after all, the
next step is the live press run.
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| Handling corrections and alterations| 00:00 | It's inevitable just when you think your
job is ready to go, there are changes.
| | 00:05 | Your client may change her mind or you
may find an error that must be fixed.
| | 00:09 | Yes I know it's close to the deadline,
but you have to make a change.
| | 00:13 | There are two kinds of alterations, Artists
Alterations, you'll see a markup AA often on a
| | 00:18 | proof, and Printers Alterations
and of course that's PA.
| | 00:22 | The acronyms might very from plant to
plant, but the concepts are constant.
| | 00:27 | So what constitutes an artist alteration?
| | 00:30 | Well, your decision to substitute a
new photo, for example, or your request to
| | 00:34 | change the size or crop on a graphic,
copy changes are AA's. Now does this mean
| | 00:40 | that you submit a new corrected file,
maybe not, because as part of setting
| | 00:44 | the job up for print and proofing prepress
may have already modified your submitted file.
| | 00:49 | For example, creating rich blacks and
they probably don't want to start over.
| | 00:53 | So they may prefer to perform the
corrections themselves based on your request
| | 00:57 | rather than having you do it.
| | 00:59 | Now, if you want the final corrected
file, after all those changes returned to
| | 01:03 | you when the job is finished, that's a
generally accepted procedure that way you
| | 01:07 | have everything that's been done to
the file, both by you and by prepress to
| | 01:11 | correct problems, and you have a good
file in case, you want to use that as a
| | 01:16 | starting point for a future project and
what constitutes a printer's alteration.
| | 01:19 | Keep in mind this doesn't mean that
you've messed up, it's something that
| | 01:23 | printer wants to do to ensure that
the job prints in a satisfactory manner.
| | 01:27 | For example, the rich black that I
mentioned, when the large areas must be
| | 01:30 | covered in black ink or an offset press
simple 100% black coverage is
| | 01:34 | often insufficient, it'll
look a little bit anemic.
| | 01:37 | So, certain amount of other process
colors may be added to give a richer coverage.
| | 01:41 | Now you're not charged for printer
alterations there for the convenience of the
| | 01:45 | printer and for the success of the job.
| | 01:48 | I realize that the prospect of making
any change to a job in progress whether
| | 01:51 | it's a small change or a big one,
you can seem it kind of daunting.
| | 01:55 | The more complicated the alteration of
course the more possibility it may have
| | 01:58 | an impact on the deadline.
| | 01:59 | But remember, if the job isn't on
press, it's not too late, you might have
| | 02:04 | to change your deadline, but its better that
you do it before ink starts hitting paper.
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| Attending press checks| 00:00 | Your very first press check can be a
bit intimidating, especially if you've
| | 00:04 | never been in a running pressroom.
| | 00:05 | Huge, loud equipment, serious busy
pressman and your job running at high
| | 00:10 | speed through the rollers. That can make you
feel that you're under a little bit of pressure.
| | 00:14 | And if the press run is at two
o'clock in the morning, that's not much fun.
| | 00:18 | But it doesn't have to be
scary, if you're well-prepared.
| | 00:21 | If you see a press check looming in your
future, see if you can go with a friend
| | 00:24 | or colleague to their press check
beforehand so that you can see what goes on.
| | 00:28 | What should you bring with you?
| | 00:30 | Well, be sure to bring the contract proof if
you have it, a folding dummy if you have that.
| | 00:34 | Any of your original hardcopy
comps, those are really helpful.
| | 00:38 | And if you need any ink or paper
swatches that you used as a reference when you
| | 00:42 | were beginning the job, those are handy too.
| | 00:44 | Honestly, it's better to bring too
much than to wish you hadn't left
| | 00:48 | something important at home.
| | 00:49 | Oh, and you might think about bringing
some snacks and wearing comfortable shoes.
| | 00:54 | Once you're on the press
check what should you check?
| | 00:56 | Well, first of all make sure that
it's on the correct stock, the stock you
| | 01:00 | specified or agreed on.
| | 01:02 | If there have been corrections made and
let's face it there almost always are.
| | 01:05 | Make sure that those corrections
have been made, check against the
| | 01:08 | contract proof or any marked up proofs that
were used as a reference for the final version.
| | 01:13 | Take a close look at type, make sure
that there's no missing text but an
| | 01:17 | incorrect font hasn't been used,
there hasn't been font substitution.
| | 01:21 | Check to see if any text is reflowed,
of course look for typos and see if any
| | 01:26 | editing changes have been missed that
were specified in the correction round.
| | 01:30 | Make sure that the image crops on
the printed sheet correspond to the way
| | 01:33 | they're supposed to look
according to your proof.
| | 01:36 | Check for broken type,
make sure there's adequate bleed.
| | 01:40 | Some problems are press problems such
as hickeys or picking where the inks sort
| | 01:44 | of pick back off the paper, any
pinholes especially in large areas and other
| | 01:48 | little printing problems.
| | 01:50 | Take a look at the position of artwork,
with respect to folds and trims, you're
| | 01:54 | going to consult the folding dummy
to make sure that things are correct.
| | 01:57 | You want to make sure that something isn't
too close to the fold or too close to the trim.
| | 02:01 | Trapping is where one color abuts another
color, and there's little bit of overlap.
| | 02:05 | Make sure that you don't see a gap there.
| | 02:07 | Also check to make sure that lines
between color areas aren't too dark, that
| | 02:11 | might mean to heavy a trap.
| | 02:13 | That's something you should catch in
the contract proof, you want to make sure
| | 02:16 | that the printed sheet reflects what
you approved in the contract proof.
| | 02:21 | As far as color, of course you want to
make sure that the general color of the
| | 02:24 | piece matches that contract proof.
| | 02:26 | You want to make sure that color break
is correct, in other words, wow should
| | 02:29 | that headline be red or should it be blue?
| | 02:32 | You want to check color consistency
across the printed sheet, you should compare
| | 02:35 | multiple printed sheets to each other,
so that pages that print across from each
| | 02:39 | other look consistent.
| | 02:41 | In large color areas, you want to check
for modeling or any sort of irregularity
| | 02:45 | in the appearance of the color.
| | 02:47 | Now your printer may have a
standard checklist to help you focus too.
| | 02:51 | But this list that you see on screen will
help you remember important issues to check.
| | 02:55 | It's easy to forget something when
you're in a busy noisy press room watching
| | 02:59 | your job fly through the
press at 40 miles an hour.
| | 03:02 | Having a checklist can help
you remember the little things.
| | 03:05 | Don't be intimidated by the
prospect of your first press check.
| | 03:09 | Remember the printer is your partner,
come prepared and well rested and expect
| | 03:13 | to be amazed by what
happens in the printing plant.
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|
|
3. Types of PrintingChoosing the correct type of printing for your project| 00:00 | As you start to brainstorm your next
print project, be thinking about the
| | 00:03 | appropriate printing method for the project.
| | 00:06 | So that you can design for the printing
process, and remember your favorite contact
| | 00:10 | at the printing company can
help you make this decision.
| | 00:12 | It's helpful if you know the capabilities
of the popular printing processes.
| | 00:17 | Offset printing of course is the most
popular most widely used printing processes.
| | 00:22 | And that applies to both sheet-fed
presses and web presses.
| | 00:25 | Sheet-fed presses can produce products
like product manuals, pocket folders they
| | 00:30 | can create very high quality work.
| | 00:32 | web presses are high quality as
well but they're for longer run such as
| | 00:36 | publications or textbooks.
| | 00:38 | Both processes can provide in-line finishing,
you see that more commonly on web presses.
| | 00:44 | Both types of printing press support
more than four colors and they may allow
| | 00:48 | the addition of spot varnishes and
aqueous coatings, which can enhance the
| | 00:52 | appearance and the value
of your final printed piece.
| | 00:55 | Letterpress is an old process it's
really essentially the same process that was
| | 01:00 | used by Gutenberg in his original Bible.
| | 01:03 | So because it's time honored it can
create elegant results, there's a depth in
| | 01:07 | character because there's pressure
as the ink is applied to paper.
| | 01:11 | It's great if you use heavy
and sometimes exotic stocks.
| | 01:14 | When would you use letterpress?
When you're creating invitations or
| | 01:17 | announcements or business cards or
even just an art piece that you want to
| | 01:22 | use to showcase the depth
and the character of Letterpress.
| | 01:26 | If you're creating a project that will
require low numbers of pieces such as
| | 01:29 | Excel sheets or perhaps postcards,
business cards or event announcements, your
| | 01:34 | jobs are good candidate for digital
printing. While most digital presses are
| | 01:38 | limited to four color process.
| | 01:40 | Their pigments often allow the
rendering of wider gamut than offset presses.
| | 01:44 | Some digital presses even offer in-line
binding, and if you're considering
| | 01:48 | exploring the world of customize one-to-one
marketing your solution is digital
| | 01:52 | printing with variable data components.
| | 01:54 | Now the price per piece might be a bit
higher because of data management, such
| | 01:58 | as buying and cleansing and mailing list.
| | 02:00 | It's been proven that the response rate
for one-on-one mailings is substantially
| | 02:04 | higher than for conventional generic mailings.
So it's worth the extra effort and cost.
| | 02:09 | If you're designing for irregular
surfaces such as bottles, pens, sports
| | 02:14 | equipment or textiles your job may
be a candidate for silk screening it's
| | 02:18 | not just for t-shirts, if you think that, you're
missing out on some interesting possibilities.
| | 02:23 | Screen printing isn't limited to
flat surfaces and simple imagery.
| | 02:27 | Modern photosensitive resists and
fine screen materials make it possible to
| | 02:31 | screen photographic content and fine
typography onto a variety of surfaces
| | 02:36 | including metal and plastic and wood.
| | 02:38 | If you're involved in the creation of
flexible packaging for products such as
| | 02:42 | pet food, fertilizer, ingredient,
snack foods, flexography is the solution.
| | 02:47 | Flexible rubber plates of flexography--
and that's why it's called flexography--
| | 02:51 | make it possible to print on thin
metalized stock, heavy paper and bag material
| | 02:56 | that couldn't be handled by offset presses.
| | 02:59 | Once you learn the strengths and the
advantages as well as limitations of the
| | 03:02 | wide variety of printing processes,
you are better prepared to determine the
| | 03:06 | path your job should take.
| | 03:07 | And you may find that the particular
capabilities of one of these processes
| | 03:11 | can inform and possibly inspire your design.
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| The art of letterpress| 00:02 | Letterpress is the method pioneered
by Gutenberg and while it's ancient it
| | 00:06 | creates beautiful printed pieces with
a richness and a personality rarely
| | 00:10 | matched by other processes.
| | 00:12 | In various incarnations letterpress was
the predominant printing process, until
| | 00:16 | the emergence of modern offset
printing in the 20th Century.
| | 00:20 | In Letterpress printing, raised surface
it might be wood, it might be metal,
| | 00:24 | maybe even linoleum is inked
and then pressed into paper.
| | 00:28 | That pressure creates a debossed effect.
| | 00:31 | It pushes the image into the paper.
That adds dimension to the printed piece.
| | 00:35 | There's been a resurgence of Letterpress
printing as an artisan process in
| | 00:39 | recent years, and there are now even
photopolymer plates that can adhered to a
| | 00:43 | base giving designers the ability to
use Letterpress with digital artwork.
| | 00:49 | Letterpress printing often uses exotic
or handmade paper stocks, and that adds to
| | 00:53 | the personality of the piece.
| | 00:55 | It's often used for
invitations and announcements.
| | 00:58 | Only one color can be printed at a
time unless multiple inks are sort of
| | 01:02 | painted onto the plate.
| | 01:03 | That's called a split fountain and
registration of multiple impressions is a challenge.
| | 01:08 | Consequently, Letterpress is almost
always used for single color jobs.
| | 01:11 | Its strengths are its beautiful
typography and crisp edges. While original old
| | 01:17 | metal type components are really
highly prized, small niche foundries are
| | 01:21 | producing new metal type, some on
refurbished antique type equipment. Think about it.
| | 01:26 | A printing process that which created in the
1450s, is still putting ink on paper today.
| | 01:31 | Isn't that wonderful?
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| Understanding the advantages of sheet-fed printing| 00:01 | A Sheet-fed press, as the name implies,
feeds sheets of paper into the press.
| | 00:07 | Sheet-fed presses can handle a wide
variety of stock styles, sizes and weights,
| | 00:11 | even plastic substrates. And they can
also offer on press coatings and spot
| | 00:16 | varnishes, and that gives
you a lot of flexibility.
| | 00:20 | Because paper for a Sheet-fed press
is cut into sheets, rather than being
| | 00:23 | supplied on a roll, wider and sometimes
more interesting varieties of stocks are
| | 00:28 | available for Sheet-fed presses.
| | 00:30 | Consequently jobs such as high-quality
brochures, pocket folders and packaging
| | 00:35 | are often printed on sheet-fed presses.
| | 00:37 | Presses vary in size, taking paper sizes from 30x40
inches to 120x160 inches and even larger.
| | 00:46 | The number of ink units can vary
from a single unit for one color work to
| | 00:50 | presses that can print 12 inks in one pass.
| | 00:53 | Each blank sheet of paper is picked up
by small vacuum feet then moved forward
| | 00:57 | into the press by a second set of vacuum feet.
| | 01:02 | Banks of rollers keep the paper
moving toward the inlet of the press
| | 01:05 | until grippers can grasp the edge of the
sheet and pull it into the press for printing.
| | 01:10 | Here you can see the vacuum feet
picking up the paper in slow motion.
| | 01:14 | The feet on the right make contact with
the paper first, then the secondary feet
| | 01:18 | on the left lift the paper and move it
forward toward the inlet of the press.
| | 01:23 | This is quite an engineering feat and
that's even before the ink starts hitting paper.
| | 01:29 | The press must be brought up to
standards for ink coverage and registration
| | 01:32 | using computerized controls and the
experienced pressman's expert judgment.
| | 01:37 | During this process--which is called make-
ready--many adjustments may be made to
| | 01:41 | bring the press setup to the optimum settings.
Once this is done, the live press run begins.
| | 01:48 | Sheet-fed presses are capable of very
high quality printing, including high line
| | 01:52 | screen projects such as coffee
table books and fine art prints.
| | 01:56 | Coatings such as flood coatings overall
or spot varnishes can be applied right
| | 02:01 | on the press, enhancing the look
and feel of the finished piece.
| | 02:05 | Sheet-fed presses produce fewer
impressions per hour than web presses, so
| | 02:09 | they're not usually used for long-run
jobs such as textbooks or publications.
| | 02:13 | But if your next project requires
the high-quality and stock flexibility
| | 02:17 | afforded by sheet-fed presses, ask
the printer if it's right for your job.
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| Using a web press for long runs| 00:00 | web presses are so called because they are fed
by a web of paper unrolling from a huge role.
| | 00:06 | While a wide variety of stock is available
for web presses, the necessity of tensile
| | 00:10 | strength and grain orientation dictates the
type of stock that can be fed into a web press.
| | 00:16 | So you may find that your stock choices are a bit limited
when compared to what's available for sheet-fed presses.
| | 00:22 | Large-scale projects such as magazines, textbooks,
newspapers and inserts are appropriate for web presses.
| | 00:29 | Paper is flying through a web press at about
2 to 3000 feet per minute, think about it,
| | 00:34 | that's about 35 miles an hour.
| | 00:36 | As you can see in this video, the web of paper
follows a complex path as it passes through the press.
| | 00:42 | Part of the reason for that complicated path
has to do with maintaining the correct tension
| | 00:46 | to keep pulling the paper through the press and
ensuring that the paper doesn't tear and stop the job.
| | 00:55 | In addition to offering high-speed and long
runs, web presses can perform in-line finishing
| | 01:00 | including folding and assembly of signatures,
perforating and even the application of micro-encapsulated
| | 01:06 | substances such as scratch
and sniff perfume samples.
| | 01:09 | If you found a perfume sample in a magazine,
chances are it was printed on a web press.
| | 01:17 | In this video you can see the web of paper
coming down and being folded in half to start
| | 01:21 | the process of combining signatures
into the proper page order for finishing.
| | 01:26 | It may look like some sort of special effect,
but when the video was slowed down you can
| | 01:30 | see the speeding paper
being guided into the fold.
| | 01:33 | Think of the design and the engineering that
goes into creating these huge wonderful machines.
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| Understanding thermography| 00:01 | Thermography uses a combination of special
inks and powdered polymers to create a raised
| | 00:06 | dimensional image on paper.
| | 00:08 | The powder adheres to the special inked areas,
the excess is vacuumed off, and then heat is
| | 00:13 | applied briefly to melt the polymer.
| | 00:16 | As the paper exits the heated section of the
press, the polymer cools and hardens. The result?
| | 00:21 | The look of expensive
engraving at a much lower cost.
| | 00:25 | The thermographic
printing is not fake engraving.
| | 00:29 | With modern polymers effects such as
transparent dimension, matte artwork and even textural
| | 00:35 | fields like granular sand and florescent
and pearlescent finishes, even glitter can be
| | 00:40 | created with thermographic methods.
| | 00:43 | There is no limit to the colors
that you can use in thermography.
| | 00:46 | Now there are a few things to consider
when you're designing for thermography.
| | 00:50 | Large areas of thermography may
become modeled with an irregular surface.
| | 00:55 | Although that might actually be kind of neat,
you should avoid folds in the middle of the
| | 00:59 | thermographed area
because the art might crack.
| | 01:02 | You should design so that thermography is
applied to only one side of the stock, applying
| | 01:06 | to both sides requires reheating, and that could
melt and deform the artwork on the first side.
| | 01:11 | You should avoid having thermographed areas bleed,
because trimming will cause the finish to crack.
| | 01:16 | For the best results, you should
use uncoated hard finish stocks.
| | 01:21 | Stock weight should be at least 20
pounds, up to a 100 pound cover stock.
| | 01:25 | Now that you have some idea of the
possibilities afforded by thermography, if you're working
| | 01:30 | on a project that could benefit from the
added dimension and interesting finish, ask your
| | 01:35 | printer if thermography would work for you.
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| Considerations for digital printing| 00:00 | In addition to the traditional offset sheet-fed
and web presses, many printers are now incorporating
| | 00:06 | digital printing devices in their work flows.
Digital presses offer some advantages, including
| | 00:11 | affordable short runs and the ability to use
variable data. Each impression can have unique
| | 00:16 | text or even separate graphics. And a lot of
digital presses include options for in-line
| | 00:22 | binding, such as saddle stitching.
| | 00:24 | In their first incarnations, toner-based digital
presses were frankly little more than glorified copiers.
| | 00:29 | But their capabilities and quality
have increased greatly over the years.
| | 00:34 | And digital presses now compete with smaller
offset presses, especially for short runs.
| | 00:39 | There are some size and color limitations. Now the
Xerox iGen, for example, takes about 14 x 22.5 inch stock.
| | 00:46 | And that particular press has
no option for spot colors.
| | 00:49 | However, the toners that are used on it and
other digital presses actually have a wider
| | 00:54 | color gamut than offset inks. And what that
means is that these presses can sometimes
| | 00:58 | do a better job of rendering approximations of
spot colors than offset presses can with CMYK.
| | 01:05 | Some digital presses except only cut sheet
paper sort of like sheet-fed presses.
| | 01:10 | Some like the Indigo presses from HP except roll
stock. Some of the indigo options include
| | 01:15 | the ability to print beyond CMYK by adding
orange, violet and green inks. And other options
| | 01:21 | may include custom mixed toners and sometimes white
toners for printing on dark or metallic stocks.
| | 01:28 | Again, the limitations are the limited stock
sizes, you're also limited to certain kinds
| | 01:33 | of stock with some of these presses. And they
require temperature and humidity controlled
| | 01:38 | environment, you're not going to see these
presses out on a noisy press room floor.
| | 01:42 | As quality has increased, digital output has
begun to rival offset printing especially
| | 01:47 | when in-line coatings are applied. You've
probably seen some online photographic services
| | 01:52 | that provide the option for photographers to
create limited numbers of printed and bound
| | 01:57 | books of their work. Those are created on
high-end digital presses. In fact, the next
| | 02:02 | time you see one of those, examine it
carefully, and I think you'll see that the quality is
| | 02:06 | indistinguishable from offset work.
| | 02:08 | You probably have any inkjet printer right
there on your Desktop. I remember paying about
| | 02:12 | $800 for a 300 dpi inkjet printer about 20
years ago. And I thought it was amazing that
| | 02:18 | I could finally print color, even though it
took a while. But now professional inkjet
| | 02:23 | printers are making their mark on a wide
variety of surfaces from large in-store banners and
| | 02:28 | outdoor displays to vehicle wraps. Special
pigments and papers are used on some inkjet
| | 02:34 | printers to create Fine Art Giclee Prints.
| | 02:37 | And inkjet devices can even print on ceramic
tiles, wood and they can even print on food.
| | 02:42 | Yes, there is edible ink. The grand format
printers can image substrates up to 16 feet wide.
| | 02:48 | These digital devices give you the
opportunity to print jobs that would have been prohibitively
| | 02:53 | expensive or maybe even impossible just 10 years ago.
But they're part of the continuing evolution of print.
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4. Ink on PaperWhat's a process color?| 00:00 | Look at any magazine with color
photographs, all of those colors are the
| | 00:04 | result of combinations of cyan,
magenta, yellow, and black inks.
| | 00:09 | Those are commonly referred to as the process colors,
and I'm sure you've heard the shorthand, CMYK.
| | 00:14 | As the inks are laid down on press,
you can see the final color take shape.
| | 00:18 | Different printing plants lay down the
four colors in various orders, but the
| | 00:21 | final result is the same.
| | 00:24 | So I want to show you how the piece of
paper looks as each successive color is applied.
| | 00:30 | Here is just the black plate alone,
and you can see the range of tones within
| | 00:35 | the black plate, from Shadows to Highlights.
| | 00:37 | Then when I add the cyan, you
start to see the image take shape.
| | 00:41 | Now the magenta, and now the yellow, and
there is the finished four-color piece.
| | 00:46 | Here's a consideration, on a printing
press you cannot print continuous tone as
| | 00:50 | you could in a photograph, you have
to print little dots, and that's how the
| | 00:55 | range of tones gets rendered.
| | 00:57 | Here if we look at a half toned image,
this is the way ink really hits paper.
| | 01:02 | You can probably see a little bit of a
pattern, and when I zoom in you start to
| | 01:06 | see all the little dots
that add up to the four colors.
| | 01:10 | Again, we're going to look
at the individual plates.
| | 01:13 | There is the black plate, notice the angle of the
lines, notice the angle of the little rows of dots.
| | 01:19 | If we look at the cyan,
you'll see it's a different angle,
| | 01:23 | and magenta is at 45 degrees,
the yellow is at 90 degrees.
| | 01:27 | Now, different printing plants use
different workflows and they may have
| | 01:32 | different angles from the ones I'm
showing you here, but the concept is the same.
| | 01:36 | Because each color prints at a different
angle, you have to make sure that there
| | 01:40 | isn't a pattern, that you don't have
an unpleasant moire, an interference
| | 01:43 | between the angles of the individual inks.
| | 01:46 | If you have the correct angles and
everything meshes nicely, you're going to see
| | 01:50 | what's called a rosette.
| | 01:51 | If you look in the upper right-hand
corner here, I think it's easy to see
| | 01:54 | those little rosettes.
| | 01:55 | That's the sign of all the individual
colors being at good angles, and you're not
| | 01:59 | going to get an ugly pattern when it's printed.
| | 02:02 | Here in Illustrator, I'm showing you how
those little halftone dots fall on a page.
| | 02:07 | Look, each one is centered in little
grid cell, it's sort of like graph paper.
| | 02:12 | The number of cells along the
line is called the line screen.
| | 02:15 | If there are 150 little dots in a row
in an inch, that's 150 line per inch
| | 02:21 | halftone, and that's a
pretty common value for magazines.
| | 02:24 | For a newspaper it might be lower, coarser, 85
lines per inch, or maybe even 65 lines per inch.
| | 02:31 | The finer the line screen, the
finer the detail you can hold on press.
| | 02:35 | Very coarse line screens don't hold
detail very well, because little bitty
| | 02:39 | details are hardly bigger
than knows halftones themselves.
| | 02:42 | So for something like a coffee table book,
it might be above 150 lines per inch,
| | 02:47 | it might even go up to 200 or more.
| | 02:49 | So now you know how little dots of color
miraculously render a full-color photograph.
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| What's a spot color?| 00:01 | Most of your jobs are probably going to print using
the process colors, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
| | 00:06 | If you're printing photographs,
they do a fabulous job.
| | 00:09 | But there's a limit to the range of
colors that can be rendered in CMYK.
| | 00:13 | For example, bright oranges tend to go to
sort of brownie, tan, and navy blues tend
| | 00:18 | to become sort of purplish and desaturated.
| | 00:20 | You've probably seen the same
effect on your in-house inkjet printer.
| | 00:24 | So what do you do if you have your heart set
on a navy blue or a bright orange or any of
| | 00:28 | the other colors that fall outside the
range of CMYK? Well, then you use spot colors.
| | 00:33 | And a spot color is a can
of ink that is that color.
| | 00:37 | If you want to print my favorite orange
PANTONE 21, you open up a can of that ink, and it's
| | 00:42 | orange all the way through.
| | 00:43 | Now, some considerations when you use spot
inks, some inks require special handling,
| | 00:49 | for example, metallics tend to scuff a little
bit, so if you're using a metallic in a piece
| | 00:54 | that's going to be printed or mailed, it's
going to be handled a lot, you might want
| | 00:58 | to invest in putting a clear coating on the job.
| | 01:01 | That's going to cost a little extra, using
the spot color is going to cost a little extra,
| | 01:05 | but it means you get the color
that you have your heart set on.
| | 01:08 | Now, the word PANTONE and the word spot color,
those tend to be used sort of interchangeably.
| | 01:13 | But what is PANTONE, it's an
ink reference publishing company.
| | 01:17 | So they print books like this.
You probably have one on your desk.
| | 01:21 | And there are a number of different ones.
| | 01:23 | PANTONE doesn't necessarily mean spot, there
are some PANTONE guides that are just process.
| | 01:27 | But this is my favorite, it's the PANTONE
COLOR BRIDGE, and they're very expensive.
| | 01:32 | If you're going to buy one PANTONE reference book,
I highly recommend that you buy the COLOR BRIDGE.
| | 01:36 | Now, this is the new version, the new ink
system that PANTONE is referencing, and it's
| | 01:42 | called the PANTONE PLUS System.
| | 01:44 | If you have Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6,
they've moved to PANTONE PLUS as well.
| | 01:49 | Now, if you have an old reference book,
don't throw it away, it's still valuable, those
| | 01:53 | reference numbers still
mean something to printers.
| | 01:55 | But what I love about the COLOR BRIDGE is
that you can compare a spot color and its
| | 02:00 | closest CMYK equivalent, and this can
really help you decide, gee is it close enough,
| | 02:04 | maybe we will just run it and process? But
if it's not close enough, if you have your
| | 02:08 | heart set on that color, then you know
which spot color to specify to the printer, you
| | 02:13 | know which spot color to use when you're
creating your artwork, and also in the future when
| | 02:17 | you have a CMYK job, you
have a great reference here.
| | 02:20 | All the CMYK equivalents give you the CMYK
values, so this is sort of a 2-for-1, that's
| | 02:25 | why I say if you're going to buy one
PANTONE book, make it the COLOR BRIDGE.
| | 02:29 | So when you're planning your job, have a
conversation with your printer, tell him the colors you
| | 02:33 | have your heart set on, see what it's going
to cost to add the spot color and any possible
| | 02:38 | clear coating that you might need
to sort of protect those colors.
| | 02:42 | And the idea here is that you plan ahead,
and that way you have everything you want
| | 02:46 | on your job, it looks the way you expect, and you're
going to love that piece when it flies out of the press.
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| Exploring how ink behaves on paper| 00:00 | When you start combining multiple inks--
and let's face it that's almost all
| | 00:03 | the time--you have to consider how interactions
of ink on paper are going to affect your artwork.
| | 00:09 | For example, if you have small white
type and a dark multicolor background,
| | 00:13 | there's a potential for all that ink to
sort of pile up and encroach on the type
| | 00:17 | and it might deform the edges of it.
| | 00:19 | Now modern presses are much more precise
than in the olden days, but misregister
| | 00:24 | could still cause the type to be unreadable.
And the opposite is true.
| | 00:27 | If you create especially small text out
of multiple inks, misregister can occur
| | 00:32 | and it's going to deform that text,
make it look a little bit blurry.
| | 00:36 | Now your printer maybe able to provide
specifications that spell out the minimum
| | 00:40 | size for white text or multicolor text or fine rules
and things like that, take that advice seriously.
| | 00:47 | Also, there's a limit to how much ink you
can pile up in one spot on a given stock.
| | 00:52 | It depends on the stock.
It depends on the press.
| | 00:55 | If you exceed that limit, you use adherence.
| | 00:58 | Ink laid down by the previous unit might get
picked up in spots by the subsequent unit.
| | 01:02 | This is called total ink coverage
or total area coverage, TIC or TAC.
| | 01:08 | For newsprint, for example, that falls
between 240% to 260%. On a sheet-fed press
| | 01:14 | running coated stock, that total
area coverage might be 320% to 340%.
| | 01:19 | And you're thinking, wait, how
you can have more than 100%?
| | 01:22 | Well, here in Acrobat using Output
Preview I can sort of interrogate my file.
| | 01:28 | As I move my cursor around, watch the
numbers that are in the Output Preview and
| | 01:33 | you'll see them changing.
| | 01:34 | As I hover over this area there's a
rich black background, 60 cyan, 40 magenta,
| | 01:39 | 40 yellow, and 100 black.
See, all those numbers add up to 240% percent.
| | 01:45 | It's probably not a problem.
| | 01:47 | If I hover over this image on the left,
you'll see in that lens, in the darkest
| | 01:51 | shadow, that adds up to 294%.
| | 01:54 | So again, it depends on what press and
what stock that combination determines how
| | 01:58 | much ink you can pile up.
| | 02:00 | But there's a great way to find
areas that exceed a given specification.
| | 02:05 | At the bottom of Output Preview ,if I
choose the Total Area Coverage, there is a
| | 02:09 | little warning color that tells
me if I'm over the allowed amount.
| | 02:13 | So if I'm running on a press who's
maximum Total Area Coverage is 280%, all
| | 02:18 | of these areas that are highlighted in
green are going to present a problem on press.
| | 02:23 | What if I'm running on a sheet-fed press that
can accept much higher piles of ink in the area?
| | 02:28 | Well, then that's not a problem.
| | 02:30 | If you examine your files in Acrobat
like this, and they're just little tiny
| | 02:33 | green areas, that's
probably not going to be an issue.
| | 02:36 | But when you have large areas
showing that you've exceeded the Total Area
| | 02:40 | Coverage for that press and
stock combination, what can do you?
| | 02:44 | You have to go back to your original
image and re-separate it or modified in
| | 02:48 | some way so that Total Area Coverage is
not going to exceed the specifications.
| | 02:54 | Again, keep in mind your printer
can tell you what those values are.
| | 02:58 | One of things that can happen when you're applying
ink on paper is you could have misregistration.
| | 03:04 | So what does that mean?
| | 03:05 | Well, that means as the individual
colors are laid down, maybe they don't line
| | 03:09 | up from unit to unit.
Again, this is very rare.
| | 03:12 | But what happens when it does happen?
Well, this is bad register.
| | 03:17 | You've probably seen this on the
Sunday funnies in the newspaper.
| | 03:20 | You can see the colors don't quite line up
and you get sort of a rainbow effect around.
| | 03:24 | Now I've highly exaggerated this,
and as I mentioned earlier modern presses
| | 03:28 | really don't have the problems with
registration that ancient presses did.
| | 03:32 | But it's still something to consider. And
how do you consider this when you design?
| | 03:37 | If you want to make sure nothing like this ever
happens, you might want to modify your design.
| | 03:41 | In this case, maybe I
don't need a black background.
| | 03:44 | Maybe I'll just have my color type and
maybe I'll make that word Design and the
| | 03:47 | word At black have it all fall on a
white background, then there is much less
| | 03:52 | chance that anything is
going to be out of register.
| | 03:55 | One of the ways you can fix misregister
is by adding something called Trapping.
| | 03:59 | Now trapping is not something
you ought to have to do.
| | 04:02 | It's something that happens at the printer.
We're going to zoom in on this text.
| | 04:07 | This is a spot color orange and
it's against a spot color blue.
| | 04:11 | So as each color is laid down,
| | 04:13 | again if there's any misregister
between the subsequent units of the press, you
| | 04:18 | can see a little gap between the
colors, and you don't want that.
| | 04:21 | What trapping does is
create little overlapping areas.
| | 04:26 | It's sort like a little rim around each
color where the colors don't have inks
| | 04:30 | in common and those little areas
have a combination of the inks.
| | 04:34 | So this looks really ugly at this
magnification, but in real life you're really
| | 04:38 | not going to see those little rims.
| | 04:40 | They're much less unattractive
than any white gap between the colors.
| | 04:43 | So trapping is preferable to not trapping.
| | 04:47 | In those little dark borders what
you're going to see where the orange type
| | 04:50 | hits the blue type is really a combination of 100%
of the spot orange and 100% of that spot blue.
| | 04:56 | And again, if there is a little bit of
leeway on the press you're never going
| | 05:00 | to see that white gap.
| | 05:02 | Keep in mind that you
don't have to perform trapping.
| | 05:04 | It's not something you have to worry about.
It's something that happens at the printer.
| | 05:08 | They have specialized software as part
of their workflow that creates straps.
| | 05:12 | We don't have to make them by hand anymore.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Comparing monitor vs. press output| 00:01 | If you've ever had printed out a page on your
desktop inkjet printer and held it up to the
| | 00:05 | monitor, chances are you've been a little
disappointed at how far off the printed output
| | 00:09 | is from your monitor.
| | 00:10 | Well, it's a common heartbreak, and that's
because your monitor and ink on paper are
| | 00:15 | two very different realities.
| | 00:17 | And if you compare your screen and your
inkjet print to the final printed piece, you may
| | 00:21 | very well be looking at three
rather different versions of your job.
| | 00:25 | It's really maddening.
| | 00:26 | So what you do you hang your hat on? Well,
the solution to this problem is to have a
| | 00:31 | fully color managed workflow.
| | 00:33 | But that can be expensive, kind of
confusing, and a big complicated to implement.
| | 00:38 | If you want to fully pursue the color managed
workflow, you have to invest in expensive equipment
| | 00:43 | to profile your monitor and all your printers.
| | 00:46 | But if you don't want to go that far, you
can still improve your monitor substantially
| | 00:50 | by using the colorimeter,
such as I've right here.
| | 00:53 | Now you can expect to pay from
$200 and up for colorimeter.
| | 00:57 | The way it works is the colorimeter and its
software combine to send color signals to the monitor.
| | 01:03 | The colorimeter reads the values and then
compares them to an internal ideal value.
| | 01:08 | And then it sets up a Reference File that's
called a Profile, that's used to control the
| | 01:12 | output of your monitor.
| | 01:14 | Now if you're part of a work group that
produces a lot of work for print, it actually might
| | 01:19 | be worth hiring a color management consultant to
come in, profile all of your equipment for you.
| | 01:24 | They'll use their own sophisticated equipment
to set up your monitors and printers without
| | 01:29 | you having to make the
investment in that equipment.
| | 01:31 | Now they'll probably recommend that calibrations
and profiles be updated periodically, especially
| | 01:36 | if you add new equipment.
| | 01:38 | Now in color-critical environments, for
example in printing plants fresh profiles are often
| | 01:43 | generated just after new ink is installed
in a printer, if that printer is being used
| | 01:47 | for generating proofs.
| | 01:50 | You should also consider the
lighting conditions in your work area.
| | 01:53 | If you have ever gone to a printing company
to view proofs, you've probably stood in a
| | 01:57 | viewing booth that's specially
constructed for optimal viewing conditions.
| | 02:00 | It may even be a stand-alone room. It's usually
painted a neutral gray, and special lights are installed.
| | 02:07 | You may have heard them referred to as D50
or 5000 K lights, and that refers to their
| | 02:12 | color temperature, the K if you care, stands for
Kelvin, and that's the temperature measurement system.
| | 02:18 | So why is 5000 K chosen? Well, it's supposed
to mimic the temperature of sunlight at high noon.
| | 02:24 | The higher the color temperature, the
bluer the light source, and as you go below
| | 02:30 | 5000 K, lights get warmer.
| | 02:32 | For example, the household
incandescent bulbs around 2800K.
| | 02:37 | Now those official viewing sources can be
really expensive, but I am going to let you
| | 02:41 | in on a little secret.
| | 02:43 | You can come very close by using fluorescent
bulbs from the hardware or home improvement store.
| | 02:47 | Just make sure it says
5000 K or D50 on the bulb.
| | 02:52 | Now I realize that it's true that your
final printed piece is going to be viewed under
| | 02:55 | a wide variety of lighting conditions, from kitchen
fluorescents to candlelight, to incandescent living room lamps.
| | 03:02 | So why pick a particular
color temperature for viewing?
| | 03:05 | Well, it's for consistency.
| | 03:07 | There has to be some constant to ensure color
accuracy, especially when you're judging color
| | 03:12 | corrections from one proof to the next
or you are looking at a press proof.
| | 03:15 | Now, I worked as a color specialist and
retoucher for many years, and we even avoided wearing
| | 03:21 | clothing that could reflect on the monitor or on
a proof that you're viewing with the customer.
| | 03:25 | Now maybe that's why we all wear black and
gray, it's not because we're stylish, we're
| | 03:29 | just being color correct.
| | 03:32 | If you want to delve deeper into color management,
I'd recommend Chris Murphy's course for lynda.com
| | 03:37 | that's called Color Management Essential Training,
and Chris is also one of the authors
| | 03:42 | of Real-World Color Management, which is
sort of an instant classic on the subject.
| | 03:47 | Don't be intimidated by the heft of the book.
It's very readable, very understandable, and
| | 03:51 | it's actually funny in spots--which is pretty
amazing given that that's a technical and arcane topic.
| | 03:57 | Now while calibrating, profiling, and special
lighting might seem like an awful lot of extra
| | 04:02 | work, all those things together can go a long
way toward giving you more realistic expectations
| | 04:08 | of your final printed result.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. The Mechanics of FinishingBuilding to the correct size| 00:00 | One size does not fit all.
| | 00:02 | As you start your project, always
begin by building to the final trim size.
| | 00:06 | That is if you're creating a business
card, create a business card-sized page in
| | 00:11 | InDesign or business card-sized artboard in Illustrator.
| | 00:14 | Don't create lonely little
business card in a letter-size page.
| | 00:18 | Why does this matter?
| | 00:19 | Well, for one thing, it helps you more
easily visualize how the piece is going to
| | 00:22 | print and trim, but maybe more
importantly, your printer is going to have to fix
| | 00:27 | it if you build the wrong size.
| | 00:28 | Now in Illustrator you might think of
Illustrator artboard as an imaginary piece
| | 00:33 | of paper corresponding to the real piece of paper
that will be the printed in trimmed final piece.
| | 00:38 | So when you choose File > New Document,
now I think in Inches, not in Points.
| | 00:45 | If I'm going to make a business card and
I know it's going to be 3.5 Inches wide
| | 00:49 | by 2 Inches tall, I am going to put 3.5
in the Width field, Tab on down to the
| | 00:54 | Height field, and put in 2 inches.
| | 00:56 | And if I know I'm going to have artwork
that goes to the edge, of course I've to
| | 01:00 | provide bleed so that I am going to add bleed.
There is my new business card.
| | 01:04 | I'll zoom out so you can see it.
| | 01:07 | The edge here is going to be the trim
edge of the business card and then the red
| | 01:11 | line that I see here corresponds to bleed.
| | 01:14 | So you can see in the
finished piece I have a little problem.
| | 01:18 | I don't have any bleed.
| | 01:19 | So I need to take this yellow
background shape and pull its edges out so that
| | 01:24 | they correspond to the bleed.
| | 01:26 | Now I've something that's
going to print correctly.
| | 01:28 | So if I print the file, or I save it to PDF,
that extra area is going to carry through.
| | 01:34 | When I save as PDF, if I choose Use
Document Bleed Settings, Illustrator is going
| | 01:39 | to automatically include that extra content.
| | 01:42 | I'm going to go back, and I'm going to
fix this file, because I have my bad
| | 01:46 | artboard, my good artboard.
| | 01:47 | I'm going to delete all of this artwork
that's lonely in the middle of the page
| | 01:52 | and I am going to get rid of my extra artboard.
| | 01:54 | Now I have a correct file that's
appropriate to send to the printer.
| | 02:00 | In Illustrator when I go to make a
PDF, it's not Export, it's Save As.
| | 02:07 | I am going to save it to the
Desktop just so it's easy to find later.
| | 02:11 | Here in the Save dialog under Marks and
Bleeds, if my printer wants Marks, I am
| | 02:16 | going to include them.
If they don't want Marks, I won't.
| | 02:19 | For this one I am just going to
include my Trim Marks, and I don't need to
| | 02:23 | include anything else I
think but my Page Information.
| | 02:26 | Notice that if you Use Document Bleed
Settings is checked, you can see it sort of
| | 02:30 | goes to back in these little fields.
| | 02:32 | It understands that I set up a bleed zone
initially, and it's going to respect that.
| | 02:37 | So if your printer asks you to send this as
a PDF, there's everything in place for him.
| | 02:41 | You have your Bleed and have your Trim Marks.
| | 02:44 | Everything is good to go and
it's built the correct size.
| | 02:47 | In InDesign the same rules apply.
| | 02:50 | You don't want to build a business
card in the middle of a letter-size page.
| | 02:53 | You always want your New Document
dialog to reflect your final trim size.
| | 02:58 | So here in InDesign's New Document
dialog I'm going to uncheck Facing Pages, and
| | 03:03 | I don't think in Points and Picas,
| | 03:05 | InDesign does by default, but I
don't have to do any math in my head.
| | 03:10 | I know this needs to be 3.5 Inches wide.
| | 03:12 | So I can just type the 3.5 and
either type IN, or I or put in quote marks,
| | 03:17 | InDesign is clever enough
to do the translation for me.
| | 03:20 | When I Tab out of that field, you
can see that's 21p0, and the Height is
| | 03:25 | going to be 2 Inches.
| | 03:26 | So just for fun I'll
type to 2in, and there we go.
| | 03:31 | Under More Options I can apply a Bleed.
| | 03:33 | So again if I can't think in picas, I
just have to type .125 and Inch--although
| | 03:40 | actually I know that 9
points is an eighth of an Inch.
| | 03:43 | When I tab it commits to that value.
You can see it populate all the bleed fields.
| | 03:48 | When I click OK, there's
my appropriate-sized page.
| | 03:51 | You can see the red bleed line around.
| | 03:53 | So as I start populating this with
artwork, everything is going to be the correct
| | 03:58 | size, and I am going to have adequate bleed.
| | 04:00 | So no matter what you're building, you
want to make sure that you always build to
| | 04:04 | the trim size, you always want to apply
a bleed if you know you're going to have
| | 04:08 | stuff that goes to the edge.
| | 04:10 | Remember, it doesn't stop at
the edge, it has go beyond.
| | 04:12 | So since InDesign CS5 we've been able to
include multiple page sizes within a document.
| | 04:16 | So if you've something like fold-in
panel, say for example, in addition to the
| | 04:20 | cover, set up those pages individually
within the document by using the Page
| | 04:24 | tool, select the page and change its dimensions.
And don't forget to do front and back.
| | 04:29 | So just remember you need to
determine the final trim size of your project
| | 04:34 | before you ever start building your pages.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Folding and trimming| 00:01 | When you're building a piece that's going to
fold up like a three or four panel brochure,
| | 00:05 | sometimes it's sort of hard to relate the
artwork that you're looking at on your monitor
| | 00:09 | versus that folded final piece.
| | 00:11 | And what I like to do, I like to make a paper
model, doesn't have to be fancy, just needs
| | 00:15 | to show what falls where.
| | 00:17 | And then when I fold that up it makes it much
easier for me to think, oh see? What's going
| | 00:21 | to be on the front cover? What's going to
be on the back cover? And then I have to start
| | 00:25 | thinking about the short fold panels, because
remember the interior panels aren't the same
| | 00:29 | dimension as the exterior panels, because they
have to fold in, and you don't want them to buckle.
| | 00:34 | So what that means is that as you're placing
artwork on these interior panels, if you want
| | 00:38 | stuff centered, you are going to have
to center on that smaller dimension.
| | 00:42 | So how do you know the exact dimensions of
the panels? Well, if your printer prints a
| | 00:46 | lot of jobs like this, chances are they can give you a
template, and that's a really great starting point.
| | 00:51 | Then you know you've got everything right.
| | 00:53 | If you're building something like a standard
rack brochure, you could probably get away
| | 00:57 | with not using a template.
| | 00:58 | If you know that the size
is 4 x 9 when it's folded,
| | 01:02 | you know you need two panels that are four
inches and then your third panel is going
| | 01:05 | to be that short folded panel.
| | 01:07 | Usually if you subtract an
eighth of an inch, you're good to go.
| | 01:10 | This is really important first step.
| | 01:12 | You really want to make sure that you're building
to the correct size before you ever put artwork
| | 01:16 | in place, never assume.
| | 01:19 | So here's a finished piece. It mimics
what I showed you in the paper.
| | 01:24 | And you can see that it has a short fold
interior panels, and it also has a little problem, they
| | 01:29 | missed something before this went to press.
| | 01:32 | They didn't accommodate
the little short fold panel.
| | 01:34 | So they have nice artwork here, but it's
centered in what would have been the full-size panel.
| | 01:39 | See the little margin here is
little shorter than it is there.
| | 01:41 | It's a shame they didn't catch
this before it went to press.
| | 01:44 | And so my goal here is to make you think
about this sort of stuff all the time so that it
| | 01:48 | doesn't go to press with
that kind of a problem.
| | 01:51 | So when you're building this kind of a piece,
I recommend that you check for type that's
| | 01:55 | too close to the trim.
You don't want artwork too close to the trim.
| | 01:59 | And you don't want art or
type that's too close to a fold.
| | 02:03 | And it can be a little tricky if you
have artwork that starts right at a fold.
| | 02:07 | Or if you have type or artwork that crosses a
fold sort of oddly, and it don't looks great
| | 02:11 | on your screen because
it's sort of all unfolded.
| | 02:14 | But if you cut somebody's face in half or
you cut a word in half, that's going to look
| | 02:18 | really awkward in that final piece.
| | 02:21 | And of course you want to make sure that you
have adequate bleed on any project you create,
| | 02:25 | not just folded projects.
| | 02:27 | In later movies I'm going to show you several
methods for setting up a three-panel brochure
| | 02:31 | both in Illustrator and InDesign.
| | 02:34 | For building templates,
I really like foldfactory.com.
| | 02:36 | They have great little plug-in for
InDesign call FOLDRite Template Master.
| | 02:41 | And, by the way, sort of the opposite is true
if you're printing in-house on a printer that
| | 02:45 | can't print all the way to the edge of the
paper. You know what you can do?
| | 02:48 | Design to accommodate that
white rind around the piece.
| | 02:51 | Make that part of the design, otherwise it's going
to be thin on one side, thick on the other.
| | 02:55 | Make sure that it's uniform
all the way around the artwork.
| | 02:58 | And it's sort of a funny thing.
| | 03:00 | Sometimes designing around the limitations
of your final process can actually inspire
| | 03:04 | some interesting changes in your design.
| | 03:07 | So with any piece that you're creating for
print, it's important to consider that last
| | 03:11 | process that touches your piece, and that's
the finishing process. It can have a huge
| | 03:15 | impact on the success of your project.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up for die cutting| 00:01 | Sometimes simple straight
edges just aren't enough.
| | 00:04 | If you want to create a piece with interesting shapes,
then you've to start planning for die cutting.
| | 00:09 | Now it could be something simple, like this flat
piece, but it looks really interesting, doesn't it?
| | 00:14 | Well, I'm sure you've
seen lots of pocket folders.
| | 00:17 | So here is a fairly standard pocket folder.
Now this one has two pockets inside.
| | 00:23 | But you have got to keep in mind that
anytime you're creating anything more complex than
| | 00:27 | something like these pocket folders or simple flat
die cuts, it becomes sort of a special reasoning exercise.
| | 00:33 | For example, something as complex as a
little perfume box. Here's the flat version of it,
| | 00:38 | and you can see the little fold-in white panels,
those you're going to fold inside the box.
| | 00:43 | These little flaps that are hanging out,
those are where glue is going to be applied.
| | 00:48 | So there can't be any ink there.
No artwork can print on those little flaps.
| | 00:51 | Otherwise, the glue won't adhere.
| | 00:53 | So let's look at what this
looks like. Fold it up.
| | 00:55 | There is the bottom and then the top, if I can
do this correctly, turns into a little flower.
| | 01:02 | Now if you think it's tough to fold this up
by hand, think what's involved in engineering
| | 01:06 | for binder equipment that can score this and
fold it up and create a finished piece like that.
| | 01:11 | It's really pretty impressive.
| | 01:13 | So part of what happens is that a die is used
to crease the paper and to cut out that shape.
| | 01:18 | So before you ever start creating something
like this, you need to obtain die line art
| | 01:23 | from your printer. Or if you're building
something complex like this package, you may have to
| | 01:28 | commission that die to be created by
somebody who specializes in such work.
| | 01:32 | So the die line is something
you use as guidance on screen.
| | 01:36 | But what is the die itself? It's actually
very complex arrangement of blades that crease
| | 01:41 | and blades that cut paper or paperboard, and
there are specialized craftsman that create them.
| | 01:46 | They're very complex to design.
| | 01:48 | They have to allow for the kind
of stock they are going work on.
| | 01:52 | Sometimes they are mounted on the
cylinder, sometimes they're on wooden base.
| | 01:55 | But that's actually the shape of the
piece that's going to get cut out.
| | 01:59 | Now when you start designing, if you're
designing something like that pocket folder, you have
| | 02:03 | to consider that you're probably going
to have art on both sides of the piece.
| | 02:06 | For something like that little carton
it's just going print on the outside.
| | 02:09 | And here is a little project that we're working on, and
this is a little mock-up of the potential pocket folder.
| | 02:15 | So here is what we think it's
going to look like when it's finished.
| | 02:17 | There is the outside, there is a front cover,
and there is the back, and then we have some
| | 02:22 | artwork come the inside and
then the little folded up pocket.
| | 02:27 | So as we design this we have to
keep in mind that folding up later.
| | 02:31 | So front cover, back cover, and then inside
we have some artwork, and then there's the
| | 02:37 | inside of a little pocket.
| | 02:38 | You can notice that it's not printed. And
then when you look at the little flap, remember
| | 02:42 | I said you can't have any artwork
where there is going to be glue.
| | 02:46 | That's blank so that the glue will adhere.
| | 02:48 | If you're thinking about working on something
like this, see if you can find a similar piece
| | 02:52 | and then take it apart.
| | 02:53 | That will show you how glue is applied, you
get an idea how the little panels interlock,
| | 02:58 | and hold the piece together.
| | 02:59 | In fact, taking apart a cereal box
can really be sort of an education.
| | 03:04 | When you find yourself moving beyond flat
pieces, your planning does become more complex.
| | 03:09 | But the results can really be stunning.
| | 03:11 | So it's well worth the extra effort, and your
client will be impressed, and guess what.
| | 03:15 | Your printer will be thrilled when you
submit such a well-prepared job.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Embossing| 00:01 | Some visual effects simply can't be
accomplished with ink alone, for example, spot varnishes
| | 00:06 | can add shine or a matte finish to a specific area of a
piece, and that can highlight an important graphic.
| | 00:13 | For example, this piece has a high-gloss furnish
highlighting the wheel, but it also has a special
| | 00:19 | aqueous finish called soft
touch covering tire image.
| | 00:23 | Now it may just look like a matte
varnish on camera, but it feels like velvet.
| | 00:27 | It's very hard to put down,
you sort of want to petit.
| | 00:30 | But think of what a great way that is to engage
a customer. They are much more likely to keep
| | 00:34 | such a piece because of the novelty.
I promise you this is not going in the trash.
| | 00:40 | Now Embossing can add wonderful depth to a
printed piece. The Embossing process uses
| | 00:45 | pear-shaped dies, some pressure and
sometimes heat to create the special effects.
| | 00:51 | Embossing creates a ray shape on the top
surface of the piece, debossing results in a concave
| | 00:56 | shape, so it's pushed into
the surface of the paper.
| | 00:59 | In essence, the paper is molded into a paper
sculpture by being pressed between those two
| | 01:04 | pieces of metal, and this
makes for a very textural piece.
| | 01:08 | Now not all printers perform such special
finishing operations in-house, so your project
| | 01:13 | might go out to a third-party
supplier for that part of the job.
| | 01:17 | If that's the case, your printer will
probably introduce you to a customer service rep at
| | 01:21 | the finishing facility so that
you can keep up the conversation.
| | 01:25 | Now here are some general
considerations for embossing.
| | 01:29 | Thicker stock as you might expect can
support more embossing depth. Fine detail can be a
| | 01:34 | bit of a challenge, but you should always follow
your printer's guidelines when you're creating
| | 01:38 | artwork that's going to be used in embossing.
| | 01:41 | You should usually keep them embossed areas away from
the edge of the sheet, it might pucker a little bit.
| | 01:46 | So if you stay, quarter of an inch to half
an inch away, you are usually safe, but your
| | 01:51 | printer of the specialty
finishing house can advise you.
| | 01:54 | Now if the embossing is going to be multilevel,
that means it's more sculptural in nature,
| | 01:59 | you'll have to create a separate layer for
each level and label it accordingly, and it
| | 02:04 | should always be vector art.
| | 02:05 | You've to keep in mind that creating and
testing that die requires some lead time.
| | 02:11 | So work with the printer or the finishing
house and make sure you understand the impact
| | 02:15 | of that on your overall deadline.
| | 02:18 | You really should tackle this aspect of a
project as early as possible in the life of
| | 02:22 | the job, because the use of any specialty
finishing process can have an impact both
| | 02:26 | on your choice of stock and on your deadline.
| | 02:30 | Now when you hear the term foil stamping you
may just think of metallic enhancements.
| | 02:35 | And of course it's true that foil stamping can add a
metallic coating to an area, but it's not limited to that.
| | 02:41 | Foil stamping can also be used to apply
opaque white to dark stock and even iridescent or
| | 02:47 | holographic areas to paper.
| | 02:50 | Embossing and Foil Stamping combined can
make for some really stunning effects.
| | 02:55 | When you're preparing for foil stamping,
you should keep a few things in mind.
| | 02:58 | A foil usually can't go over coating such as
varnishes. Blisteringly may result, and in
| | 03:04 | fact some coated papers can
present the same problem.
| | 03:07 | If you are using a textured stock, you should
note that foils result in a smooth surface.
| | 03:12 | Although this could actually be pretty cool, it
could be a nice contrast with textured stock.
| | 03:18 | Registering foil to an existing design,
whether it's the printed part of the design or some
| | 03:22 | embossing, it can be a bit challenging.
You should usually avoid fine type.
| | 03:28 | Now if the finished piece is going to be run
through a laser printer, in other words, you're
| | 03:31 | creating letterhead, you should test to
make sure that the heat of the printer's fuser
| | 03:35 | doesn't cause the foil the bubbler or
pucker up. Of course that would ruin the look of
| | 03:39 | the piece, but it could also
gum up your laser printer.
| | 03:43 | Varnishing and foils and embossing can
greatly enhance a printing job. As you might expect,
| | 03:48 | a lot of planning and testing can go into
the creation of the piece that utilizes these
| | 03:52 | special finishing processes, and the cost
of such finishes can certainly add up.
| | 03:58 | But the stunning results
are certainly worth it.
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6. Layout BasicsChoosing an application| 00:00 | In theory, any implication that produces printable
output could be used to create a print project.
| | 00:06 | But not all applications provide the full range
of control you want for successful print output.
| | 00:11 | As you could use Microsoft Word or
PowerPoint or Publisher to create your job,
| | 00:15 | but your printer wouldn't be really pleased.
| | 00:17 | There are good reasons why Adobe
software is the preferred standard for print,
| | 00:21 | but which Adobe application is appropriate?
| | 00:24 | After all Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign all
allow you to set type, but they're not interchangeable.
| | 00:30 | Photoshop is called Photoshop for a reason.
It's appropriate for manipulating images period.
| | 00:35 | Now in rare instances, such as large
headline type that you want to apply
| | 00:39 | special effects to, it's okay to create type
in Photoshop, but be sure to keep it as vector.
| | 00:45 | And to do that save as a Photoshop PDF, and
then that vector content is correctly rendered.
| | 00:50 | Don't set small body text in Photoshop and don't
use Photoshop to create layouts such as business cards.
| | 00:57 | If I zoom way in on this text, you
can see that it's made out of pixels.
| | 01:02 | And if you zoom way out, it may look
okay on screen, but I promise you if this is
| | 01:07 | printed, it's not going to look as nice and
sharp as you would like to have your business card look.
| | 01:12 | There's considerable feature overlap
between Illustrator and InDesign, and
| | 01:15 | there are some types of projects that really you
could handle equally well in either application.
| | 01:20 | But Illustrator is perfect for creating
logos or maps or collateral, especially,
| | 01:27 | since we can now have
multiple artboards within a file.
| | 01:30 | But it also allows you to place
images apply some special effects such as
| | 01:35 | shadows and those are actually
accomplished only with pixels.
| | 01:38 | So anymore, Illustrator is not purely a vector
drawing program, it allows some pixel-based content.
| | 01:45 | The type handling in Illustrator is
very similar to InDesign, you can even
| | 01:48 | create character and paragraph styles.
And in Illustrator, all text is vector, and
| | 01:53 | that's how it should be.
| | 01:54 | Always remember to set your artboard
dimension to your correct trim size,
| | 01:58 | specify a bleed zone outside the artboard.
| | 02:01 | But Illustrator doesn't support
Master pages or automatic page numbering or
| | 02:05 | hyperlinks or cross-references, and that's why
for those projects, you want to use InDesign.
| | 02:11 | InDesign can be used to create
anything from a little business card to an
| | 02:15 | 18-foot by 18-foot banner.
| | 02:17 | The minimum size in
InDesign is one point by one point.
| | 02:20 | I doubt you'll ever use that.
| | 02:22 | And with the ability to create multiple
page sizes within a single document, you
| | 02:26 | could create a business card, letterhead, and
envelope in one file much like you could in Illustrator.
| | 02:31 | InDesign support effects such as
shadows and glows and embossing effects as
| | 02:36 | well as blending modes.
In this way, it's very much like Illustrator.
| | 02:40 | So given the overlap between
Illustrator and InDesign, how do you choose?
| | 02:44 | Well, here are some suggestions.
| | 02:46 | Use InDesign if you need to set a lot
of body text. You may find some of the
| | 02:50 | formatting a little bit kluging in Illustrator.
| | 02:53 | If you need master pages
you absolutely need InDesign.
| | 02:56 | If you have more than four pages, go to InDesign.
| | 02:59 | And if your document contains more than just a
few images, I think you want to use InDesign.
| | 03:04 | It's a little bit of a challenge to crop images in
Illustrator, it's very straightforward InDesign.
| | 03:09 | So now that you have some idea of what
each application does best, maybe it's a
| | 03:13 | little bit easier to choose the correct one
for the next project you have coming up.
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7. FontsUnderstanding font formats| 00:00 | Fonts can be wonderful, or they
can be the bane of your existence.
| | 00:04 | I'm not going to discuss the choice
of appropriate fonts in a design sense,
| | 00:07 | this is really about understanding font formats.
| | 00:10 | In the olden days, we had PostScript fonts,
they ware created by Adobe about 1984
| | 00:16 | as part of the PostScript
page-description language.
| | 00:19 | TrueType fonts were developed by
Apple Computer in the late 1980s.
| | 00:23 | They were first released in 1991 and
about the same time TrueType fonts were
| | 00:27 | added to the Windows operating system.
OpenType fonts are a more modern format.
| | 00:32 | They were developed by Microsoft
and Adobe in the mid-1990s.
| | 00:36 | One of the main reasons was to provide
support for multi-language characters and
| | 00:40 | diacriticals, also
OpenType fonts are cross-platform.
| | 00:44 | Is one format better
than the other? Not really.
| | 00:46 | As long as you can print it, you can
embed it in a PDF, it works just fine,
| | 00:51 | continue to enjoy it.
| | 00:52 | Now if you have some really ancient
fonts that produce errors--some of the old
| | 00:56 | versions of InDesign have sort of weak
stomach when it came to ancient fonts--
| | 01:00 | well, then may be it's time to
buy more modern replacements.
| | 01:03 | In a later video I am going to talk about some
of the wonderful capabilities of OpenType fonts.
| | 01:07 | Now if you use the same fonts almost
all the time, you can use your Mac or
| | 01:11 | Windows built-in tools for activating fonts.
| | 01:13 | But if you're constantly changing the
fonts in use, as you create projects for
| | 01:16 | different clients, it's a good idea
to invest in a font management program.
| | 01:21 | Every active font adds to system
overhead, and having a bazillion active fonts can
| | 01:25 | really slow things down.
| | 01:27 | So consider using something like
Suitcase from Extensis or FontAgent Pro from
| | 01:31 | Insider Software or FontExplorer from Linotype.
| | 01:34 | A font management program allows you
to selectively control the activation of
| | 01:38 | fonts, and that cuts down
on your system overhead.
| | 01:40 | You won't have to wait a half
hour to get from the As to the Hs.
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| Using OpenType fonts| 00:00 | If you collaborate across platforms or
you work on multiple platforms yourself,
| | 00:04 | most of the kinks have been ironed
out between the platforms, with the
| | 00:08 | exception of fonts.
Font formats can still become an issue.
| | 00:12 | For example, windows can't directly
read Mac PostScript or TrueType fonts,
| | 00:16 | although Macs can read PC TrueType fonts,
but it's kind of a hassle to activate them.
| | 00:21 | As the most modern font format,
OpenType offers the most flexibility.
| | 00:25 | It's completely cross-platform.
| | 00:27 | That is the same font file can be used
both on a PC and a Mac, as long as you
| | 00:31 | comply with font licensing.
Now, that alone would be pretty cool.
| | 00:35 | But the appeal of OpenType fonts
lies in their expanded character set.
| | 00:39 | An OpenType font can contain
more than 65,000 characters.
| | 00:43 | Why would you ever need so many characters?
| | 00:45 | Well, for multiple language publishing,
which was one of the main inspirations
| | 00:49 | for the creation of the OpenType format.
| | 00:51 | Myriad Pro, for example, includes Central European
diacriticals and Greek characters and even more.
| | 00:56 | And it goes beyond that, Caslon Pro
includes some ornaments and many
| | 01:00 | OpenType fonts include special features, such
as swash characters and discretionary ligatures.
| | 01:06 | In the past, when we were using
PostScript or TrueType fonts, we had to have
| | 01:09 | separate font files for each
one of those special features.
| | 01:13 | Now that we can have so many characters
within a font, we can have them all in one font.
| | 01:18 | So let's take a look at some of the options.
| | 01:20 | If I select all of this text, usually
Ligatures are on by default, but I've
| | 01:25 | turned them off just so
I can show you something.
| | 01:27 | Look at the ffl in Baffling, and when I choose
that, it makes such a nice little combination.
| | 01:32 | That ffl is actually a special little
character within this OpenType font.
| | 01:37 | It's very nicely created.
| | 01:38 | There is also something else called
Discretionary Ligatures, but before I apply
| | 01:43 | that I want you to look
at that list of features.
| | 01:46 | All of these features
could be in an OpenType font.
| | 01:49 | Now, not all OpenType fonts
will have all of the features.
| | 01:52 | Those features for this font that
are displayed in brackets are not
| | 01:55 | available for this font.
| | 01:57 | I want you to watch the S and the T in Questions
when I choose Discretionary Ligatures.
| | 02:01 | That's not what you think of
when you think of a ligature is it?
| | 02:05 | You think of fl or fi or ffl, you
wouldn't think about having a ligature between
| | 02:09 | an S and a T. But the designers of this
font thought that would be a neat idea,
| | 02:14 | and because OpenType
supports it, they got to do it.
| | 02:16 | Now, Fractions and Ordinals, some OpenType
fonts support what are called Arbitrary Fractions.
| | 02:21 | If I select this 1, the slash
and the 2, and I choose OpenType and
| | 02:26 | Fractions, if that's available for this font.
Well, there you go. That's not a lot of work.
| | 02:31 | I am going to select all of this
text and choose OpenType and Fractions,
| | 02:38 | pretty good, but the 11/16 doesn't look so
great, so I'd have to work on that a little bit.
| | 02:43 | So in some fonts this works very well,
in some fonts maybe not so well.
| | 02:46 | Let's see what happens when I change the font.
| | 02:49 | I am using Adobe Garamond Pro, if
I try Myriad Pro, that's not bad.
| | 02:54 | So you'll find that Myriad Pro is
pretty good, no matter what your numbers are.
| | 02:57 | So I'm going to try one more time and
see if I get a decent fraction here.
| | 03:03 | Again, if they're not perfect in the
font that you have your heart set on, it's
| | 03:07 | still not as much work as we had to
apply in the past to make fractions.
| | 03:11 | Also, some OpenType fonts support Ordinals.
| | 03:14 | So here if I choose OpenType and Ordinals,
that's available for this font, think
| | 03:18 | how much work that saved you. Isn't that neat?
| | 03:21 | So that's the beauty of OpenType fonts,
and that's why 65,000 characters, well,
| | 03:25 | that's a great playground.
| | 03:27 | One of the original inspirations for
creating OpenType fonts was to provide us
| | 03:31 | with the ability to use Multilingual Characters.
| | 03:34 | So here, this is all Myriad Pro and these
are characters that are in that one font.
| | 03:40 | I don't have to go to different fonts
to pick up these special characters.
| | 03:43 | This is another font that's an
OpenType Font, it's Kozuka Mincho Pro, it's an
| | 03:48 | OpenType Font, and it has
support for Asian characters,
| | 03:51 | in this case for Japanese characters.
| | 03:53 | Let's take a look at this OpenType
font, and let's see what all is in it.
| | 03:56 | If I go to Type > Glyphs--now Glyphs is
just a letter form, just a character.
| | 04:02 | Let's look at all those 65,000 Glyphs in Myriad Pro.
| | 04:06 | So as I scroll down, there you can see
some of those little clumps of ligatures.
| | 04:10 | See, they're preset little pieces that
substitute for the ffl or in this case the
| | 04:15 | ffj, fi, whatever, when you
choose that OpenType ligature option.
| | 04:19 | Now you start to see letters with
diacriticals, and as I keep on going,
| | 04:23 | eventually you're going to see Greek characters,
you're going to see Cyrillic characters and so on.
| | 04:31 | So that's what those 65,000 slots are
for, if you will, it's to accommodate all
| | 04:36 | those Multilingual Characters.
| | 04:38 | And there are other
characters that are supported as well.
| | 04:40 | Here in Adobe Caslon Pro, look, there are a
bunch of little interesting looking guys here.
| | 04:45 | If I choose under the Show Menu to
Show not the Entire Font, but just the
| | 04:50 | Ornaments, look at all these cute
little Ornaments, and they're part of
| | 04:54 | the Caslon Pro font.
| | 04:55 | You don't have to choose a dingbat font
to get all these cute little decorations.
| | 04:59 | They're actually built right into the font.
| | 05:02 | Many OpenType fonts have things
like discretionary ligatures and swash
| | 05:05 | characters and so forth, but keep in
mind that not all of them have these
| | 05:09 | special features, but I would
encourage you when you buy fonts these days,
| | 05:13 | please invest in OpenType fonts,
because they're cross-platform, they're more
| | 05:16 | modern format, and look at all
the fun you can have with them.
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| Fonts to avoid| 00:00 | Designing and creating a
font isn't an easy undertaking.
| | 00:03 | The software to create fonts is
expensive, and there's a lot for the font
| | 00:07 | designer to think about, including letter-spacing,
letter shapes, and in complex
| | 00:11 | Open Type font, things
like discretionary ligatures.
| | 00:14 | We tend to think of fonts as
graphics, but really they are software.
| | 00:17 | You might have noticed that with every
font you ever bought there was an end user
| | 00:21 | license agreement, and I'm willing to bet you've
never read a single one of them, most people don't.
| | 00:26 | But some font foundries put
limitations on their fonts.
| | 00:29 | They may say that you can't embed a
font in a PDF or some of the licenses say
| | 00:33 | that yes, you can embed the font, but
the printer has to also own the same font.
| | 00:37 | Things can get really complex.
| | 00:40 | It's rare anymore that you come across
a font that forbids embedding, but it's
| | 00:43 | not immediately obvious when you do.
| | 00:45 | When you look at this page, I know it's
ugly, but it's not meant to show you design,
| | 00:49 | it's meant to show you that problems can
sort of slip by unless you have another
| | 00:53 | way of looking for them.
| | 00:54 | When I look at the lower left-hand corner and
check my preflight status it says No errors.
| | 00:59 | So I think it's just fine.
| | 01:00 | If I go to make a PDF,
I'm going to get an error.
| | 01:03 | So if I got to File > Export and just
put this on my desktop, so far so good,
| | 01:09 | nothing seems to be wrong.
So when I click save up, hits the brakes.
| | 01:14 | Remember, that starting with InDesign CS5
creating a PDF is a background task.
| | 01:18 | Then it hits the brakes, and then it
comes across this un-embeddable font.
| | 01:21 | When I click little triangle, it names
the first font that it encountered.
| | 01:25 | Says it can't be embedded due
to licensing restrictions.
| | 01:29 | So what can you do?
| | 01:31 | You should take a look at your
end user licensing agreement.
| | 01:33 | If you can outline the font--and some
of those licenses don't allow you to do
| | 01:38 | that--well, that would be one
way to at least preserve the look.
| | 01:41 | If it doesn't allow you to outline it,
and you don't feel comfortable breaking
| | 01:45 | the terms of the license, well, then you
are going to have to substitute another font.
| | 01:49 | But in this case, I didn't find out
that I had a problem until I went to make a
| | 01:53 | PDF, but I can use preflight to
find that problem a little sooner.
| | 01:57 | If I go to Window > Output > Preflight,
InDesign doesn't by default check
| | 02:02 | for un-embeddable font.
So I created a profile that does check.
| | 02:06 | When I choose my new profile, you can
see that under Font Types not Allowed, I
| | 02:11 | have checked Protected Fonts.
| | 02:13 | Those are fonts that forbid
themselves from being embedded in PDFs.
| | 02:17 | Now I activate that profile,
and there are my two errors.
| | 02:21 | So it's not just one, I have two
instances of fonts that aren't allowed.
| | 02:25 | So again, my only choice to fix this
is to find another font that will do in
| | 02:30 | the case of this design.
I can't use these fonts reliably.
| | 02:34 | So keep an eye out for them.
| | 02:36 | Anymore you are not going to see them
very frequently, you are going to see them
| | 02:40 | more often on Windows than you do on the Mac.
| | 02:42 | But now this sort of gives you some
insight into font licensing, and you might
| | 02:45 | want to take a look at some of the licenses
for the fonts you use on a regular basis.
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8. GraphicsComparing raster vs. vector images| 00:00 | You've probably heard the words pixel,
raster, bitmap, vector, what do they mean?
| | 00:05 | And more importantly once you know what
they mean, which format is appropriate?
| | 00:09 | If I tell you that Illustrator
generate vectors and Photoshop uses pixels,
| | 00:14 | that might help a little.
We'll start with Photoshop.
| | 00:17 | This image looks nice and smooth, but when I
zoom in you can see that it's made out of pixels.
| | 00:22 | A pixel is short for picture element,
and you might think about pixels as being
| | 00:26 | sort of like little mosaic tiles.
| | 00:29 | Think about re-creating this image by
coloring in squares on graph paper, and you
| | 00:33 | start to get the idea.
| | 00:34 | So you'll hear a pixel based image
referred to as a raster image or a bitmap
| | 00:38 | image, it means exactly the same thing.
Now the terms are sort of interchangeable.
| | 00:44 | So there are limitations
to pixel-based graphics.
| | 00:47 | You can't scale them up much before they start
to show some degradation and some loss of detail.
| | 00:51 | Now if it's a very highly detailed
image to begin with, say a close-up of
| | 00:55 | elaborate jewelry, you may not
even want to scale up above 125%.
| | 01:00 | Now if it's something like gauzy shot
of clouds, you might be able to get away
| | 01:04 | with enlarging it up to 200%.
| | 01:06 | So there's no magic number, it
sort of depends on the content.
| | 01:09 | But, for example, let's look at this
it's part of that bigger image, and you can
| | 01:14 | see that it's pretty pixilated.
| | 01:15 | It's because it's really small.
But what if my customer needs a much
| | 01:18 | bigger version of it?
| | 01:20 | Well, I can try scaling it up,
and let's see what happens.
| | 01:23 | When I go to Image and Image Size, if
I try to scale it up to let's say 200%,
| | 01:30 | Photoshop CS6 chooses a method for enlarging.
| | 01:34 | You can pick one if you want, but I
recommend that you let Photoshop pick the
| | 01:37 | most appropriate method.
| | 01:39 | When I click OK, now I think you
can already see that it's really
| | 01:43 | softened things up.
| | 01:44 | So it doesn't look as nice as it
would if it had been scanned the correct
| | 01:48 | size to begin with.
| | 01:49 | So I have to make do with this because
it's the only artwork that my customer
| | 01:53 | has, but you can tell that it's not
really going to look all that great.
| | 01:56 | So I just want you to be aware of the
limitations that you have when you have
| | 01:59 | raster-based images, pixel images.
| | 02:02 | Now Illustrator on the
other hand creates vector art.
| | 02:05 | If I zoom in on this logo, you can see that
it's very, very sharp, no matter how far in I zoom.
| | 02:11 | I can keep on going and keep on
going, there aren't any pixels.
| | 02:15 | So everything in Illustrator that's
created as vector art has no pixels.
| | 02:19 | So it has no inherent resolution, which
means that you can pretty much scale it
| | 02:23 | up to the size of the
building, and it'll still look great.
| | 02:26 | That's why, if you're going to create
something like logos or maps or diagrams,
| | 02:30 | you want to do that in
Illustrator, not in Photoshop.
| | 02:32 | Now I'll give you one last little comparison.
I have two versions of that same
| | 02:36 | logo, the one on the left is out of Illustrator,
so it's vector art, and the one on
| | 02:41 | the right is out of
Photoshop, so it's made out of pixels.
| | 02:43 | So I am going to start by scaling up my
vector art to 200%, looks pretty good.
| | 02:50 | Then I'm going to do the same thing to
my image out of Photoshop that's made
| | 02:53 | out of pixels, and even before I zoom
in you can tell that--well, it's going to
| | 02:58 | look a little bit rough.
| | 03:00 | And when I do zoom in, and we can
compare them, there is the vector art on the
| | 03:04 | left, and there are the pixels on the right.
| | 03:06 | So what I want you take away from this
is that vector art is appropriate for
| | 03:10 | something that may change size,
something like a logo, something like a map that
| | 03:14 | needs very, very sharp detail.
| | 03:15 | And if you have an image just
understand that there are limitations to how much
| | 03:19 | you can scale it up, and you sort of
have to be prepared to pay the penalty.
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| Understanding color space| 00:00 | You probably already know
that RGB means red, green, blue.
| | 00:04 | Those are the colors of light
shining out of your color monitor.
| | 00:07 | And you probably know that CMYK represents
cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, the
| | 00:12 | four process printing inks.
| | 00:14 | But when is each appropriate?
Is one right? Is one wrong?
| | 00:18 | The illustration that you see on screen
is showing you a comparison of what the
| | 00:21 | human eye can see--that's the external
color shape--versus what your monitor can
| | 00:25 | show--that's the black triangle--versus
what CMYK inks can image--and that's the
| | 00:31 | little white dotted area.
| | 00:32 | So you can see that there are some
colors that can be shown on your monitor but
| | 00:36 | can't be printed in CMYK.
So what does that mean?
| | 00:40 | Well, it means that you might get a
little disappointment when you get your job
| | 00:44 | back from the printer.
| | 00:45 | But I think it's important to
understand the process so that maybe you're
| | 00:49 | prepared for what comes back from the printer.
| | 00:51 | When you shoot a photograph with a
digital camera, or you scan reflective art on
| | 00:54 | a scanner, the image is stored in RGB.
| | 00:57 | And you've seen the RGB color space is
a fairly large one, so it can display
| | 01:01 | vibrant range of colors and
the CMYK Gamut is smaller.
| | 01:05 | But how can we tell what's
going to happen to this image.
| | 01:08 | Now we're probably losing a little bit
of vibrance in video compression, but
| | 01:11 | hopefully you'll still be
able to see the difference.
| | 01:14 | This is an RGB image,
| | 01:15 | you can see in the little title
tag here that it's an RGB image.
| | 01:19 | How can we show ourselves on screen what
might happen when it goes to the printer?
| | 01:23 | Well, we have a preview
function called Proof Colors.
| | 01:26 | Under Proof setup if you have a custom
profile from the printer, invoke that.
| | 01:31 | I don't have one, so I am just
going to use the default Working CMYK.
| | 01:34 | Now keep in mind that your monitor is
never going to perfectly match printed output.
| | 01:39 | If you calibrate and profile it may
come close, but it's still light coming at
| | 01:43 | you versus ink on paper.
| | 01:45 | But this will at least give you a
better idea of what the result might be.
| | 01:49 | When I go a view, if I choose Proof
Colors, I think you can see that things
| | 01:53 | got a little duller.
| | 01:54 | But let's do that faster, and I
think you can compare better.
| | 01:57 | I like to use the keyboard shortcut
Command+Y on the Mac, it's Ctrl+Y on
| | 02:02 | Windows, and that way I can quickly toggle
between RGB and CMYK and see what the results are.
| | 02:08 | So there is the CMYK, there is the RGB.
| | 02:11 | Look at the large green roll of furry
stuff up the left, look at the guy's blue
| | 02:15 | shirt in the front, there is CMYK, there is RGB.
| | 02:19 | The green is almost florescent it's so bright,
and look how much duller it looks in CMYK.
| | 02:24 | It's still a good-looking picture, it
still has a lot of life and color in it,
| | 02:28 | but if you'll do a look preview like
this you'll have a better idea what it's
| | 02:32 | going look like when it
comes back from the printer.
| | 02:35 | Here's another image and
we'll do the same little preview.
| | 02:37 | Now there is CMYK, there is RGB.
| | 02:39 | You can see that the bright
greens show the most difference.
| | 02:42 | So if you have an image that has a lot
of bright green foliage and other content
| | 02:46 | that's bright green, just kind of be
prepared for what's going to happen to it
| | 02:49 | when it goes to the printer.
| | 02:51 | One more little thing, if you want to
apply filters to an image, it has to be RGB.
| | 02:55 | Now I've applied some filters to this
image just to make it look a little bit
| | 02:59 | more interesting because I am
going to use it as a background shot.
| | 03:02 | But it's still RGB.
| | 03:03 | If I try to do that to a CMYK image and
you can see again in the little title it
| | 03:08 | says that it's CMYK.
| | 03:09 | If I go to Filter, I can't
even choose Filter Gallery.
| | 03:13 | So if you have plans to decorate some
pictures by adding Filters, you're going
| | 03:17 | to have to keep them in RGB.
| | 03:19 | Now in the olden days, printers
insisted on designers submitting CMYK images.
| | 03:23 | Those rules have relaxed a little bit.
| | 03:25 | Modern imaging workflows do a better
job of converting RGB to CMYK on the fly.
| | 03:30 | And in fact, some digital printing
devices actually have a wider range of color
| | 03:35 | than offset CMYK inks, and they can do a
better job if they are fed RGB content.
| | 03:40 | As always, you should ask your printer which
they prefer and supply them with what they need.
| | 03:45 | Even if I'm working on a job for a
printer that insists that I send CMYK images,
| | 03:49 | I keep my images in RGB as long as I
can, because I don't want to sacrifice
| | 03:53 | color range too early in the game.
| | 03:55 | And as I showed you, some
effect only work in RGB.
| | 03:58 | So I recommend that you keep your
images in RGB, don't sacrifice flexibility.
| | 04:03 | If you do needed to submit CMYK
images, keep your working RGB file intact
| | 04:08 | and then ask the printer which color
profile you should use when you convert to CMYK.
| | 04:13 | Either way it's all about not being
disappointed when your job comes back from the printer.
| | 04:18 | The better idea you have on screen of
what your image is going to look like when
| | 04:22 | it's rendered in CMYK, the better
prepared you are for the results.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Examining image formats| 00:00 | There is an ocean of acronyms in graphic arts.
| | 00:02 | I am going to break them down by
raster versus vector, and then there are some
| | 00:06 | hybrid formats that could contain
either raster or vector or sometimes both.
| | 00:11 | One of the most common image formats is JPEG.
| | 00:14 | Now you have to keep in mind
that JPEG is a lossy format.
| | 00:17 | That means that it discards
information because it's a compression.
| | 00:21 | Repeated saving as a JPEG can erode data.
| | 00:24 | JPEGs don't have any support for layers, and
they don't have any support for transparency.
| | 00:29 | Now, having an image that's a JPEG
doesn't mean that it's a bad image, but there
| | 00:33 | are some things that you might want to look for.
| | 00:36 | This image has plenty of detail, you
can tell by the checkerboard background
| | 00:40 | that the background has been eliminated,
that he's floating on transparency.
| | 00:44 | So this is a PSD. Personally,
that's my favorite format for images.
| | 00:48 | But sometimes I have to give an image to somebody
that doesn't have Photoshop or can't use a PSD.
| | 00:53 | And if I have to send them a JPEG,
I am very careful when I make it.
| | 00:57 | Here's one that was not made carefully.
| | 00:59 | Now this is exaggerated, but it's to
show you what goes on with aggressive JPEG
| | 01:03 | compression, and you've probably seen images
with this problem, with sort of rectangular artifacts.
| | 01:08 | If you just save an image as a JPEG
with very slight compression, you're not
| | 01:13 | going to see these artifacts.
| | 01:14 | But the truth is that every time you
open an image, modify it a little bit and
| | 01:19 | then resave it as a JPEG,
additional compression takes place.
| | 01:23 | So I recommend that if you receive a
JPEG from somebody, when you open it up,
| | 01:27 | resave it as either a TIFF or a PSD,
because those are lossless image formats
| | 01:32 | and you're not going to lose any information.
| | 01:34 | TIFF is one of the most
common image formats of all.
| | 01:38 | It can be accepted by a
wide range of applications.
| | 01:41 | You can even have layers in TIFFs and
transparency, although I'll warn you that
| | 01:45 | some programs will reject a layered TIFF.
| | 01:48 | Illustrator is fine with them,
InDesign is fine with them.
| | 01:50 | But here's another small consideration,
a layered TIFF versus an equivalent
| | 01:55 | layered PSD, the TIFF is
going to be a bigger file size.
| | 01:59 | Here I have a PSD that's 7.7 megabytes
and exactly the same pixels, exactly the
| | 02:05 | same layers, the TIFF is 12.3 megabytes.
| | 02:08 | Now that's not a big deal, we have tons
of RAM these days, and we have enormous
| | 02:12 | hard drives, so may be it's not
really a consideration at all, but I just
| | 02:16 | thought you might like to know.
| | 02:17 | As I said, PSD is my favorite Photoshop
format. It has support for layers, it's
| | 02:22 | accepted by Illustrator and InDesign,
and a cool thing that InDesign can do with
| | 02:26 | a PSD is that it can manage those
layers with object layer options.
| | 02:30 | That means that InDesign can control
the visibility of a layer without you
| | 02:34 | having to go to Photoshop.
| | 02:36 | Now PSDs are not supported by some
versions of Word and some other programs,
| | 02:40 | but as long as you're working in a largely
Adobe workflow, I'd say PSD is the way to go.
| | 02:45 | PNG, Portable Network Graphic, has support
for transparency, it's a lossless format.
| | 02:51 | It's accepted by both Adobe and
Microsoft Office applications, but it has a
| | 02:55 | little bit of shortfall.
It has no support for multiple layers.
| | 02:59 | So here is a document that I've
created in Photoshop, and you can see in the
| | 03:03 | Layers panel that I have two layers.
| | 03:05 | And if I turn off the top layer, you
can see that the girl is floating alone.
| | 03:09 | If I save this as a PNG, I will retain
my transparency, you can see where she
| | 03:14 | sort of fades off into the background.
But what am I going to lose?
| | 03:19 | In a PNG, I still keep the
transparency, but look in my Layers panel,
| | 03:22 | it's all been squished down to one layer.
| | 03:25 | So I lose the flexibility
of having my multiple layers.
| | 03:28 | But again if I have to send it to
somebody that needs a PNG, maybe they are
| | 03:32 | going to incorporate it into some web
work, it's still a perfectly nice image
| | 03:35 | and it's great that it maintains transparency.
Now let's talk about vector formats.
| | 03:40 | AI, which is Adobe Illustrator's
native format, is very flexible.
| | 03:44 | It has support for layers and transparency,
| | 03:46 | it also has support for
linked and embedded images.
| | 03:50 | One of the neat things Illustrator can do is
contain multiple artboards of different sizes.
| | 03:54 | It's supported by InDesign and
also by later versions of QuarkXPress.
| | 03:58 | And then there is EPS.
| | 03:59 | Now that's sort of an older format
that stands for Encapsulated Postscript.
| | 04:04 | EPS has no support for layers, no
support for transparency, but it's still a
| | 04:08 | viable format, and you may
be asked to submit an EPS.
| | 04:11 | A lot of sign shops ask for EPSs, or if
there are users of older workflows that
| | 04:16 | just aren't comfortable with AIs,
then you need to send them an EPS.
| | 04:20 | But there's really no difference in the
internal content when you compare an EPS
| | 04:24 | version of an Illustrator file and the AI.
| | 04:28 | If it's an EPS that was created out of
Illustrator, when you open it back up,
| | 04:32 | you still have all your layers and so forth.
| | 04:34 | But you have a larger file, generally
speaking, with an EPS than you do with an AI.
| | 04:39 | It's really just a matter of preference of your
recipient, what do they want from you, AI or EPS?
| | 04:44 | But just keep in mind that AI is a
more modern format, and you can do a lot of
| | 04:48 | cooler things with it especially in InDesign.
And now we get to hybrid formats.
| | 04:53 | PDF, probably the most common hybrid
format of all, it can be created by a
| | 04:58 | wide variety of applications, and it can be used
as artwork in InDesign if it's created correctly.
| | 05:04 | They are very difficult to edit, and
sometimes they are completely impossible
| | 05:07 | to edit, at least safely, without some
proprietary applications dedicated to editing PDF.
| | 05:13 | So you should consider PDF as a final
sort of sealed format that you are not
| | 05:17 | going to dig into again.
| | 05:18 | PDFs can contain both raster images
and vector artwork, and they can contain
| | 05:22 | multiple pages of different sizes.
EPS is also a hybrid format.
| | 05:27 | Now the EPS, I showed you in
Illustrator just contains vector and image, but
| | 05:32 | that makes it a hybrid format, right?
| | 05:34 | You may come across EPSs that only
contain images, you may find EPSs that only
| | 05:38 | contain vector, but they are still EPSs.
| | 05:41 | So seeing EPS as a file extension does
not guarantee that the contents are vector.
| | 05:46 | And then finally we have the Page
Layout formats, InDesign's INDD file,
| | 05:51 | QuarkXPress makes QXDs and QXPs.
| | 05:55 | That's a lot of acronyms to think about, but
hopefully I've cleared up some mysteries for you.
| | 05:59 | And may be you have a better idea of which
formats are best for your kind of work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Photoshop BasicsLooking at image resolution| 00:00 | Because pixel-based images are made out
of little mosaic tiles, there's a limit
| | 00:04 | to how much you can scale them up
without causing degradation of detail.
| | 00:08 | The time-honored rule of thumb for print
images is 300 pixels per inch at final size.
| | 00:13 | Now if you're in control of the
photography, you can ensure that the appropriate
| | 00:17 | images are available.
But you don't always have that luxury, do you?
| | 00:21 | Your own clients may provide less than
optimal images, and you have to make do.
| | 00:25 | So what can you do?
Let's take a look at this image.
| | 00:28 | If I go to Image and Image Size, it's
very small, just a little over 2 inches by
| | 00:33 | a little under 2 inches. And what if I
need this at about four times the size?
| | 00:38 | Can Photoshop help me out? Well, let's see.
| | 00:40 | If I go to Percent and choose 400,
it's going to make it a lot bigger. Oh!
| | 00:46 | Look it's going to be 300 Pixels/Inch,
so it should be okay, right? Not so much!
| | 00:51 | When you zoom in, you can see that it
wasn't a very good image to begin with.
| | 00:55 | Photoshop has tried to interpolate
pixels, it's trying to make stuff up where
| | 00:59 | there wasn't anything there, and it
looks very soft and very out of focus.
| | 01:02 | And the truth is there's really
nothing you can do about this.
| | 01:05 | Photoshop tries real hard, but it can't make
stuff up that isn't there. What can you do?
| | 01:10 | You can just sort of accept the results,
just know going in that it's going to
| | 01:14 | try, but it's not going to
be the best image possible.
| | 01:17 | Of course, if you can get a new
image that's the correct size, do so.
| | 01:20 | You just rarely have that opportunity.
| | 01:23 | When you're creating your own work,
maybe you're combining images, you may find
| | 01:27 | that you want to scale and rotate and
skew and experiment, and you are not
| | 01:31 | really sure how this is going to end up.
| | 01:33 | Now that you have seen the penalty for
scaling up, scaling down, and so forth,
| | 01:37 | maybe that makes you a little hesitant.
| | 01:39 | Let me show you an approach that may
give you a little more flexibility.
| | 01:42 | Now I have a couple of layers over
here because I'm experimenting, and what
| | 01:46 | happens if I want to scale this girl down
and she's just sort of dominating the image?
| | 01:51 | So I am going to make her a little bit smaller.
| | 01:53 | So I am going to select her layer, go to Edit >
Transform > Scale, and I am going to do this numerically.
| | 02:00 | So up in my Options Bar, I am going to set
the Width to 50% and link that to the Height.
| | 02:06 | Well, she looks okay, and now I'm
going to commit, but when we compare it to
| | 02:11 | the original, well, of course she is smaller,
we have to suspect that we've lost some detail.
| | 02:16 | What happens if I restore
her to her original size?
| | 02:18 | So I am going to use my keyboard shortcut,
Command+T or Ctrl+T, I am going to go
| | 02:23 | back up here and set this to 200% which
is going to restore her to her original
| | 02:27 | size, commit to that, Transform, and
then when I move her around and zoom in,
| | 02:35 | you can see that we've lost detail,
look at the eyes and look at the teeth and
| | 02:39 | that checked pattern on
the scarf around her neck.
| | 02:41 | Photoshop has done a pretty good job,
but clearly we've lost some information.
| | 02:46 | So that means that if I keep experimenting,
I am going to lose even more information.
| | 02:50 | So what can I do if I know
I want to keep changing her?
| | 02:53 | What I can do is I can
turn her into a smart object.
| | 02:56 | All I have to do is select the layer,
go to the Layers panel menu and choose
| | 03:00 | Convert to Smart Object.
| | 03:01 | You can see there is a little decoration
on the corner here, so what does that mean?
| | 03:05 | That means that it's actually storing the
original information in the Photoshop file.
| | 03:10 | It's not linked to the original
image that I placed in here, it's
| | 03:13 | locally stored, it's inside this
Photoshop file, and it gives me this
| | 03:17 | kind of flexibility.
I can scale her way down.
| | 03:21 | Let's see, I am going to scale her to 25%
in both directions or she's going to
| | 03:25 | look really skinny and
then commit, move her around.
| | 03:29 | Now what happens if I scale her back up?
So I am going to use my keyboard shortcut again.
| | 03:34 | This is kind of interesting.
| | 03:35 | Notice that it recognizes that that
content has been scaled down to 25%.
| | 03:40 | It didn't do it with the plain old image,
but it understands that with a Smart Object.
| | 03:44 | So all I have to do to get her back to
her original size is scale her to 100%,
| | 03:48 | move her back up, let's zoom
in, and we haven't lost a thing.
| | 03:54 | So one of the advantages of Smart
Objects is that you can scale, rotate,
| | 03:58 | skew, whatever kind of transform you
want to perform, and you can always get
| | 04:02 | back to the original.
Now, don't let this mislead you.
| | 04:05 | This doesn't mean that you can take a
little bitty image and scale it up as
| | 04:09 | a Smart Object and get better results
than we did a minute ago in that other image.
| | 04:13 | It can get back to the original, but
you still have the same rules when you try
| | 04:16 | to go beyond the original size.
| | 04:18 | Now, it adds a little bit to the file size,
but it gives you such wonderful flexibility.
| | 04:23 | When you place Vector art in, it
automatically becomes a Smart Object.
| | 04:27 | Again, look at the lower right
hand corner of my little thumbnail.
| | 04:30 | You can see that little decoration that
indicates that this is a Smart Object.
| | 04:34 | So I am going to scale my little bear way
down, it's going to get really, really tiny.
| | 04:40 | But remember he's vector, so
there aren't any pixels to throw away.
| | 04:44 | And when I scale him up, I can scale
beyond his original size and Photoshop is
| | 04:49 | going to look at that original vector information,
and it's going to scale that vector information up.
| | 04:55 | So Vector objects as Smart Objects, there's
no limitation to what you can do to them.
| | 04:59 | Just be a little cautious with raster
smart objects, but remember that great
| | 05:03 | flexibility that they give you.
| | 05:05 | Now if you have to build software
manuals, and you have screenshots, when you
| | 05:09 | take a screenshot, it's the
resolution of your monitor.
| | 05:12 | So if I go to Image > Image Size,
you can see that it's 72 Pixels/Inch.
| | 05:16 | Now after I just told you that everything
should be 300 Pixels/Inch, if you can.
| | 05:21 | Well, that looks pretty awful.
| | 05:23 | So, if you're tempted to
scale this up, watch what happens.
| | 05:26 | If I go to Image > Image Size, and I set
this to 300--I am going to Cancel on this
| | 05:34 | one because I already have an
image to show you--what's the result?
| | 05:37 | Look how nice and sharp this is.
Look how nice and blurry that is.
| | 05:41 | So here's my original screenshot.
| | 05:43 | If I scale it up to 300, or I
change the Resolution to 300, it doesn't
| | 05:47 | improve it, does it? So what can we do?
72 sounds so scary.
| | 05:52 | The truth is that I could use this image
at its original resolution in print and
| | 05:56 | if I put it in at 100% and
it's going to look just fine.
| | 05:59 | But that makes some people
twitch when they see that 72.
| | 06:02 | So let me give you a little advice.
| | 06:04 | If you're going to scale this up and
if you are going to give it a higher
| | 06:08 | resolution, do it this way,
| | 06:10 | go to Image > Image Size, set that
Resolution to an even multiple of the original.
| | 06:14 | So here I have started with 72, and if
I had done the screenshot on a PC, it
| | 06:19 | would probably be 96.
| | 06:20 | So I am going to set it to 288, four
times the 72, and I am going to choose a
| | 06:25 | special method, Nearest Neighbor.
Notice that it says preserve hard edges.
| | 06:30 | Remember Nearest Neighbor when you have
screenshots because that's the way to go.
| | 06:34 | When I click OK, look, it's nice
and sharp, it has a nicer resolution.
| | 06:39 | What I do sometimes if I want to
make sure that my editor isn't going to
| | 06:43 | freak out, I'll go back to Image Size--
sometimes people freak out when they just see the 288--
| | 06:48 | I uncheck Resample Image, I
change that Resolution to 300.
| | 06:51 | What that means is that it's not
making new pixels, it's just making the
| | 06:56 | existing pixels a little bit smaller.
| | 06:58 | When I click OK, nice and
sharp, and I haven't lost anything.
| | 07:02 | That's your overall goal, you don't want to lose
any information, you want to maintain detail, and you have
| | 07:07 | to understand the consequences if
you're forced into a position where you have
| | 07:11 | to scale a little bitty image up, just have a
realistic notion of what the results are going to be.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Masking basics| 00:00 | Masking is one of the secrets of
happiness in Photoshop, whether you're
| | 00:03 | doing color correction or compositing, or
you're silhouetting subjects from their backgrounds.
| | 00:08 | Multiple terms are used, silhouette,
knockout, dropout, cutout, you get the idea.
| | 00:13 | First, some basic rules.
Work nondestructively if you can.
| | 00:17 | Don't kill innocent pixels.
Let Photoshop help you if possible.
| | 00:22 | And keep in mind that
it's okay to improve an edge.
| | 00:24 | It's well within your artistic license
to reshape a lumpy waist or an irregular
| | 00:29 | ear while you're creating a mask.
| | 00:31 | If you need to knock out a straight
edge object such as a book or this pencil,
| | 00:35 | or you need something with a smooth arcing
curve, then the Pen tool is your good choice.
| | 00:39 | Now it takes some practice to become
accustomed to this, and this is not intended
| | 00:43 | to be a Pen tool tutorial.
You can find a number of those on lynda.com.
| | 00:47 | It's a very powerful tool.
| | 00:49 | So I'm just going to make a quick pen
path around this pencil just click,
| | 00:54 | click, click to make straight points, and
then click and drag to make curve points.
| | 01:02 | And I always tell my students, when
you're making those straight points, you
| | 01:05 | have to be precise on your pen.
Just click and peck like a chicken.
| | 01:09 | Now I've got a point that's a little out.
| | 01:11 | Right there I can use my
Arrow keys to reposition it.
| | 01:15 | Sometimes that's easier than redrawing,
and then I keep on drawing, then I sort
| | 01:19 | of sharpen my pencil here, head back up.
| | 01:25 | And when you get near the end, you see a
little circle next to your pen nib. There you go!
| | 01:29 | At the moment, it's sort of ethereal.
| | 01:31 | If I go to my Paths panel,
it's just called Work Path.
| | 01:34 | Now if I'm going to take this into
InDesign, I have to name this path.
| | 01:39 | So I'll double-click on it,
and I'll just call it pencil.
| | 01:42 | InDesign will let me choose whether
or not to use this path as a way to
| | 01:46 | silhouette the object.
And that's kind of neat,
| | 01:49 | it gives you some flexibility.
But Illustrator doesn't feel the same way.
| | 01:52 | If I want to silhouette this pencil and
have it float in, in Illustrator, I need
| | 01:55 | to designate this as an official clipping path.
| | 01:58 | To do that, go to the Paths panel menu,
choose Clipping Path, it recognizes the name.
| | 02:04 | Don't put anything in the Flatness field.
| | 02:06 | What this means is that the ultimate imaging
device is going to make a decision about flatness.
| | 02:11 | Frankly, you don't have to
think about it, so just click OK.
| | 02:14 | Now you'll notice that the name
pencil shows a little outline around it, and
| | 02:18 | that's just a hint that it's now
officially designated as a clipping path.
| | 02:22 | When I save this, if I'm going to go
into Illustrator or into InDesign, I can
| | 02:26 | save it as a PSD, and it will be just fine.
| | 02:29 | In older workflows, we had to save
as an EPS so that that path would be
| | 02:34 | recognized--that shouldn't be necessary.
| | 02:36 | But keep that in back of your mind if
you're working with somebody that's using
| | 02:39 | an older program has to have an
EPS, well, save this as an EPS.
| | 02:43 | But there are some subjects that really
don't lend themselves to the Pen tool.
| | 02:46 | When you have a cat with furry ears
or you have a person with flyaway hair.
| | 02:51 | For that, you want to start with
something like the Magic Wand or the
| | 02:54 | Quick Selection tool.
| | 02:56 | With the Quick Selection tool, you just
paint across the subject, and Photoshop is
| | 03:01 | looking at color and contrast
differences to try to determine where the edge is.
| | 03:05 | And as I paint across, oh, it picks up
some stuff I don't want, but that's okay.
| | 03:10 | I can hold down the Option key on the
Mac or Alt on Windows, and I can carve away
| | 03:15 | the parts that I don't want.
But this isn't perfect.
| | 03:18 | You can see that it's not
selecting the hair on the cat's ears.
| | 03:22 | That's why we have Refine Edge.
| | 03:23 | When I choose Refine Edge, I get a
separate little dialog up that helps me judge
| | 03:28 | whether I'm making a good selection.
And I can choose different ways to view.
| | 03:32 | I can choose Marching Ants, Overlay, on a
black background, on a white background.
| | 03:37 | My personal favorite though is to
just view this as a potential mask by
| | 03:40 | choosing Black & White.
| | 03:42 | And here's the secret to happiness in
the Refine Edge dialog, Smart Radius.
| | 03:46 | Check that Smart Radius option, and as
I drag this slider up, you'll see it's
| | 03:50 | starting to move out from that initial
selection, it's starting to look for more
| | 03:54 | subtle changes to determine where an edge is.
| | 03:56 | Now it's not going to be perfect,
you'll probably have to tune it up a little
| | 04:00 | bit, but look, Photoshop has
done the really hard part for me.
| | 04:03 | It's captured the hair on the ears.
| | 04:05 | Before I click OK, I'm going to
choose how I want to output this.
| | 04:09 | I can output it to an Active Selection,
layer Mask, several other options.
| | 04:13 | I'm going to save myself some
time and go directly to layer Mask.
| | 04:16 | When I choose that and click OK, now
you can see that the cat is silhouetted
| | 04:21 | from the background.
| | 04:22 | Now I'm going to do a little quick
clean up just so you know how to do this.
| | 04:26 | If I hold down Option or Alt and click on the
Mask thumbnail, I look at just the mask by itself.
| | 04:31 | If I press D on my keyboard for
default, it ensures that my foreground and
| | 04:35 | background colors are black and white,
and X on the keyboard can swap my
| | 04:39 | foreground and background colors.
So I want to paint with black to hide.
| | 04:44 | A mask is sort of like a stencil.
| | 04:47 | The black part hides pixels,
the white part reveals pixels.
| | 04:51 | So I'm not going to go all the way
through with this, I really just want you to
| | 04:56 | understand the concept, I'm painting
with black where it's picking up background
| | 04:59 | that I don't want to
have show in my final piece.
| | 05:01 | If I hit the X on my keyboard, I can
paint with white, and I can ensure that some
| | 05:06 | of these little gray areas are actually white.
| | 05:08 | So remember that black hides, white
reveals, gray areas reveal at reduced
| | 05:13 | opacity, so you have a little
translucency actually at the edge of the cat and
| | 05:17 | the little hairs on the top.
| | 05:19 | The truth is that's sort
of how it is in real life.
| | 05:22 | Hairs and fur are sort of translucent,
so you really get a more realistic mask.
| | 05:26 | When I Alt-click or Option-click on
the Mask thumbnail, now I can see the cat
| | 05:30 | silhouetted on the background.
| | 05:31 | Again, this is not really meant
to teach you all these techniques,
| | 05:34 | it's just to expose you to them.
| | 05:36 | But just remember, for straight edge, hard
edge things, you're going to use the Pen tool.
| | 05:40 | For soft edge, more organic edges,
you're going to use the Magic Wand or the
| | 05:44 | Quick Selection tool and
clean it up with Refine Edge.
| | 05:47 | I'm going to save this just like it is.
I'm not going to compress my layers.
| | 05:50 | Remember, I want to work nondestructively.
| | 05:53 | You always want to be able to go
back in and make changes if you need to.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Illustrator Layout BasicsUnderstanding Illustrator| 00:00 | When you start a new document in
Illustrator, you have to make some choices.
| | 00:04 | When I choose File > New, the
New Document dialog comes up.
| | 00:07 | If I think I'm going to make a
brochure, I'm going to give it a name.
| | 00:11 | Under Profile, these are Document Profiles.
I can choose from the list of options.
| | 00:16 | My document is going to be headed
toward print, so I'm going to choose Print.
| | 00:20 | That means that my swatches
are going to start out as CMYK.
| | 00:23 | If I were to choose Web, my
swatches start out as RGB.
| | 00:27 | And that's also true for Devices, Video
and Film and Basic RGB and Flash Builder.
| | 00:31 | So print is the only one that
starts out thinking in CMYK.
| | 00:35 | How many artboards do I want?
| | 00:37 | Well, if it's a brochure I'm going
to do the outside and the inside, so
| | 00:41 | I'll need two artboards.
| | 00:43 | The minute I choose more than one
artboard then I have some options over here
| | 00:47 | for how those artboards
are going to be arranged.
| | 00:49 | I usually just leave it at the default,
Grid by Row, because I can always move
| | 00:53 | my artboards later if I need to.
| | 00:55 | Initially the spacing is 20 points,
but maybe I'd rather think in inches.
| | 01:00 | I can come over to the Units pulldown
and choose Inches and now my spacing is
| | 01:04 | expressed in inches.
| | 01:05 | Rather than type I'm just going to
click in that Spacing field and hit my up
| | 01:10 | arrow and that increments the amount in there.
| | 01:13 | I'm going to set it at 1 inch.
| | 01:15 | I'm just going to make a basic
letter-size document for now.
| | 01:18 | But I want to make sure that I have bleed.
| | 01:20 | So again, rather than typing I can
just click in the little field, hit my up
| | 01:24 | arrow, and I instantly have an 8 inch of bleed.
| | 01:27 | By the way that little trick works in
panels and dialog boxes across Adobe
| | 01:31 | software; very handy.
| | 01:32 | Under Advanced it tells me that the
color mode is CMYK as I mentioned before.
| | 01:38 | Pixels per inch 300. Wait, I thought
Illustrator was a drawing program.
| | 01:42 | Well remember that they're some things
that you can do in Illustrator that are
| | 01:45 | rendered in pixels, such as glows and
drop shadows, and Illustrator says, well,
| | 01:49 | when I do those let me know
what resolution you want for them.
| | 01:53 | And that would be the 300 PPI.
| | 01:55 | Then when I click OK, there's my
new document with my two artboards.
| | 01:59 | If you want to get sort of a head start
or maybe you're looking for a little bit
| | 02:03 | of inspiration, you can also choose
this option File > New from Template.
| | 02:08 | Illustrator navigates to
where templates are stored.
| | 02:11 | Let's take a look at some of these,
under Blank Templates. Let's say that maybe
| | 02:14 | you want to create a CD case.
| | 02:16 | When you open this up, it comes up as
Untitled; really it's a copy of that template.
| | 02:21 | And look everything is in place for you;
all you have to do is put in your artwork.
| | 02:26 | If you need to make something from
scratch, you know what the options are. If you
| | 02:30 | want a little head start, maybe little
inspiration, now you know about templates.
| | 02:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Illustrator layout tips| 00:00 |
When you open up an Illustrator file
given to you by somebody else, you need to
| | 00:04 |
know the size of the artboards.
| | 00:05 |
You can't find that out though by
going to File and Document Setup like we
| | 00:09 |
did in the olden days.
| | 00:10 |
The only thing I see in Document Setup
that's helpful, it tells me that I have
| | 00:14 |
eighth of an inch bleed, and you can see the
red bleed guideline around each of the artboards.
| | 00:19 |
If I want to find out the size of my
artboards, I need to use the Artboard tool.
| | 00:24 |
Once I choose the Artboard tool, you can
see that my letterhead is selected, you
| | 00:27 |
can see the Dashed line around it, and
if you look up in the control panel, you
| | 00:32 |
can see that the dimensions
are 8.5 x 11 as you might expect.
| | 00:35 |
If I choose my business card, you can see
that it's 3.5 inches x 2 inches and my
| | 00:39 |
envelope is 9.5 x 4.25.
| | 00:42 |
That's actually the wrong size.
| | 00:44 |
I want to change the size
of this to be my 9.5 x 4.125.
| | 00:48 |
First of all, I want to make sure that
I pin down the upper-left-hand corner of
| | 00:51 |
that artboard, because I like the way
the art is relating to the artboard.
| | 00:55 |
So I want to take a little off the
height, so I'm going to trim off the bottom.
| | 00:59 |
So I'll come over here to the Height
field, type 4.125, when I hit Enter you're
| | 01:04 |
going to see that that artboard
changes a little bit; it's a little shorter.
| | 01:08 |
But this is a little disturbing.
| | 01:10 |
I typed 4.125 because I wanted four and an
eighth and it looks Illustrator rounded it off.
| | 01:15 |
It didn't really. It does it the
way it looks in the field but it doesn't
| | 01:19 |
really change the value.
| | 01:21 |
Now what if I wanted to
duplicate my business card?
| | 01:23 |
Maybe I want to create a back for
the business card or maybe I want to
| | 01:27 |
experiment and create an alternate for it.
| | 01:30 |
If I hold down Option on the Mac or
Alt on Windows you'll see at your cursor
| | 01:34 |
changes to a little double-headed arrow.
| | 01:36 |
I'm also adding the Shift key so that I can
constrain it to the same altitude in the page.
| | 01:41 |
When I let go of my mouse and then
my Alt and Shift, there we go, I've
| | 01:45 |
duplicated my artwork.
| | 01:47 |
But here's something that might happen to you.
| | 01:49 |
I'm going to undo that and I want you
to notice this little icon up in the
| | 01:53 |
control panel. It's kind of subtle and
nondescript, but when you move your cursor
| | 01:56 |
over it the tool tip tells you it's
for Move/Copy Artwork with Artboard.
| | 02:00 |
It's on by default so
artwork moves with the artboard.
| | 02:04 |
If that were unchecked, it turns that
option off. In that condition if I Alt+Drag
| | 02:09 |
or Option+Drag, I duplicate only
the artboard and not the artwork.
| | 02:13 |
Sometimes that's what you want, but
just so you know this little guy controls
| | 02:17 |
whether your artwork goes
with your artboard or not.
| | 02:19 |
So if your artwork doesn't move, he is
your guy; be sure to turn him back on.
| | 02:24 |
If you're creating versions because
maybe you're doing multilingual publishing,
| | 02:28 |
you could choose either to create
alternate artboards or alternate layers.
| | 02:33 |
In this document, I've chosen to do my
alternates with alternate artboards, so
| | 02:37 |
it's sort of up to you whether you
want to build up or build sideways.
| | 02:41 |
But just remember that you could put
different languages on different layers,
| | 02:44 |
you could put different language
versions on different artboards.
| | 02:47 |
It's entirely up to you.
| | 02:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building a simple three-panel brochure | 00:00 | One of the more common types of
projects you might work on is a
| | 00:04 | three-panel brochure.
| | 00:05 | I'm going to create one here in Illustrator.
| | 00:07 | I need two artboards, one for
the outside, one for the inside.
| | 00:11 | I think in inches, so I'm going to
change my units to inches, and I'm going to
| | 00:15 | put 1 inch between my
artboards so I have plenty of room.
| | 00:19 | I want to make sure that I have
bleed, and I need to make sure that my
| | 00:22 | document is the right size.
| | 00:24 | Now this is going to be a 4 x 9 rack brochure.
| | 00:27 | The width of it's going to be roughly 3
times 4, but remember that third panel
| | 00:32 | has to be short so that it can fold in.
| | 00:34 | So I'm going to make it 11.875, that's
11 and 7/8, so my third panel is going
| | 00:40 | to be an eighth of an inch shorter.
| | 00:42 | And then the height is going to be 9 inches.
| | 00:44 | Two artboards an inch apart, 11 7/8 wide, 9
inches tall, 0.125 inch bleed, I'm ready to go.
| | 00:52 | So there are my two artboards; the
red guideline is the bleed of course.
| | 00:56 | Now I need to know where my panels are,
and I need to know what's the inside
| | 01:00 | and what's the outside.
| | 01:01 | I like to put little labels.
| | 01:03 | I get my Type tool, and on the left, it's
going to be my outside panel. I'm going
| | 01:08 | to make that big enough so I can see it,
and then I'm going to duplicate this
| | 01:12 | little, which is going to be my inside.
| | 01:18 | But I still don't know where the
panels fall, so I need some guidelines.
| | 01:21 | So I'm going to wake up my rulers by
going to View > Rulers > Show Rulers, and I'm
| | 01:26 | going to start dragging in some guidelines.
| | 01:28 | I recommend that you take a piece of
paper, fold it up, and use that as a guide
| | 01:32 | for what's outside, what's inside,
and where your short fold panel is.
| | 01:36 | But I will tell you, on the outside, the
right side is going to be my back cover
| | 01:40 | and this is going to be my fold in panel.
| | 01:42 | So I'm going to start by dragging a
guideline to the right edge of my artboard.
| | 01:48 | Now if you want to make sure that you
know where something is, wake up your
| | 01:51 | Transform panel so that it
can give you coordinates.
| | 01:54 | Yep, my little guide is at 11.875.
| | 01:58 | So I need another guide 4 inches to the left
and another one, 4 inches to the left of that.
| | 02:02 | So I'm going to copy this guideline,
I'm going to paste it in front, not just
| | 02:08 | plain old paste, but Paste in Front;
| | 02:09 | that puts it at the same coordinates.
| | 02:11 | And then it's there, it's kind of
hard to tell, but trust me it's there.
| | 02:15 | Then in my Transform panel, I'm going
to change the position of the guide by
| | 02:19 | subtracting 4 inches.
| | 02:20 | I place my cursor after the "in" in inch,
type -4, hit Enter, and there's my new guide.
| | 02:27 | I'm going to copy that to the clipboard;
this time with a shortcut, Command+C or
| | 02:31 | Ctrl+C, I'm going to paste it in
position with Command+F or Ctrl+F for Front,
| | 02:36 | and then I'm going to
subtract 4 inches from that position.
| | 02:39 | So now I have my guidelines for the outside.
| | 02:42 | Not a bad idea to double check.
| | 02:44 | I'm going to take my Rectangle tool and
I'm going to create a rectangle on that
| | 02:48 | short fold panel, and it better be 3
and 7/8, and it is, so we're good.
| | 02:53 | Now I'm going to place my
guides on my other artboard.
| | 02:56 | This time I'm going to start from the left.
| | 02:58 | So I want to make sure
that it snaps to the edge.
| | 03:01 | It might not be a bad idea to zoom in.
| | 03:04 | Yep, it's right on the edge, we're good.
| | 03:06 | So I'm going to copy that, I'm going to
Paste in Front, and I'm going to add 4
| | 03:11 | inches by clicking after
inch, +4, and there we go!
| | 03:16 | I'm going to copy that. Again Command+
C or Ctrl+C, Paste, Command+F or Ctrl+F,
| | 03:21 | and I'm going to add 4 inches to that.
| | 03:24 | So now I have my guidelines, it
might not be a bad idea to double check.
| | 03:28 | Remember, on the inside, it's
going be the rightmost panel;
| | 03:30 | that's your short panel, and that's
3.8796, which means there's something a
| | 03:35 | little out of whack.
| | 03:36 | I'm going to pin down the right side,
I'm going to type my 3.875 in there, and
| | 03:43 | I'm going to have to move
my guideline to touch that.
| | 03:46 | So I'm going to give my shape a little
edge so I can see where it is, and you can
| | 03:51 | see when it snaps, there we go!
| | 03:53 | I might need to change this one, so
I'm going to copy this guy, paste him in
| | 03:57 | front, and give him a -4 inches.
| | 04:00 | You may find that it's a little
hard to get things exactly to the edge.
| | 04:04 | Remember, you can always
use a transform to check.
| | 04:06 | Now I have my guidelines in place,
but I need to know something else.
| | 04:10 | I'm going to into my Layers panel and
I'm going to lock this layer and I'm going
| | 04:14 | to create a new layer.
| | 04:15 | I'm going to close my Transform
panel and get it out of the way.
| | 04:18 | In this layer, I'm going to create
margins, so I'm going to just name it margins
| | 04:22 | so I know what's going on.
| | 04:24 | Because I want to create what's called
a live area, I want to make sure that
| | 04:27 | artwork isn't too close to the
folder or too close to the trim.
| | 04:30 | I'm going to start by creating a
rectangle that goes edge to edge, top
| | 04:34 | to bottom, and then stops at the
guide, and then I'm going to bring back
| | 04:38 | my Transform panel.
| | 04:39 | I'm going to pin down the center and
what I want to make sure happens is that I
| | 04:46 | have a quarter of an inch on each
side, top and bottom, left and right.
| | 04:50 | So I pin down the center and I'm going
to subtract a half an inch, quarter on
| | 04:54 | the left, quarter on the right.
| | 04:55 | So -0.5 and we'll see that width of that change.
| | 04:58 | I'm going to do the same thing to
the height, -0.5, and there we go!
| | 05:03 | Now right now, it's a real rectangle, but in a
little bit, I'm going to turn it into a guide.
| | 05:07 | So I'm going to do the same thing here
in my center panel, line it up to the
| | 05:11 | guides and the edge of the page,
pin down the center, minus a half, minus a half.
| | 05:14 | Isn't that great that
Illustrator does the math for you?
| | 05:20 | And then one last one over here on
the right, and again -0.5, because it's
| | 05:26 | quarter on each side, and then -0.5.
| | 05:29 | This is a cool thing that
you can do in Illustrator.
| | 05:32 | I can select all three of those
rectangles and I can turn them into guides.
| | 05:36 | I go to View > Guides > Make Guides and
now you can see they're not rectangles
| | 05:41 | anymore, they're guides.
| | 05:42 | It's a good idea once you have
everything in place to lock your guides. I'm not
| | 05:46 | going to make my little
margin guides for the inside;
| | 05:48 | you know how to do that now.
| | 05:50 | But I'm just going to go to View > Guides
> Lock Guides, and now I'm ready to go.
| | 05:55 | So now we'll create
another layer to hold my artwork.
| | 05:58 | I like to have two layers, one
for my artwork and one for my text.
| | 06:02 | It's entirely up to you how
you want to organize things.
| | 06:04 | So I'm going to make two more layers.
| | 06:06 | This is going to be my text layer and then
this last one is going to be my graphics layer.
| | 06:11 | Now that's a lot of work to get set up.
| | 06:15 | So do this once and if you create three-
panel folders all the time, get this
| | 06:19 | ready to go and then save it either as
an Illustrator file or as a template.
| | 06:23 | If you save it as a template, you can
use it as a fresh start each time you
| | 06:28 | build one of these brochures.
| | 06:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using swatches| 00:00 |
I need to add some color to this business
card, so I'm going to create some new swatches.
| | 00:04 |
But first, I'm going to get rid of the
swatches I'm not using just to make my
| | 00:08 |
Swatches panel a little simpler to look at.
| | 00:10 |
I go to the Swatches panel menu,
choose Select All Unused, click the little
| | 00:15 |
trashcan, and say, yes,
that's a little easier.
| | 00:18 |
Now I've already gone to my printed
Pantone fan book and picked the color I want.
| | 00:22 |
Now I need to add it to my Swatches panel.
| | 00:24 |
So in the lower-left-hand corner of
the Swatches panel, I choose Color Books,
| | 00:28 |
and notice that Illustrator CS6 is using
the PANTONE+ system, that's the newer system.
| | 00:34 |
Since I want spot colors, I
go to PANTONE+ Solid Coated.
| | 00:37 |
And a little PANTONE library shows up.
| | 00:40 |
It's a little hard to tell what's what
with all of these little festive colorful
| | 00:43 |
tiles, but luckily I know the number
that I want, just 1495, so I can just
| | 00:48 |
click in the Find field and type 1495.
| | 00:50 |
Now if you were using an earlier
version of Illustrator you'd have to activate
| | 00:55 |
that Find field by going to
the little PANTONE panel menu.
| | 00:58 |
But luckily in CS6 it's there all the time.
| | 01:01 |
You might notice on the bottom row
there is my little 1495 selected.
| | 01:05 |
All I have to do to add it to my
Swatches panel is click once on it, and there we
| | 01:10 |
go, and I can close my PANTONE chooser.
| | 01:13 |
You might notice some subtle differences
in the way these little swatch icons look.
| | 01:16 |
Some have little white corners, some
don't, and our new spot color has a white
| | 01:21 |
corner and a spot in it.
| | 01:23 |
The white corner means
that it's a global swatch.
| | 01:25 |
That means if you change the specs
for that swatch, every object that uses
| | 01:29 |
that swatch changes.
| | 01:30 |
I recommend that you always
make your swatches global swatches.
| | 01:34 |
The ones that don't have a
white corner aren't global swatches.
| | 01:36 |
If you change them, objects using
them won't change along with them.
| | 01:40 |
And then of course my spot color is
by default a global swatch, so it has a
| | 01:44 |
white corner and then it also has a
little spot in the white corner to tell you
| | 01:48 |
that it's a spot swatch.
| | 01:50 |
So I'm going to select my large
rectangle at the bottom of the business card and
| | 01:54 |
apply that new orange swatch.
| | 01:55 |
Then I'm going to go up to my
control panel and get rid of that black
| | 01:59 |
stroke. That's much better.
| | 02:01 |
Now I have some little gray rectangles
at the bottom and I'd like to use the
| | 02:04 |
orange there but, I want it to be obvious
that they are separate from the main body.
| | 02:08 |
So I'm going to create a tint of my spot color.
| | 02:11 |
The spot color is still chosen. I go to
my Color Panel and I'm going to choose
| | 02:15 |
about 70% for my tint value.
| | 02:18 |
It looks like nothing happens, but
nothing will happen to your little preview
| | 02:21 |
there until you hit
either Enter or your Tab key.
| | 02:24 |
So you can see that's going to
be my new little tint swatch.
| | 02:28 |
To add it to the Swatches panel, I
just go to the Swatches panel, click the
| | 02:32 |
little New Swatch button. I've
got a new little tint swatch.
| | 02:35 |
So now I can go through here and I can
hold down Shift so that it can get all of
| | 02:39 |
these little gray rectangles at the
same time and apply that tint swatch.
| | 02:44 |
They are subtly different from the
background, but you can sort of tell
| | 02:47 |
that they're related.
| | 02:48 |
Now I want to create a process color.
| | 02:51 |
What I like to do is use the PANTONE
Bridge Book, which gives you some CMYK values.
| | 02:56 |
So that's what I've done here and I'm
going to use the values that I wrote down.
| | 03:00 |
At the bottom of the Swatches panel
I'm going to say make me a New Swatch, and
| | 03:04 |
I'm going to give it the values of Cyan
0, Magenta 46, Yellow 46, and Black 86.
| | 03:15 |
It's kind of a dark brown.
| | 03:16 |
Again you could just sort of fiddle
with the sliders, but keep in mind if you
| | 03:20 |
want a better reference, use a printed
reference like the PANTONE Color Bridge.
| | 03:24 |
Some people like to name
their swatches after the values;
| | 03:26 |
some people like to name their
swatches by something more festive.
| | 03:30 |
I'm just going to change the name to brown.
| | 03:32 |
And remember I said that all
swatches ought to be global;
| | 03:35 |
I make sure that that's a global swatch.
| | 03:37 |
And when I click OK, because I had
that rectangle selected, it automatically
| | 03:41 |
fills it with that value.
| | 03:43 |
I want to get rid of the black stroke
around it, so I'm going to come back up to
| | 03:47 |
my control panel and click None.
| | 03:49 |
But what if I really don't like
that and it's really kind of ugly.
| | 03:52 |
Because it's a global swatch, if I
change the swatch it's going to change the
| | 03:56 |
color of that shape.
| | 03:57 |
To change that swatch I just double-
click it, I'm going to come in here and I'm
| | 04:01 |
going to reduce that black
value make it more of a tan.
| | 04:05 |
I should probably change the name, so
I'll change the name to tan and click OK.
| | 04:10 |
Even though I didn't have that shape
selected, the color of it changed because I
| | 04:13 |
was using a global swatch.
| | 04:16 |
Now what if I want to use
these swatches in another project?
| | 04:20 |
Well I can just select them and I can
go to my Swatches panel menu and I can
| | 04:24 |
choose either Save Swatch Library as
ASE, which is short for Adobe Swatch
| | 04:29 |
Exchange, or I can choose
to save it as an AI file.
| | 04:33 |
If I choose ASE, I'll just put this on
my desktop and click Save and I get a
| | 04:39 |
little warning that says I'm not going
to include gradients, patterns, or tints.
| | 04:43 |
The reason for that is because I can
use an ASE file to bring those colors into
| | 04:47 |
InDesign and into Photoshop.
| | 04:49 |
And they don't understand patterns and so forth.
| | 04:53 |
So if I'm just going to use this in
Illustrator, maybe instead I'll just
| | 04:57 |
save this as an AI, and that means it's
something that I can use in any Illustrator file.
| | 05:03 |
It won't serve as a reference for my
Photoshop or InDesign projects, but it's
| | 05:07 |
going to include all my little
gradients, all my tints, and all my patterns.
| | 05:11 |
Now you know how to make a spot color,
a tint of that spot color, you know how
| | 05:15 |
to create a global swatch, and you
know how to share swatches either with
| | 05:19 |
somebody else or with another
project that you're working on.
| | 05:22 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with effects | 00:00 |
Illustrator includes a lot
of really fun Live Effects.
| | 00:04 |
And they are called Live Effects
because you can edit them for ever, so let's
| | 00:08 |
look at some of them.
| | 00:09 |
I'm going to start with a simple one.
| | 00:11 |
I am going to click on this star, go to
Effect > Distort & Transform and just the
| | 00:15 |
name is amusing, Pucker & Bloat.
| | 00:18 |
I can move the slider between Pucker
and Bloat and I can make a flower and
| | 00:23 |
pretty much nothing flat.
| | 00:24 |
So remember I started out with a star
and now I have what sort of looks like a
| | 00:28 |
little daisy. Click OK.
Actually that shape hasn't changed.
| | 00:33 |
If I go up to View and Outline, you'll
see that it's really still that star.
| | 00:37 |
And what that means is that I
can edit this over and over again.
| | 00:40 |
And here is a little tip, if I want to
change the state of that Pucker or Bloat,
| | 00:44 |
I don't go back up to Effect,
let's see what happens if I try that.
| | 00:48 |
Illustrator says, well, now this is
going to sort of double up; are you sure you
| | 00:52 |
don't want to change this.
| | 00:53 |
Maybe you want to the Appearance
panel instead, and I do. So I click Cancel.
| | 00:57 |
A little word of advice, when you go
to edit an effect you don't go back to
| | 01:02 |
where you got it initially, you go
over to your Appearance panel, which is a
| | 01:05 |
wonderful little thing that's often overlooked.
| | 01:07 |
And there you can see Pucker & Bloat.
| | 01:09 |
So if I click on that entry, there is my
Pucker & Bloat. Maybe I want to change
| | 01:13 |
it to Pucker instead.
| | 01:14 |
It's still the star underneath, but what
if I want to edit it, what if I want to
| | 01:19 |
move one of those little lobes.
| | 01:20 |
I kind of can't do that with the effect
itself, but if I want to turn this into
| | 01:25 |
literal vectors, I can go up
to Object > Expand Appearance.
| | 01:27 |
The appearance of it is a Live Effect,
it's sort of like a little costume it has on.
| | 01:32 |
So when I choose use Expand Appearance,
now you can see, and I can prove when I
| | 01:36 |
go into Outline mode, it's
now literally that shape.
| | 01:39 |
So I've lost my flexibility that I
have with the Live Effect, but now I have
| | 01:43 |
editability on a little finer basis,
so I can pull out on little handles and
| | 01:48 |
modify this if I want to.
| | 01:49 |
I am going to go over to this little
star here, and I'm going to apply what's
| | 01:53 |
called a Graphic Style.
| | 01:55 |
And the panel for that sucked
right in behind the Appearance panel.
| | 01:58 |
So these are little combinations of
attribute strokes and fills and gradients
| | 02:03 |
and glows and all sorts of fun
stuff. Here we're using a pattern.
| | 02:06 |
But this isn't enough;
| | 02:07 |
we have to have more, right?
| | 02:09 |
So I go to the Graphic Styles panel
menu and I can open up other Graphic Style
| | 02:13 |
libraries that are included with Illustrator.
| | 02:17 |
And I am going to choose the Neon
Effects because there is one I really
| | 02:20 |
like called Blue Neon.
| | 02:22 |
It looks just like Neon
tubing, isn't that amazing.
| | 02:24 |
So how does this happen.
| | 02:26 |
If we look at the Appearance panel, look
at all the stuff that's going on in there.
| | 02:30 |
So all of those little separate
attributes, little bunches of little strokes;
| | 02:34 |
that's what constitutes that Neon Effect.
| | 02:36 |
So you can create your own Graphic
Styles, just fiddle around with a shape till
| | 02:41 |
you like what you have, and you can save
it as your own Graphic Style and use it
| | 02:46 |
over and over again.
| | 02:47 |
There are some 3D effects in Illustrator.
| | 02:49 |
Now it's not a 3D program, but you can
add dimensionality to a simple shape.
| | 02:53 |
So I'll start with this little
cartoon balloon. Go to Effect > 3D > Extrude &
| | 02:58 |
Bevel, and of course my gigantic
dialog covers up my shape and I can't tell
| | 03:03 |
what's going on until I click Preview.
| | 03:05 |
This little cube acts just sort of a
trackball so that I can rotate the shape,
| | 03:10 |
and see it in different angles.
| | 03:12 |
I can change the depth of that
extrusion. I can make it enormous.
| | 03:17 |
This is a little bit fiddly
trying to get your Extrude Depth.
| | 03:21 |
Here is what I like to do, rather than
trying to use that pesky little slider,
| | 03:25 |
click in that Extrude Depth
field and just use your arrow keys.
| | 03:28 |
I am just hitting the down
arrow key on my keyboard.
| | 03:30 |
It's much easier to fine-tune that way.
| | 03:32 |
You can do interesting things like
add little bevels on it, and I can even
| | 03:36 |
add different Lights.
| | 03:37 |
So I can click the New Light button.
I can move that around and that adds
| | 03:41 |
a little more depth.
| | 03:43 |
When I click OK, there is my little shape.
| | 03:45 |
And again a little reminder, it's
really still that original shape, little
| | 03:50 |
cartoon balloon. It just has that
wonderful attribute added to it--that Live Effect.
| | 03:56 |
For the big finish here I am going
to select this shape and I'm going to
| | 04:00 |
apply the 3D > Revolve.
| | 04:02 |
You might think of Revolve as being
sort of like using a lathe and what you've
| | 04:06 |
created is actually the cross-section.
| | 04:08 |
When I click Preview, you can
see that it revolves into a vase.
| | 04:11 |
I have made a vase out of just a line,
and as I rotate it, eventually I can
| | 04:16 |
pour the water out.
| | 04:17 |
Notice how slow this is.
| | 04:19 |
There is a lot of
thinking going on to create this.
| | 04:22 |
I'm going to return to the Off-Axis
Front, which is the default view here.
| | 04:26 |
It's shiny, it sort of looks like a
real-world vase, so this is very cool that
| | 04:31 |
Illustrator can give you dimensionality
when you just start with a simple shape.
| | 04:35 |
And again all it is--is just that
simple cross-section that you started with.
| | 04:40 |
Now you remember that I
expanded this star down here.
| | 04:43 |
There's no reason to expand
stuff unless you need to edit it.
| | 04:46 |
It doesn't save any time in the print
process and you're going to lose some flexibility.
| | 04:50 |
So if you don't need to expand your
appearance and turn it to literal vectors, don't.
| | 04:54 |
But I am going to expand my vase just
so you can see how tough this would've
| | 04:58 |
been to draw if you'd had
to build it from scratch.
| | 05:01 |
I'm going to go Object > Expand Appearance,
and then when I go into Outline mode,
| | 05:05 |
holy cow, aren't you glad you didn't draw that.
| | 05:08 |
So remember these Live Effects in the
future, when you have a simple shape,
| | 05:11 |
but you want to make it a little bit
more interesting, let Illustrator kind of
| | 05:15 |
do the work for you.
| | 05:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Cautions about some effects | 00:00 |
Illustrator allows you to
create effects that involve pixels.
| | 00:03 |
Now you're not creating pixels but
Illustrator is going to have to generate
| | 00:07 |
pixels in order to create
effects like glows and shadows.
| | 00:10 |
So here on the little bear, there are
some little shadows that add depth, and
| | 00:14 |
they look pretty good until you zoom way
in and then they look really pixilated.
| | 00:19 |
So these are not literal pixels yet,
they won't really become literal pixels
| | 00:23 |
until you export this to PDF or you
hit File Print, in that print stream
| | 00:28 |
there'll actually be pixels.
| | 00:30 |
Lucky for us, we can change the
resolution of this because they aren't pixels yet.
| | 00:34 |
The way that's controlled is up under
Effect > Document Raster Effects Settings,
| | 00:39 |
and right now it's set to be really
pitiful, it's 36 pixels per inch, so if I'm
| | 00:45 |
going to send it to print, I'm going to
change this to 300 pixels per inch and
| | 00:49 |
watch what happens when I click OK.
| | 00:52 |
All that pixilation is gone because now
these pixels are going to be 300 pixels per inch.
| | 00:58 |
When you create a new document, you
might take a note down here at the bottom
| | 01:02 |
under Advanced, what that PPI is, and
if you choose that Print Profile as a
| | 01:07 |
start it's always going to be 300.
| | 01:09 |
But if you inherit a file from somebody
else, you might want to double check if
| | 01:13 |
there were shadows or glows. Take a
trip up here to Effect > Document Raster
| | 01:17 |
Effects Settings and make sure that
that resolution is appropriate for the way
| | 01:21 |
this document is going to be used.
| | 01:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing images| 00:00 |
Sometimes you want to add an image to
your Illustrator file, to do that go to
| | 00:04 |
File > Place, find your image, and click Place.
| | 00:10 |
Now my image isn't the right size,
so I'm going to have to scale it up.
| | 00:13 |
I don't want to distort it, so I'm going
to hold down Shift as I drag on the corners.
| | 00:18 |
Ultimately, I want it to show behind
that checkered artwork and just show
| | 00:21 |
through the openings in it.
| | 00:22 |
But here is a little problem, it's
weigh too big and I don't want it
| | 00:26 |
dangling off the artboard.
| | 00:27 |
There is no way to directly crop an
image in Illustrator, but you can create a
| | 00:30 |
mask that will crop it.
| | 00:32 |
So I'm going to get my Rectangle tool
and I'm going to draw a rectangle that
| | 00:36 |
corresponds to the edges of my artboard.
| | 00:39 |
And then I'm going to get my Selection tool
and Shift+Click so that I select the image.
| | 00:43 |
So I want the rectangle to become a
mask for the image, so I need both
| | 00:47 |
components selected.
| | 00:49 |
And then I go to Object > Clipping Mask >
Make, and notice when it turns into a mask
| | 00:54 |
that that rectangle is no longer
carrying a fill of white and a stroke a black,
| | 00:58 |
now that it's just operating as a mask.
| | 01:01 |
So I need to move this down from the
current layer into the bottom layer and
| | 01:06 |
then I need to position
it below everything else.
| | 01:08 |
So I grab my little Clipping Group,
drag it below the bottommost artwork, and
| | 01:12 |
there you go, now it's showing through.
| | 01:15 |
I had to make a decision how I'm going
to transport that image to somebody else
| | 01:19 |
if I want them to work on the Illustrator file.
| | 01:22 |
If I go to Window > Links, you can
tell that that image is part of this file.
| | 01:27 |
But it actually isn't, it's
linked to the Illustrator file.
| | 01:30 |
So if I were going to send this to
someone else to work on, I have to send them
| | 01:35 |
the Illustrator file, plus that
watercolor.jpg that I've placed in there.
| | 01:38 |
If I don't think they're going to edit
it and I just want to make sort of an
| | 01:43 |
intact piece that has the
image and everything in one spot,
| | 01:45 |
I can select that image in the Links panel
and then I can choose to embed the image.
| | 01:50 |
This is an 8 meg image, when I embed it,
I have now increased the file size of
| | 01:55 |
my Illustrator by 8 megs.
| | 01:56 |
But it means that this file
is now completely portable.
| | 01:59 |
What if I needed to unembed that image
and get it out or what if I decided that
| | 02:04 |
I don't want to embed but I want to make
sure that I gather up the fonts and the
| | 02:09 |
image and everything that
constitutes this file for somebody else?
| | 02:11 |
There is a third-party product called
Scoop that will do both things for you.
| | 02:16 |
It'll unembed an embedded image and
also it will package up all your fonts and
| | 02:20 |
all your placed artwork, so that you
have a little folder with everything in it.
| | 02:24 |
How do you decide whether you're going
to embed an image or link to the image?
| | 02:28 |
Well, it depends on what you think is going to
happen to your project after you release it.
| | 02:32 |
If you want to ensure that nobody
can edit your image, then embed it.
| | 02:36 |
If you want to enable them to edit the
image later on, then link to it when you
| | 02:40 |
ship the job to them.
| | 02:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring fonts| 00:00 |
If somebody sends you an Illustrator
file and they don't send you the fonts that
| | 00:03 |
they used to create it, you
are going to have a missing font.
| | 00:07 |
So I have that problem with this file.
| | 00:09 |
But I have no choice, I have to work on it.
| | 00:11 |
So when I click Open I have to
figure out where the problem is.
| | 00:15 |
Well, I can read all the
text, so where is the issue?
| | 00:18 |
If I go up to Type > Find Font, then
Illustrator is going to report which font is missing.
| | 00:23 |
So when I choose CityBold, you can see that
it selects the first item that uses that font.
| | 00:29 |
What font is it using right now?
| | 00:31 |
It's actually an internal font that
Illustrator uses to approximate what was
| | 00:35 |
used before, and it's not
something you want to stick with.
| | 00:39 |
You always want to replace
it with an official font.
| | 00:41 |
I can choose either from what's used in
the document or I can choose what's used
| | 00:46 |
on my system; what's available on my system.
| | 00:49 |
I like Myriad Pro, it's not fancy, but
it's reliable, and I know that anybody
| | 00:53 |
who has a Creative Suite
is going to have Myriad Pro.
| | 00:56 |
So I'm going to choose Myriad Pro and
click Change, and I think that's acceptable.
| | 01:01 |
I have no idea of what the other font
looked like that the designer used because
| | 01:04 |
they didn't send it to me, but
this is going to have to do.
| | 01:08 |
In the real-world I would call the
designer insist that they send the font, but
| | 01:12 |
right now we're on a deadline
so we've got to get this printed.
| | 01:15 |
Which brings up another issue;
| | 01:16 |
what some people like to do is, convert
their text to outlines and that solves
| | 01:20 |
this problem, then your text is no
longer text, and it no longer needs the font.
| | 01:24 |
But there are a couple of
little disadvantages to that.
| | 01:27 |
Here's how you convert text to outlines.
| | 01:29 |
If I select it I can go to Type > Create
Outlines, and now it's just little shapes
| | 01:34 |
that look like text;
| | 01:35 |
what could possibly be wrong with that?
| | 01:38 |
Well if I misspelled something, I'm
going to have to start over because it's not
| | 01:42 |
really letters anymore.
| | 01:43 |
And here's another sort of hidden consideration.
| | 01:46 |
Some end-user licensing agreements for some
fonts forbid you to convert them to outlines.
| | 01:52 |
And there's one more little thing to consider.
| | 01:53 |
Real text, genuine text, has something
in a called hinting, and that helps it
| | 01:58 |
look better on screen and when it goes
to print. Text that's been converted to
| | 02:01 |
outlines loses that hinting, and on a
high-res imagesetter, that's say 2400 dots
| | 02:07 |
per inch, you're not going to see it.
| | 02:09 |
But printing to a desktop printer,
you might see rough edges on this text.
| | 02:13 |
That's okay if you know it's going to
go to a platesetter, then you are not
| | 02:17 |
going to worry about it, but you know
that it's going to go to a digital device,
| | 02:21 |
some of the lower in digital printers
will render this text with sort of rough
| | 02:25 |
looking edges, and you don't
want that on your customer's job.
| | 02:28 |
How you handle this, sort of depends on how
you know that this is going to be printed.
| | 02:32 |
But in the future when you send your
jobs to somebody else, always make sure
| | 02:36 |
that you include the fonts, and ask
your customers when they send you their
| | 02:39 |
Illustrator files to please
include their fonts as well.
| | 02:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving for users with older versions | 00:00 |
You may be collaborating with
people who are using older versions of
| | 00:03 |
Illustrator, so you need to know how
safe is it to save back to earlier versions.
| | 00:08 |
This has been created in CS6.
| | 00:10 |
So if I choose File > Save As and
I'll just put this on my desktop.
| | 00:16 |
When I click Save, I'm given
the option to choose a version.
| | 00:20 |
Multiple artboards came in at CS4.
| | 00:22 |
So if you saved for a version
earlier than CS4, you are not going to have
| | 00:26 |
multiple artboards anymore.
| | 00:27 |
Transparency came in at Illustrator 9,
so if you saved at Illustrator 8,
| | 00:31 |
you'll lose transparency.
| | 00:33 |
All of your objects will still be there
but they'll be opaque or all your little shadows
| | 00:37 |
will be embedded images.
| | 00:38 |
Keep in mind that when you go back in the
past, you are going to lose some editability.
| | 00:43 |
It's best if you keep
files in their native habitat.
| | 00:45 |
If you're using CS6, it's the best of
all worlds if you collaborate with people
| | 00:49 |
who are also using CS6.
| | 00:51 |
There's not a huge danger in going back
to CS5, but there are some things that
| | 00:56 |
CS5 doesn't do that CS6 does,
like gradients on strokes.
| | 01:00 |
So those are probably going to be
converted into objects that you can't easily edit.
| | 01:04 |
What if somebody says well, I have CS3
and I'm not going to upgrade, I need for
| | 01:09 |
you to send me the file.
| | 01:10 |
Well, this file relies on
having multiple artboards.
| | 01:13 |
So let's see what falls
apart when we back save it.
| | 01:15 |
So I'm going to choose Illustrator 3.
By the way, you always want to have
| | 01:19 |
PDF Compatible File checked; that makes it
behave right when you place it into InDesign.
| | 01:25 |
And when I click OK, on the way I
notice this little yellow triangle of terror
| | 01:29 |
that mentions basically what I've
just been telling you, Saving to a legacy
| | 01:32 |
format may cause some changes.
| | 01:34 |
And sometimes you'll see reflow in your
text and so forth, but let's see what happens.
| | 01:39 |
When I click OK, it gave me
another warning. I click OK.
| | 01:43 |
And now if I close this and I open up
the file that I saved on my desktop, I
| | 01:48 |
want to see if there is anything wrong with it.
| | 01:50 |
I've lost my artboards.
| | 01:52 |
And it's sort of funny which artboard it
picks to maintain, because in the olden
| | 01:56 |
days, artboards were defined
sort of differently in Illustrator.
| | 01:59 |
Now they're more like
individual pieces of paper.
| | 02:01 |
In versions prior to CS4,
they were just kind of arbitrary.
| | 02:05 |
But notice that Illustrator is polite
enough to leave guidelines, so that we
| | 02:09 |
least know where the original
artboards were. This will work okay.
| | 02:13 |
At least everything is in position.
| | 02:15 |
But the user is going to have to do
some juggling around to replicate, what I
| | 02:19 |
had created with multiple artboards.
| | 02:20 |
So if I open this backup in CS6, and
that's what I just did, notice that it does
| | 02:24 |
not bring my artboards back.
| | 02:26 |
So they are lost forever
when you go back in the past.
| | 02:29 |
If you find that you have to share with
somebody that uses an older version, just
| | 02:33 |
be mindful of the things that fall off.
| | 02:35 |
Be mindful of the things that
were introduced in later versions.
| | 02:38 |
If you can live without using them,
then you have a safer trip back.
| | 02:41 |
But one thing to always keep an eye on
is text, the farther back you go, the
| | 02:46 |
text composition engine changes, you
may see some reflow, you may see some text
| | 02:50 |
converted to little bitty clumps of point text.
| | 02:53 |
And in some dire cases you may
see text converted to outlines.
| | 02:57 |
If you have to do this, at least be
aware of what the repercussions are and
| | 03:00 |
be prepared for it.
| | 03:02 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving as PDF| 00:00 |
If you're asked to submit a PDF either
to a printer or to a publication, ask if
| | 00:05 |
they have a spec that they can provide
to you, either a list of the settings
| | 00:08 |
that you want to use or even a preset
file that you can incorporate and invoke.
| | 00:12 |
That's the ideal, but sometimes
nobody gives you any information.
| | 00:16 |
So what do you do in that case?
| | 00:18 |
Well, let's look at our options.
| | 00:20 |
First, when I choose to make a
PDF, it's not an Export function;
| | 00:23 |
it's a Save As function.
| | 00:25 |
So I'm going choose Save a Copy, and
I'll just put this little guy on my
| | 00:29 |
desktop and choose PDF.
| | 00:32 |
I can choose to either have a single page
of my two-page document or all my pages.
| | 00:36 |
Of course, I want all of them, so I click Save.
| | 00:39 |
And now here comes the dialog box.
| | 00:41 |
And again, here's our scenario.
| | 00:43 |
We need to submit a PDF, but
nobody has told us how to make it.
| | 00:47 |
I'm going to tell you that in that
situation the Illustrator Default option
| | 00:50 |
is not a good option.
| | 00:51 |
It's an interesting option because
essentially it's your Illustrator file
| | 00:54 |
encased in a PDF wrapper.
| | 00:56 |
To other applications, it looks like
a PDF, but it's the only kind of PDF
| | 01:00 |
it's safe to roundtrip;
| | 01:01 |
in other words, to reopen in Illustrator.
| | 01:04 |
Preserve Illustrator Editing
Capabilities is what gives you that option.
| | 01:08 |
It also makes for a really big file
because essentially it's two for one,
| | 01:11 |
Illustrator file and PDF.
| | 01:14 |
Let's look at out other options.
| | 01:16 |
Smallest File Size, less appropriate
if you're going to send a PDF by email
| | 01:20 |
maybe for your customer to check the text.
| | 01:22 |
It's not going to be appropriate for print.
| | 01:24 |
But then you have two options that look very
similar, High Quality Print and Press Quality.
| | 01:30 |
They're actually very similar.
| | 01:31 |
The intention for High Quality Print was
this scenario, you have sell sheets and
| | 01:35 |
you want to send them out into the
field so that salesmen can print them out
| | 01:39 |
when they need them instead of having to
keep a big inventory of printed pieces.
| | 01:42 |
So that's what High
Quality Print is intended for.
| | 01:45 |
Press Quality is pretty safe, but
remember we're talking about a scenario where
| | 01:50 |
you have no idea how old the workflow is.
| | 01:52 |
You want to make sort of a bulletproof,
safe PDF that can go anywhere into the
| | 01:56 |
world and be printed.
| | 01:57 |
That's when we start looking at the
X standards, PDF/X-1a, X-3, and X-4.
| | 02:03 |
You notice that there are dates after them.
| | 02:05 |
There's actually a governing body that
creates these specifications with the
| | 02:09 |
idea being, hey, let's set up
specifications for PDFs that will ensure that they
| | 02:13 |
will print successfully.
| | 02:15 |
Why are there dates? Why are there
multiple versions? Because over the years,
| | 02:19 |
workflows have gotten more sophisticated.
| | 02:21 |
Back in 2001, there were some things
that didn't image well, like transparency.
| | 02:26 |
So PDF/X-1a says, hey, you can have
CMYK content and grayscale content; you
| | 02:31 |
can have spot colors.
| | 02:33 |
You can't have RGB. You
can't have live transparency;
| | 02:36 |
it has to be flattened.
| | 02:37 |
Your fonts have to be embedded in
subset and where the bleed and trim lines
| | 02:41 |
fall that has to be defined
internally in the PDF, which Illustrator does.
| | 02:45 |
X-3 says, well, we're starting to see
more color management here in the modern
| | 02:50 |
year of 2002, so we'll let you have RGB
content, but you still cannot have live
| | 02:56 |
transparency that has to be flattened,
fonts have to be embedded, and so forth.
| | 03:00 |
In other words, it's the X-1a spec with
now a permission to include RGB content.
| | 03:04 |
PDF/X-4, dating back to 2008, says you
can have live transparency, you can have
| | 03:10 |
RGB content, you can have
all the fun in the world.
| | 03:13 |
And this is because modern workflows
were now able to handle live transparency.
| | 03:19 |
But if we're flying blind and we have
no idea what kind workflow this PDF is
| | 03:23 |
going to land on, your safest bet is PDF/X-1a.
| | 03:25 |
When you choose that you'll
notice that it goes all the way back to
| | 03:30 |
ancient times to Acrobat 4. Why is that?
| | 03:33 |
Acrobat 5 and above allow live transparency;
| | 03:36 |
Acrobat 4 was before live
transparency and doesn't understand it.
| | 03:39 |
Does that mean that you're going to
lose components you've created that involve
| | 03:43 |
transparency like translucency on an
object or blending modes or drop shadow?
| | 03:47 |
No, but they'll get
recreated in an opaque fashion.
| | 03:50 |
They'll look like what you made but
they'll be sort of older stuff that an older
| | 03:54 |
workflow understands.
| | 03:56 |
So you're pretty much safe using X-1a
when you have no other guidance that you
| | 04:00 |
need to change one thing.
| | 04:02 |
If there's bleed on this document
that X-1a preset doesn't include bleed.
| | 04:07 |
In this document, I don't need bleed
but I just want to call your attention to
| | 04:11 |
this; you need to make
sure that you add bleed to it.
| | 04:14 |
Now some printers want marks, some don't.
| | 04:16 |
If you give them marks, it's always
easy for them to take them off, so I would
| | 04:20 |
just add Trim Marks and Page
Information and I think that would do it.
| | 04:23 |
And so now, I've modified my
PDF setting and I'm ready to go.
| | 04:28 |
When I submit this, I guarantee you
anybody that can print a PDF can print this PDF.
| | 04:33 |
So you're safe using that X-1a format.
| | 04:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Gathering up the pieces| 00:00 |
If you're going to submit a native
Illustrator file as your final printing file,
| | 00:04 |
keep in mind that Illustrator
doesn't gather up any linked artwork and it
| | 00:09 |
doesn't gather up any fonts
that are used in the file.
| | 00:13 |
So you might consider sending a PDF,
but if you prefer to send the Illustrator
| | 00:16 |
file, what can you do?
| | 00:19 |
Well, if I go to Window > Links, you can
see that this image that's down behind
| | 00:25 |
all the little black
checkerboard is linked to the file.
| | 00:28 |
That means that when I send it, I would
have to send both the Illustrator file
| | 00:32 |
and that separate image.
| | 00:34 |
And that's probably best because if
there needs to be any color correction
| | 00:37 |
to the image, then the printer has that
standalone image that they can color correct.
| | 00:42 |
But if you don't want them to color
correct or you know that it's safe to send
| | 00:46 |
the image and you don't anticipate
any color correction or retouching, what
| | 00:49 |
you could do to make that image
portable is in the Links panel you could
| | 00:53 |
choose to embed the image.
| | 00:56 |
Notice that there's a little new icon
there in the Links panel and that tells us
| | 01:00 |
that that image is now embedded.
| | 01:02 |
The advantage to that is that now you
don't have to worry about gathering up the
| | 01:06 |
image and sending it as a separate
file along with your Illustrator file.
| | 01:09 |
The disadvantage is that it can't be unembedded.
| | 01:13 |
There's really no direct way to pull it
back out of the Illustrator file in case
| | 01:17 |
it does require retouching or color correction.
| | 01:19 |
Also it adds to the file size, and that
makes it portable but it makes it larger.
| | 01:24 |
Well, what about fonts?
| | 01:26 |
If you go to Type > Find Font, you can
find what fonts are used in the document,
| | 01:31 |
but there's no provision
for gathering up the fonts.
| | 01:34 |
Keep in mind that if somebody has to
open this file at the printer and has to
| | 01:38 |
perform some edits, they're going to
need the correct fonts, unless they just
| | 01:41 |
happen to be very common
fonts that you know they have.
| | 01:43 |
But just to be sure, you should send
along the fonts with your Illustrator file.
| | 01:48 |
There's no way to package but there is
at least a way to get a list of the fonts
| | 01:52 |
so that you can gather them up manually.
| | 01:54 |
Here in the Find Font dialog, if you
click on Save List, it asks where you want
| | 01:59 |
to save it and it makes a little text file.
| | 02:02 |
And when I save it, there's my little text file.
| | 02:06 |
It's pretty simplistic.
| | 02:07 |
It just tells you the name of the file and it
tells you all the fonts that are used in it.
| | 02:12 |
That still leaves you with the job of
trying to gather them up manually and
| | 02:16 |
making sure that you ship
them off to the printer.
| | 02:19 |
It's a little kludgy but at
least gives you some information.
| | 02:23 |
What you might want to do if
Illustrator is your favorite program to build
| | 02:26 |
in, to give yourself maximum
flexibility, there is a little plug-in for
| | 02:30 |
Illustrator called Scoop.
| | 02:32 |
It's from worker72a.com and it can
gather up all your fonts, any linked
| | 02:37 |
artwork, and your Illustrator file in much
the same way that InDesign does a file package.
| | 02:43 |
And it can do one other really handy
thing, if you have an embedded image, it
| | 02:46 |
can actually unembed it.
| | 02:48 |
Illustrator doesn't play quite like
InDesign, but there are some ways around it.
| | 02:52 |
And again, your final goal is always to
be able to give to your printer all the
| | 02:56 |
components that your printer
needs to successfully image your file.
| | 03:00 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. InDesign Layout Basics InDesign layout basics | 00:00 |
Before you start creating documents
in InDesign, there are a few things you
| | 00:04 |
might want to change.
| | 00:05 |
For example, I like to change
the Essentials workspace to the
| | 00:08 |
Advanced workspace.
| | 00:09 |
You get more panels that you use all the time.
| | 00:12 |
It gives little bit of a head start.
| | 00:14 |
Now let's take a look at Preferences.
| | 00:16 |
On the Mac, it's going to be under InDesign;
| | 00:18 |
on Windows, it's going
to be under the Edit menu.
| | 00:20 |
When I go to Preferences, most of them
I tend to leave alone and there a lot of
| | 00:25 |
them you can think about, but
here are a few that I like to change.
| | 00:29 |
Under Interface, down here where it
says Live Screen Drawing Delayed, now
| | 00:33 |
that's the default in CS6.
| | 00:35 |
In earlier versions, the default was Immediate.
| | 00:38 |
That means, immediately when you move
something, you get that redraw. That sounds great.
| | 00:42 |
But you're going to find that with
great big Illustrator files and great big
| | 00:45 |
images that Immediate Redraw
can slow down your performance.
| | 00:49 |
I like the Delayed setting.
| | 00:51 |
If you like the Immediate setting,
this is where you could change it.
| | 00:55 |
Under Units & Increments, if you
think you in picas, leave it at picas.
| | 00:58 |
But most folks think in inches or other
measurement systems, so I always like to
| | 01:03 |
change mine to inches.
| | 01:04 |
Now here's something to keep in mind.
| | 01:06 |
I have no document open, so what this is
going to affect is every new document I
| | 01:11 |
make, now every new document
is going to think in inches.
| | 01:14 |
But if I open up a file that somebody
has created while they were using the
| | 01:18 |
picas measurement system, for example,
that document is still going to use picas.
| | 01:22 |
Reason we do this with no document
is to affect all future documents.
| | 01:27 |
Under Display Performance, if you're
zoomed way out, your text looks like
| | 01:30 |
little gray strips that seems to
drive people crazy, so most folks like to
| | 01:34 |
change that 7 point to 0 point.
| | 01:37 |
And there's one more
thing that I like to change;
| | 01:39 |
this is optional for you,
Appearance of Black, On Screen and Printing/
| | 01:43 |
Exporting and notice that
there's a big difference.
| | 01:45 |
Black ink by itself is a little bit anemic;
| | 01:49 |
that's why we create rich blacks, so
this is what a rich black would look like.
| | 01:53 |
Well, you can kind of get misled on screen.
| | 01:55 |
Here's what I like to do.
| | 01:57 |
I say Display All Blacks Accurately,
so my plain old 100K blacks will look
| | 02:01 |
a little bit anemic.
| | 02:02 |
That's going to help me determine
whether I need to make a rich black and it'll
| | 02:06 |
let me compare whether
I've made a rich black or not.
| | 02:09 |
On Printing/Exporting, it's
going to print nice solid black.
| | 02:13 |
It'll look a little anemic on screen, but
it'll look just fine when you go to print.
| | 02:18 |
So now that I've set up my preferences,
now I'm going to make a new document.
| | 02:21 |
When I choose File > New > Document,
I have some choices to make.
| | 02:26 |
Do I want Facing Pages or not?
| | 02:28 |
If I know I'm going to create something
like a publication that's going to print
| | 02:31 |
on both sides of the paper, I'm going to
have a left page and a right page, then
| | 02:35 |
I choose Facing Pages.
| | 02:36 |
If I'm going to print something that's
going to get punched and put in a binder,
| | 02:40 |
probably not going to print on the
back, then I'll create nonfacing pages.
| | 02:44 |
For this document, I'll create facing pages.
| | 02:47 |
And then of course, I
have to choose my dimensions.
| | 02:49 |
Here's something I want to call your
attention to and that's the Primary Text Frame.
| | 02:53 |
Now that's a new feature in InDesign CS6.
| | 02:55 |
We're really talking about printing here,
we're not talking about design, so I'm
| | 02:59 |
going to kind of gloss over it.
| | 03:00 |
I will say that I love the Primary
Text Frame and I like it better than the
| | 03:05 |
old master text frame.
| | 03:06 |
You have some presets for your page
size and so forth, but I want to show
| | 03:10 |
you something else.
| | 03:11 |
Under Intent, you have some
interesting options, Web or Digital Publishing.
| | 03:16 |
InDesign is not a web design program,
but if you're using some of the animation
| | 03:20 |
features in InDesign and you're going
to export to SWF, S-W-F, when you choose
| | 03:24 |
Web, you'll see that your page aize
choices now reflect web-appropriate sizes.
| | 03:29 |
And if you choose Digital Publishing,
you'll see that your choices are iPad,
| | 03:33 |
iPhone, Kindle Fire, and Android.
| | 03:36 |
If you need to make another size
because you're headed to a digital publishing,
| | 03:39 |
of course, you can use Custom.
| | 03:41 |
But we're heading to print, so I'm
going to go back to choose Print.
| | 03:45 |
Letter size is going to work just fine for me.
| | 03:47 |
If I want to set up some columns as a
way to sort of serve as a guidance system
| | 03:52 |
for content I put in the page, I can
do that here, and I'm going to set my
| | 03:57 |
margins: Top, Bottom, Inside, and Outside.
| | 03:59 |
Notice Inside and Outside; if I uncheck
Facing Pages, then it's Left and Right,
| | 04:03 |
which kind of makes sense.
| | 04:05 |
If you want the same value all around, you
leave this little guy checked in the middle.
| | 04:09 |
If you want to change one of them,
for instance, I want to make the bottom
| | 04:12 |
margin higher so that I can have room
for a page number, then you unlink them.
| | 04:17 |
And finally, of course, I want bleed,
so I'll just click in the Bleed field.
| | 04:22 |
If I hit my up arrow once because
that's way more fun than typing, that's a
| | 04:25 |
sixteenth of an inch.
| | 04:27 |
Click that arrow one more time,
now I have an eighth of an inch.
| | 04:30 |
Now the slug is a
nonprinting area outside the page.
| | 04:33 |
You can think of it sort of like bleed.
| | 04:35 |
It's a staked-out territory, not a
container, but you can put content in.
| | 04:40 |
Some people like to put job
information for advertisements like what the run
| | 04:43 |
date is and what the publication
is that it's going to print in.
| | 04:47 |
It's just a way to store information
and not have it infringe on the page.
| | 04:51 |
If you're going to make pages over and
over again with these same parameters,
| | 04:54 |
it's a good idea to save a preset.
| | 04:57 |
So when I click Save Preset, I
could name this my Flyer preset.
| | 05:02 |
Click OK and now that's always
going to be available to me in InDesign.
| | 05:07 |
The next user is going to have a little head
start because you did a little work for them.
| | 05:12 |
So always remember to pay good attention
to all these little fields because this
| | 05:15 |
is sort of like building
a house for your document.
| | 05:17 |
You want the get the best start possible.
| | 05:19 |
Now when you're ready, you can click OK.
| | 05:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building a simple three-panel brochure: method one| 00:00 |
One of the more common project
types you might work on use a
| | 00:03 |
three-panel brochure.
| | 00:05 |
So here, I need to make a rack brochure
that's going to be 4 inches by 9 inches
| | 00:09 |
when folded, and when it's flat, it's
going to be 4 inches plus 4 inches plus 3
| | 00:14 |
7/8 so it's going be 11 7/8.
| | 00:18 |
So as I go to set it up in
InDesign, I choose File > New Document.
| | 00:22 |
I don't want facing pages;
| | 00:24 |
I do want two pages, one for the
outside, one for the inside, and for my
| | 00:29 |
dimensions, I am going to let
InDesign do some math for me.
| | 00:33 |
So in the Width field, I know that I
want it to be one 4-inch panel plus another
| | 00:37 |
4-inch panel plus one
3.875 inch that's a 3 7/8 panel.
| | 00:41 |
There is my 11 7/8 and then the
height is going to be 9 inches.
| | 00:47 |
For columns, I could use columns as a
sort of layout guideline, but for what I'm
| | 00:51 |
doing, I think they are
going to kind of get in the way.
| | 00:54 |
For my margins, I am going to set them up
to correspond to what I call a live area.
| | 00:58 |
In other words, you want to keep your
artwork away from the folds, away from the
| | 01:02 |
trims, and I am going to use margins
as sort of a starting point for that.
| | 01:06 |
So that's going to be
quarter of an inch, here we go.
| | 01:09 |
And if I think I'm going to have artwork
that extends to the edge, of course, we
| | 01:14 |
need to add bleed; two
clicks and I've got bleed.
| | 01:16 |
Now if I'm going to create more of these,
I might save a preset, but I'm going
| | 01:20 |
to do so much in the page itself
that I'm going to save my document as a
| | 01:25 |
template when I'm done.
| | 01:26 |
So for now I'm just going to click OK.
| | 01:28 |
I tend to build outside of a three-
panel brochure on the first page and build
| | 01:32 |
the inside on the second page.
| | 01:33 |
For this movie, I am just going to
build the outside so that you can
| | 01:37 |
understand how I position guides and
putting other things that show me where
| | 01:40 |
to put my artwork later on.
| | 01:42 |
First of all, I had to sort of
visualize this and I find it helpful if I just
| | 01:46 |
take a piece of paper and kind of fold
it up and remember where is the front,
| | 01:50 |
where is the back, and where
is that inside folding panel.
| | 01:53 |
Since this is the outside, the right
side is going to be my cover, that's going
| | 01:57 |
to be 4 inches wide. The back part is
going to be the back panel that'll be 4
| | 02:02 |
inches wide and then the left part
is going to be my short fold panel.
| | 02:05 |
So I'm going to let
guidelines do a little work for me.
| | 02:08 |
I am going to reach over here into my
ruler, drag out a guideline and notice
| | 02:12 |
this while my cursor is in the middle
of the page, the edge of the guide stops
| | 02:17 |
at the edge of the page.
| | 02:18 |
If I move out into the pasteboard, you
can see that it extends beyond the page.
| | 02:22 |
This is a page guide; this is a spread guide.
| | 02:25 |
I like spread guides because they
are a little easier to get a hold off.
| | 02:28 |
But once you touch the page, they
tend to want to become page guides.
| | 02:32 |
Here's what you can do to
force them to be spread guides;
| | 02:35 |
on the Mac, hold down the Command key
and on Windows, hold down the Ctrl key, and
| | 02:39 |
it's a little hard to see because it's
lined up with the edge of the page, but I
| | 02:44 |
think you can see the ends of the guide.
When I let go of my mouse and then my
| | 02:48 |
Ctrl or Command, I have a spread guide.
| | 02:50 |
Now, why do I need a guide at the edge of the
page and know where the edge of the page is.
| | 02:56 |
Well, he's kind of a starting guide and I
am going to make other guides based on him.
| | 03:00 |
So first, I am going to copy that
guide, and then I am going to paste it.
| | 03:05 |
Now guides are kind of unique;
they always paste in place.
| | 03:07 |
So all I have to do really is just choose Paste.
| | 03:10 |
It doesn't look like anything has
happened but now I have two guides piled up.
| | 03:14 |
So I need to move this guide, my new
guide, and in the X field up here, I am
| | 03:19 |
going to do a little math.
| | 03:20 |
Well, I am not going to do a little math;
| | 03:23 |
InDesign is going to do it.
| | 03:24 |
So I click after the "in" in inch. Type -4. I
don't have to type inch, and when I hit
| | 03:29 |
Return, there is my guide.
| | 03:30 |
So now we start to see the limits of my
front cover on this little folded piece.
| | 03:34 |
I'm going to copy this guide.
| | 03:36 |
This time I am going to do with a
keyboard shortcut and I am going to paste it
| | 03:40 |
right back on top of itself so it
doesn't look like anything is happening.
| | 03:44 |
I'll back up in my control panel, I am
going to subtract 4 again, and there we go.
| | 03:48 |
So that's my short fold panel. Here is
my full-size back panel full-size cover,
| | 03:52 |
but I'd like to have something in
place that shows me how far away I have to
| | 03:56 |
stay from the folds.
| | 03:57 |
So I am going to make another guide.
| | 03:59 |
So I am going to grab this little guy,
I am going to copy him and paste him
| | 04:04 |
back, and then I am going
to add a quarter of an inch;
| | 04:07 |
remember, I want a quarter of an inch safe zone.
| | 04:09 |
So 0.25 and there we go, but he
looks an awful lot like this other guide;
| | 04:14 |
it's going to be kind of hard to tell
which is which when they are the same color.
| | 04:18 |
So I am going to change the color of this guide.
| | 04:21 |
So when I select this guide, I can go up
to Layout, choose Ruler Guides, and then
| | 04:25 |
I can pick from this wonderful festive
assortment of guide colors, including
| | 04:28 |
Lipstick, Cute Teal, and my
personal favorite, Fiesta.
| | 04:30 |
So when I choose Fiesta, click OK.
| | 04:32 |
Initially, it looks like nothing happens,
but when I deselect, see now he's red.
| | 04:37 |
I need another one on the left side of this.
| | 04:39 |
Remember my blue lines
signify the fold position.
| | 04:42 |
So I am going to copy that guide. I am
using my keyboard shortcuts, Command+C or
| | 04:49 |
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V or Command+V, and paste.
| | 04:51 |
It's still live minus a quarter of
an inch up there in the control panel.
| | 04:55 |
Now I've my little guide to the left of
my fold guide, I am going to do the same
| | 04:59 |
thing I did with the other one;
| | 05:01 |
I am going to go to ruler guides and I
am going to change this color to fiesta.
| | 05:06 |
So now it's a little clearer where things fall.
| | 05:09 |
This is going to be my live area for the cover.
| | 05:12 |
So I am going to continue to create my
other little guide so that I know how to
| | 05:16 |
position my artwork.
| | 05:17 |
I am going to select this
guide, copy him, paste him.
| | 05:20 |
After a while, there is sort of a
rhythm to it, and then 0.25 up in the Control
| | 05:25 |
Panel, up to Layout > Ruler Guides and
yet another fiesta and one last one.
| | 05:32 |
Again, I am selecting my initial fold
guide, copy and paste, and then I need to
| | 05:37 |
go up here and do the math -0.25,
because he's moving to the left and finally,
| | 05:44 |
turn him into fiesta.
| | 05:47 |
So that's very festive. Everything is
very colorful, but wouldn't you agree that
| | 05:50 |
having a different color guidelines
makes it much easier to figure out what
| | 05:53 |
purpose they're supposed to serve.
| | 05:55 |
So what I would do on my other side, is
I do sort of backwards version of this
| | 06:01 |
on the inside; the left is going to be 4,
middle is going to be 4, and the right
| | 06:06 |
is going to be 3 7/8.
| | 06:07 |
But now you understand the principle and I
felt sure that you can do this on your own.
| | 06:12 |
If I were going to do this over
and over again, if I'm going to build
| | 06:16 |
multiple brochures, once I have all
this guidance system in place, I ought to
| | 06:19 |
save this as a template.
| | 06:20 |
So I am going to choose File > Save As,
I'll just put this on my desktop and
| | 06:25 |
save it as brochure_template, not as an InDesign
document, but as a special kind of document:
| | 06:30 |
an InDesign CS6 template.
| | 06:33 |
And the file extension is indt.
| | 06:34 |
I already have one there,
but I am going to replace it.
| | 06:38 |
So now that I have a template, I can use
that as a nice clean starting point for
| | 06:43 |
all my future brochures,
and here's how that works.
| | 06:45 |
I am going to close my document that I am
working on and I am going to open up that template.
| | 06:50 |
You notice it's called brochure_
templat,e but when I open it my document isn't
| | 06:54 |
called brochure_template and that's
because that original template is sort of
| | 06:57 |
remaining untouched.
| | 06:59 |
I am actually opening up a copy of it.
| | 07:01 |
The good thing about that is I always
have a fresh start with every one of these
| | 07:05 |
brochures that I work on.
| | 07:06 |
So remember this in the future, when
you have different kinds of projects that
| | 07:10 |
you do all the time, get one of them
just really nailed down, save it as a
| | 07:13 |
template, and it's going to save you a
lot of work every time you start a new
| | 07:17 |
project of the same type.
| | 07:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building a simple three-panel brochure: method two| 00:00 |
Starting with CS5, InDesign allows us
to have different page sizes within a
| | 00:05 |
single document, and that can come
in really handy when you're building
| | 00:08 |
three-panel brochures.
| | 00:10 |
I'm going to go to File > New Document,
not Facing Pages, and I need six panels,
| | 00:15 |
three on the outside, three on the inside.
| | 00:17 |
So I'm going to start with six pages and
I'm going to make each one the width of
| | 00:23 |
a full-sized panel.
| | 00:24 |
So 4 inches wide by 9 inches tall;
not going to worry about columns.
| | 00:29 |
I'm going to set my margins
to correspond to my live area.
| | 00:32 |
I want everything to stay a quarter of an
inch away from the folds and from the trims.
| | 00:36 |
So there's my quarter of an inch
all the way around, and if I'm going to
| | 00:40 |
have artwork that goes to the edge, of
course, it has to go beyond the edge and bleed.
| | 00:45 |
So I'll want to allow for bleed.
| | 00:46 |
When I click OK, now I have six little pages,
but I need to sort of stitch them together.
| | 00:53 |
So I take page 2 and I try to stick it
to page 1, and it won't go, and that's
| | 00:58 |
InDesign's default behavior,
but you can change that.
| | 01:01 |
In the Pages panel menu, there's
sort of a mysterious entry, Allow
| | 01:04 |
Document Pages to Shuffle.
| | 01:06 |
When you uncheck that, now you have full
control of how pages are stuck together.
| | 01:11 |
So now I can take page 2 and kind of
glue it on to page 1 and bring up page 3
| | 01:17 |
and there is the outside of my brochure.
| | 01:18 |
I am going to do the same
thing with my remaining pages.
| | 01:21 |
But there's one thing I need to change.
| | 01:24 |
Remember that when you're creating
something like this that third panel has to
| | 01:27 |
be a little bit shorter, so that it can fold in.
| | 01:30 |
This is my outside, and that means that
this is my cover, this is my back cover,
| | 01:35 |
and this is my little short fold panel.
| | 01:37 |
So I'm going to change the size of this panel.
| | 01:39 |
I hit the Page tool, select that page,
and that's going to be my fold-in
| | 01:43 |
panel, and then up here in my control panel,
I make sure that the right edge is selected.
| | 01:48 |
That way it's sort of still glued to
the other two panels, after the width,
| | 01:52 |
click and type -0.125, and you'll
see it gets a little bit smaller.
| | 01:58 |
So now I have my two 4-inch
panels and my 3 7/8 inch panel.
| | 02:02 |
I'm going to do the same thing on the inside.
| | 02:06 |
Now on the inside, it's going to be the
right-hand panel that's the short fold.
| | 02:11 |
If you think of it flipped over and
again, I would think it's a good idea to
| | 02:15 |
just take a piece of paper, kind of
sketch this out, fold it up, it really
| | 02:19 |
helps you find your way.
| | 02:20 |
This is going to be my short fold panel.
| | 02:22 |
For this guy, I want to glue down the left side.
| | 02:25 |
So I go up to the transform proxy in
my control panel, make sure that's
| | 02:29 |
glued down, and then subtract that
eighth of an inch again, and there we go.
| | 02:33 |
So now I have panels that
are exactly the right size.
| | 02:36 |
My margin guides serve as a really
nice indicator of where my live area is
| | 02:40 |
and I'm ready to go.
| | 02:42 |
If I'm going to create a lot of these,
I think it's worth saving as a template.
| | 02:46 |
So I'll go to File > Save As, and I'll
just call this rack brochure, and rather
| | 02:54 |
than plain old InDesign document, I'm
going to save it as a template and click Save.
| | 02:59 |
And the beautiful thing about templates is
that they give you a fresh start every time.
| | 03:03 |
So now if I'm starting a new
brochure, I just choose File > Open.
| | 03:07 |
I find my rack brochure and
everything is already in place, and I can
| | 03:10 |
start putting in artwork.
| | 03:11 |
Just think of a template as requiring a
little bit of work upfront to sort put
| | 03:16 |
in the furniture, but then every time
you start a new document based on it,
| | 03:20 |
you have a head start.
| | 03:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with color and gradient swatches| 00:00 |
I need to add some color to this
document; it's not finished yet.
| | 00:04 |
And now the art director has determined the
colors that he'd like to see in this document.
| | 00:08 |
So I need to add some swatches,
but first, I am going to see what
| | 00:11 |
swatches I already have.
| | 00:12 |
When I go to the Swatches panel, I
see that I have an orange and a blue and
| | 00:17 |
they're specified as RGB colors, and I can
tell because I see these little RGB flags.
| | 00:22 |
I like to make them CMYK just to be sure.
| | 00:24 |
All I have to do is double-click on a
swatch that brings up the Swatch Options,
| | 00:28 |
I can change the color mode
to CMYK and I am good to go.
| | 00:32 |
Same thing with the blue;
| | 00:33 |
double-click, change to CMYK, and I'm good to go.
| | 00:38 |
Now I need to add the spot color that the
art director has specified. That's PMS 2587.
| | 00:44 |
So in the Swatches panel, go to the
Panel menu, choose New Color Swatch, and
| | 00:49 |
here is where I pick my color book,
if you will, under Color Mode.
| | 00:53 |
Notice that InDesign CS6 is
using the new Pantone plus system.
| | 00:57 |
So Pantone plus Solid Coated, those are
my spot colors and I know that the color
| | 01:02 |
I need is 2587, and I can click
OK, and there's my new swatch.
| | 01:07 |
So I am going to select this big empty
frame back here and fill it with 2587.
| | 01:12 |
Now I have some text I can't read
because it kind of competes with that purple.
| | 01:18 |
I'm going to select this text frame,
and here's a little control you might have
| | 01:22 |
overlooked in the Swatches panel, see
that little T that lets you sort of select
| | 01:26 |
the text in that text frame by remote control.
| | 01:28 |
And then click on the T, now when I
choose a color, it's going to be applied to
| | 01:32 |
the text, not to the frame.
| | 01:35 |
But that only works in text frames that
aren't threaded together, so these two
| | 01:38 |
frames are threaded together so when I
choose this and try to do the same trick,
| | 01:42 |
the little T is grayed out.
| | 01:44 |
So I'll have to switch to my Type
tool, select all the text and apply the
| | 01:49 |
paper color that way.
| | 01:51 |
Paper, by the way, just
means no ink prints here.
| | 01:54 |
It's not like opaque white.
| | 01:55 |
Now I think maybe it would look nice
if we had a gradient back there instead
| | 01:59 |
of the solid purple.
| | 02:00 |
So I am going to create a gradient and
to make things a little bit easier, I am
| | 02:04 |
going to drag the Swatches panel loose,
and I am going to grab my Gradient panel
| | 02:08 |
and drag that loose because I am going
to sort of be referring to my Swatches
| | 02:12 |
panel as I work in the Gradient panel.
| | 02:14 |
First of all, I'd like to have a tint.
| | 02:17 |
I'd like to have that Pantone go from full
strength to a lighter version of the Pantone.
| | 02:21 |
With the Pantone color selected, I go
to the Swatches panel, choose New Tint
| | 02:26 |
Swatch, and notice that everything
else is grayed out that says no you've
| | 02:30 |
got your basic color, all you can do is
pick a tint of it, and I think I'll go for 50%.
| | 02:36 |
Now if I were making multiple tints,
I would click Add, then make another
| | 02:39 |
value, then click Add again, but I'm
just making the one, so I don't have to
| | 02:43 |
click Add, I just click OK.
| | 02:45 |
So I now have my two endpoint colors in place.
| | 02:48 |
When I click below this little
gradient ramp, things kind of wake up.
| | 02:52 |
So these little guides are called
stops and it shows where the color breaks.
| | 02:56 |
So I wanted to go from the full strength
purple on the left to that 50% on the right.
| | 03:01 |
So I choose the left stop and then
click on that solid Pantone. Oh!
| | 03:05 |
What happens? Nothing.
| | 03:06 |
Well, there's a little trick;
| | 03:08 |
you have to use a keyboard
shortcut and start again.
| | 03:11 |
Click on the little stop. You
can't just click on the swatch;
| | 03:14 |
you have to Alt+click or Option+click on it.
| | 03:17 |
So when I Alt+click or Option+click,
now I've populated that stop with that
| | 03:20 |
full strength Pantone.
| | 03:22 |
Click on the little orange stop, Alt+click or
Option+click the 50% tint and now I've got that.
| | 03:28 |
So let's see how that looks back here
in this large frame, not bad, but maybe I
| | 03:33 |
want to change the breakpoints.
| | 03:35 |
So if I drag this little diamond on the
top, you'll see that I can keep it solid
| | 03:39 |
purple longer, then it makes a more
abrupt change to the lighter purple.
| | 03:43 |
I can move it back this way and
it stays the lighter purple longer.
| | 03:47 |
You have granular control over where the
colors break that's why this little guy
| | 03:50 |
is here, little breakpoint indicator.
| | 03:53 |
If I think I am going to use this gradient
again though, I've to save it as a gradient swatch.
| | 03:58 |
Since it's active that's very easy to do.
| | 04:00 |
I just go to the Swatches panel menu,
choose New Gradient Swatch, and it
| | 04:04 |
already understands the settings,
and I am just going to call this 2587
| | 04:09 |
gradient and click OK.
| | 04:12 |
Now I'm official, it always
good to make things swatches.
| | 04:15 |
You can make sort of informal color,
but if you are going to keep track of all
| | 04:20 |
your colors, you really need
to make them into swatches.
| | 04:22 |
I am going to reset my Advanced
workspace to kind of clean house.
| | 04:25 |
I am going to change this
word Roux to use that nice tint.
| | 04:30 |
So I can go up here in my control panel.
| | 04:32 |
I can choose that 50% Pantone, but for
the word graphic, I want to use a color
| | 04:37 |
that I don't really have yet.
| | 04:39 |
I really like the red in this guy's shirt.
| | 04:41 |
So with that text selected, I can go
over to my Tool panel, get my eyedropper,
| | 04:46 |
and I can pick up that red.
| | 04:47 |
I don't have to go Photoshop and get
an eyedropper there and write down the
| | 04:50 |
values, I can draw it right here InDesign.
| | 04:52 |
So I am going to vacuum up
that red and then I deselect.
| | 04:56 |
You can see that now the graphic
matches his image. Isn't that great?
| | 05:01 |
One little thing I might need to
change though it turns out he's an RGB image
| | 05:05 |
and I don't have that color
anywhere in my Swatches panel.
| | 05:08 |
So as long as I still have a bit of
that text selected, you'll notice that
| | 05:12 |
my fill color is red.
| | 05:13 |
So I have a hold of that color.
| | 05:15 |
I can now add it as a swatch.
| | 05:17 |
So in the Swatches panel menu, I just
choose New Color Swatch; it vacuums up
| | 05:22 |
those values and that's when I
find out that it's RGB. That's okay.
| | 05:25 |
I can change it to CMYK and I'm good to go.
| | 05:29 |
What if I have other projects that
are related to this and I want use these
| | 05:33 |
swatches over and over again.
| | 05:35 |
Well, there's a way that you can trade
swatches called ASE, Adobe Swatch Exchange.
| | 05:40 |
And the reason it is called exchange is
because you can take that little swatch
| | 05:44 |
file and you can use it in
Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
| | 05:48 |
But there are things in Illustrator
that Photoshop doesn't understand and that
| | 05:52 |
InDesign doesn't understand.
| | 05:53 |
For example, patterns in Illustrator;
InDesign doesn't have anything like that.
| | 05:57 |
So some things can't be stored in an ASE.
| | 06:00 |
So if I were to go to my panel menu
and choose Save Swatches, it's grayed out
| | 06:05 |
because I don't have anything
selected, which tells you something else.
| | 06:08 |
You can pick and choose which
swatches you want to include.
| | 06:11 |
I know that it's not going to include
the gradient but I just want to show you
| | 06:15 |
the alert that shows up.
| | 06:16 |
So I am going to click and then Shift
-click so that I have all my little
| | 06:20 |
homemade swatches, and now when I
choose Save Swatches that's an option.
| | 06:25 |
This is when I get the little warning
that says, yes, but I'm not going to
| | 06:29 |
create gradients or tints or mixed inks.
| | 06:31 |
So the only thing I am going to get is
my orange, my blue, my purple, and my
| | 06:35 |
red, but that's okay that will get me started.
| | 06:37 |
So when I click OK, it says where do
you want to save this, and I am going to
| | 06:42 |
save it on my desktop and
now how can I invoke that?
| | 06:45 |
If I go to another document, I am
not going to worry about the settings;
| | 06:49 |
I am going to clean out my Swatches panel
just so we can see this for a fresh start.
| | 06:54 |
Then when I choose Load Swatches and I
go and find that little ASE file, when I
| | 06:59 |
click Open, there is the orange, the
blue, the purple, and the red, but I lost
| | 07:03 |
my gradient and I lost my tint.
| | 07:06 |
Still though, it gives me a good
head start and it means that I'll have
| | 07:08 |
consistency in my swatches
as I begin other projects.
| | 07:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making gradients and creating a rich black swatch| 00:00 |
Well, you know what happens, the
client has changed their mind a little bit.
| | 00:03 |
They want a change in the gradient,
they don't want it to go from purple to
| | 00:07 |
light purple; they want it
to go from purple to black.
| | 00:10 |
Well that's easy to fix.
| | 00:11 |
I'll go in my Swatches panel, wake up
my 2587 gradient and then I'm going to
| | 00:17 |
change this end from that little tint to black.
| | 00:22 |
I just choose Black and there we go.
| | 00:24 |
Now that looks kind of anemic, now it
may lose some in video compression I
| | 00:28 |
realize that, but if you sort of squint,
I think you're going to get what I'm
| | 00:33 |
talking about. It's that nice rich
purple on the left and then that just kind of
| | 00:37 |
gets gray and then finally it's black
on the right. It's really not attractive.
| | 00:40 |
I really want something more rich looking.
| | 00:42 |
What I really need is for the purple to
go all the way across, and then to have
| | 00:46 |
it gradually fade into the black.
| | 00:48 |
A couple of different ways I could do
this. I could make two shapes, have one
| | 00:52 |
with the purple and then have another
shape with a black-and-white gradient, and
| | 00:56 |
set the black-and-white gradient to multiply.
| | 00:58 |
I like to do it all in one shape
though and so I'm going to create a special
| | 01:02 |
kind of swatch and then
create a gradient from that.
| | 01:05 |
And the special kind of swatch is called
a Mixed Ink, because what I really want
| | 01:09 |
to have happen in the dark end of that
gradient, is I want full strength purple
| | 01:13 |
plus full strength black.
| | 01:14 |
When I choose New Mixed Ink Swatch, I
can mix the purple and the black, so you
| | 01:20 |
can see that at all swatches are
listed here, so I can mix any two, three, or
| | 01:24 |
four swatches together,
but this will do what I want.
| | 01:27 |
I know it just looks like black here,
but when I create that gradient, you are
| | 01:31 |
going to see a nice result, so I'll just
call this 2587+K, the industry term for black.
| | 01:37 |
Now I'm going to go back and choose
my 2587 gradient, and for the far right
| | 01:43 |
stop, I'm going to choose my nice new
mixed ink and you might notice that mixed
| | 01:48 |
inks have this cute little icon that
indicates that they are several inks mixed.
| | 01:52 |
When I click OK, already you can see
much richer result. If I undo, there's that
| | 01:58 |
sort of anemic transition. When I
redo doesn't that look a lot better?
| | 02:03 |
So now we have full-strength purple
all the way across and then the black
| | 02:06 |
gradient sort of finishes out.
| | 02:09 |
Here's a great way to get a
better idea of what's going on.
| | 02:12 |
I'm going to go to Window > Output >
Separations Preview. I'm going to turn on
| | 02:17 |
Separations Preview and then we are
going to look at all the available colors.
| | 02:21 |
If I turn off the black, you can see
that purple is solid all the way across,
| | 02:25 |
and I when I turn off the purple, you
can see that the black gradient goes
| | 02:29 |
all the way across.
| | 02:30 |
So that way you have constant color
coverage and that's why you have a much
| | 02:34 |
richer result. I'm going to turn off
Separations Preview and close my little
| | 02:37 |
panel here, and now that I've done
this, well now my front panel looks kind
| | 02:41 |
of anemic doesn't it?
| | 02:42 |
The reason is because it's just black,
and then we have this four-color image
| | 02:47 |
down there. It's ghosted back, but still
that black coverage really looks anemic
| | 02:51 |
and this is how it's going to print.
| | 02:53 |
So what I'm going to do is I'm going
to create what's called a rich black, and
| | 02:57 |
that's a combination of black with other colors.
| | 02:59 |
So in the Swatches panel again I'm
going to choose New Color Swatch. I'm going
| | 03:04 |
to name this Rich Black.
| | 03:07 |
The recipe for rich black can vary from
printing plant to printing plant. Some
| | 03:11 |
printing plants like to use just cyan
and black, some like to use just magenta
| | 03:16 |
and black, but I was raised on a four-
color rich black. If you're going to
| | 03:20 |
create a project like this, consult your
printer and see what they consider the
| | 03:23 |
appropriate values, but I'm
going to choose 60, 40, 40, and 100.
| | 03:29 |
Why do I have a higher cyan value?
| | 03:32 |
Because to keep the balance, to make it
neutral, cyan is a little weak if you
| | 03:36 |
want to think of it that way, so
there has to be more of it to balance out
| | 03:41 |
the magenta and yellow.
| | 03:42 |
All of this piled up is going to
make a nice rich neutral black.
| | 03:45 |
If I just chose cyan and black, it
would be sort of a cool black. Just
| | 03:49 |
magenta and black; it's going be a warm black.
Some folks like that but this is what I prefer.
| | 03:54 |
Click OK. Now when I select this frame
and I apply that rich black, doesn't
| | 03:58 |
that look a lot better, and it's going
to print better. It's going to have a
| | 04:02 |
deeper feel. The color is going to be
deeper, and especially that black panel
| | 04:06 |
next to this nice rich purple and black
gradient, we'd see a contrast and that
| | 04:09 |
wouldn't be attractive.
| | 04:10 |
So now you know a couple of new tricks,
because often people have to make these
| | 04:14 |
gradients from color to black and now
you know the way to make yours look really
| | 04:18 |
good and you know how to make a mixed ink.
| | 04:21 |
It's not something you're going to use
all the time, but for the project here,
| | 04:24 |
it was really the answer to a problem.
And don't forget about rich blacks.
| | 04:28 |
You'll find when you are going to an
offset press and you're covering large
| | 04:31 |
areas with black, you may be asked to
create a rich black. When you're going to
| | 04:35 |
digital presses, and this is sort of
ironic, they actually don't want a rich
| | 04:39 |
black. So that's why I say in
regard to rich black as with so many other
| | 04:42 |
things, always consult with your
printer while you're creating your design.
| | 04:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring fonts in InDesign| 00:00 |
When I opened this document, I
received a missing fonts alert.
| | 00:03 |
Now this is not something you can
ignore because InDesign is going to have to
| | 00:08 |
substitute fonts in place of the original fonts
that were supposed to be used in the document.
| | 00:13 |
If I click Find Font, then I get a
little dialog that shows me what fonts are
| | 00:17 |
missing: City Bold, Myriad Pro Black
SemiExtended. Let's find out where they're used.
| | 00:23 |
If I choose City Bold, and I have no
idea what City Bold ought to look like.
| | 00:26 |
When I choose Find First, you
can see that it selects this text.
| | 00:30 |
And if you notice there is some pink
highlighting throughout the text, and
| | 00:34 |
that's InDesign's way of warning me,
here's where you're missing a font or
| | 00:38 |
you're missing a style within a font,
it's not active on your system, and it
| | 00:42 |
wants to know what it's supposed to do.
| | 00:43 |
I am going to have to substitute because
I can't get a hold of the designer that
| | 00:48 |
created this and they didn't send me
the fonts that I needed and the jobs go to
| | 00:52 |
go to press, so I have to try to come close.
| | 00:55 |
So where City Bold is used, I am
pretty sure that it's a Sans Serif font and
| | 00:59 |
that it ought to be a bold font.
| | 01:01 |
So I am going to choose Myriad Pro
down here, and just type Myr; put it on the
| | 01:06 |
trail and then choose Bold.
| | 01:09 |
Notices this check box,
Redefine Style When Changing All.
| | 01:13 |
If the designer used character styles
or if these missing fonts are used in
| | 01:16 |
paragraph styles, this option ensures
that the style itself is going to be
| | 01:20 |
redefined to use my new substitute font.
| | 01:22 |
So now that I found the first
instance of a missing font, I am going to
| | 01:27 |
click change. That must have been
the only instance because now that's
| | 01:30 |
disappeared from the list.
| | 01:31 |
But see where Myriad Pro Black
SemiExtended is used; Find First.
| | 01:36 |
I suspect that it's used in all these
little instances. Let's find out for sure.
| | 01:40 |
Find Next, Find Next, yes.
| | 01:42 |
So I suspect that this
might be a character style.
| | 01:45 |
So again, I want to make sure
that Redefine Style is checked.
| | 01:48 |
And what can I replace it with?
| | 01:50 |
Well, I think I'll try using Semibold.
Hit Change. That looks okay, so I am
| | 01:56 |
going to choose Change All.
| | 01:58 |
Now this doesn't mean that I've done
something wrong. It's just InDesign being
| | 02:00 |
very polite, giving me a heads-up: I
changed some styles because you said I
| | 02:05 |
should do that if I have to change the font.
| | 02:07 |
So I can click OK, and now I've
resolved all my little missing fonts.
| | 02:11 |
I don't have the little yellow
triangle anymore and I'm good to go.
| | 02:15 |
So I can click Done and now somebody is
hanging over my shoulder saying this job
| | 02:19 |
has got to go to press
and I'm ready to release it.
| | 02:22 |
But here's something for you to
remember: If you open up a file and you have
| | 02:26 |
missing fonts, you are going to have to
either contact the original creator of
| | 02:29 |
the file and get the correct fonts,
and that's the ideal solution, or if you
| | 02:33 |
can't get a hold of them, then you are
going to have to guess and substitute
| | 02:37 |
for your missing fonts.
| | 02:38 |
Remember this when you pass your job
on to somebody else or you send it to the
| | 02:41 |
printer. Always be sure to use file
package and InDesign will gather up all the
| | 02:46 |
fonts and all the artwork that's used
create the document, and that way the next
| | 02:50 |
person that opens up this job won't
have that scary missing font message.
| | 02:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing graphics | 00:00 |
I just attempted to open up an InDesign
file and InDesign has intercepted it and
| | 00:04 |
said it's missing a link.
| | 00:06 |
So let's find out what the problem is
and I click OK. It's not immediately
| | 00:10 |
obvious where the problem
is but I'm in Preview mode.
| | 00:13 |
If I press the W key on my keyboard
to take myself back out to normal mode,
| | 00:18 |
I think you can see that little red stop
sign up there, but let's get some confirmation.
| | 00:22 |
When I go to the Links panel you
can see that red stop sign icon.
| | 00:26 |
So that means that it can't find that
image. Either the image has been renamed
| | 00:30 |
or it's been thrown away or it's been placed
in another folder. Somehow it can't find it.
| | 00:36 |
There are several different ways for
InDesign to call your attention to it. One
| | 00:39 |
of course is the red stop sign right on
the image; that's new in CS6. Of course
| | 00:44 |
the red stop sign here in the Links panel.
| | 00:47 |
If you click the little hyperlinked
number next to any link, it takes you
| | 00:50 |
immediately to that link and that's the
same thing as hitting this Go to link button.
| | 00:54 |
A lot of redundancy but InDesign is trying
to give you multiple ways to perform a task.
| | 00:59 |
Now I have to find a replacement image
and for that I click the Relink button.
| | 01:04 |
Then I have to go hunting and
it's about that moment you go, oh,
| | 01:08 |
gosh, what was the name of that file?
| | 01:10 |
InDesign actually shows you the name up here
in the title bar so that's what I'm looking for.
| | 01:14 |
I suspect it might be in this folder
called Replacement Links. Sure enough.
| | 01:18 |
When I click on it just to confirm, it
looks a little different. Gosh, I hope the
| | 01:22 |
crop is the same. Well, let's find out.
| | 01:24 |
When I click Open, the crop is not the same.
| | 01:27 |
So they've re-cropped it, they've
changed the resolution, something has gone on
| | 01:32 |
here to totally mess up
its position in the frame.
| | 01:34 |
Let me back up on that. I am going to
Command+Z or Ctrl+Z there, and I need
| | 01:39 |
something that's sort of
reference for the initial crop.
| | 01:42 |
So I am going to make a little rectangle
that just corresponds to her head. It's
| | 01:47 |
not identical, but at least
I have something to look at.
| | 01:51 |
Now I am going to try this again. I am
going to select that frame and I am going
| | 01:55 |
to hit the Rethink button.
| | 01:57 |
It goes back to the same folder; it
sort of remembers that there's almost a
| | 02:00 |
bread crumb trail that InDesign follows.
Do want to go back here? Yes, I do.
| | 02:04 |
So when I choose this and click Open, I'm
going to try a fitting option to see if
| | 02:09 |
that'll get me in the neighborhood.
| | 02:10 |
I'm going to right-click, choose Fitting >
Fill Frame Proportionally. That's not too bad.
| | 02:16 |
I am going to get my white arrow and I'm
going to click on the image and move it around.
| | 02:21 |
Now I don't have a lot of elbow room,
so I am going to have to change the crop
| | 02:25 |
a little bit. I am going to have to
scale the image, so I am going to hold
| | 02:30 |
down Shift, drag on the corner of the image and
that shifts it so I maintain my proportions.
| | 02:34 |
And I need a little bit of extra image
outside the frame so that I have some
| | 02:38 |
flexibility and repositioning and then I
can use my arrow keys to kind of tune that up.
| | 02:43 |
I think I'm pretty close actually. I
think I'm going to be all right here.
| | 02:46 |
I want to make sure that I have plenty
of image to fill the frame; not perfect
| | 02:51 |
but at least I'm close to what they had in mind.
| | 02:53 |
All right, I fixed one problem.
| | 02:55 |
I don't really have any other problems
in my Links panel but I do have something
| | 02:59 |
sort of interesting.
| | 03:00 |
See that little icon that means that
an image is embedded. Which one is that?
| | 03:03 |
It's this little image down here.
| | 03:05 |
Is that a bad thing? No, not necessarily.
| | 03:07 |
InDesign allows you to embed graphics
and that means that the image is directly
| | 03:12 |
contained in the InDesign file.
| | 03:13 |
If I send this InDesign file off to
somebody else that image is right there, so I
| | 03:17 |
don't have to worry about gathering
it up when I collect my job for output.
| | 03:21 |
It does add to the file size.
| | 03:23 |
Let's say that that's a 5 meg image.
Well, by embedding it I've added 5
| | 03:27 |
megs to my InDesign file size.
| | 03:29 |
InDesign files are kind of big to
begin with and also what if I need to color
| | 03:33 |
correct that image and I don't have
it as a freestanding disk file, because
| | 03:37 |
nobody sent that to me.
| | 03:38 |
InDesign does a cool thing with
embedded images. If I select that image, I can
| | 03:43 |
choose Unembed Link.
| | 03:45 |
And then I get this sort of
confusing dialog box, No, Cancel, Yes.
| | 03:48 |
Let me give you the shorthand for this.
| | 03:51 |
If you don't have the original image
and you're trying to extract the image out
| | 03:55 |
of the InDesign file, hit the No button.
| | 03:57 |
In other words, no, I don't want to
link to the original files because I don't
| | 04:01 |
have the original file.
| | 04:02 |
So when I click No, it says where do
you want to save this. I am just going to
| | 04:07 |
put it on the desktop.
| | 04:08 |
Now it's not resampling the image. It's
really pulling out that embedded content
| | 04:11 |
and it's as good as the original.
| | 04:13 |
It's identical to the original.
| | 04:14 |
So notice I don't even have to relink it;
InDesign is nice enough to relink it
| | 04:18 |
for me. Isn't that great?
| | 04:20 |
Now I have another image,
| | 04:22 |
this guy with a camera, and it's place
InDesign says it's not out of date, I
| | 04:26 |
am not worried about it, but I'd like to
replace it with another image, and that's
| | 04:30 |
another function of this Relink button.
| | 04:32 |
So when I click Relink, I happen to
know that this is my replacement image and
| | 04:36 |
I like him on a blue background
rather than the white background. So when I
| | 04:40 |
click Open because it was based on the
same image, luckily it didn't have the
| | 04:44 |
problem I had with that earlier sepia
tone image. There's no problem with the
| | 04:47 |
crop it just falls into place.
| | 04:50 |
Keep in mind that InDesign will take
in a wide variety of graphic formats, AI
| | 04:54 |
files, PSTs, tiffs JPEGs, and it will
also take PDFs, and there's nothing wrong
| | 05:00 |
with using PDFs as our content, as
long as they're good healthy PDFs.
| | 05:04 |
So I am going to go place a
PDF of a brochure from room.
| | 05:08 |
So I am going to choose File, Place, and
this is in my Links folder, and here we go.
| | 05:14 |
If I just click Open, I'm only going to
get the first page of this and it's a
| | 05:18 |
two-page document I happen to know.
| | 05:20 |
So if I want to sort of dig into that
file and choose what gets placed then I
| | 05:24 |
need to use the Import Options.
| | 05:26 |
That's a sticky setting if you check it,
and that means that every time you go
| | 05:29 |
to place another graphic,
it's going to intercept you.
| | 05:32 |
I want import options but just this one
time, and here is how you can do that.
| | 05:37 |
As you go to hit the Open button, hold
down Shift. Shift+Open gives you the
| | 05:41 |
import options just this
once, which is really handy.
| | 05:44 |
So you can see that it's a two-page PDF.
I want more than just that previewed
| | 05:48 |
page; I want all the pages.
| | 05:50 |
So I want the range, 1-2.
| | 05:53 |
And I want to control what's in the background.
| | 05:55 |
I don't want a transparent
background. I wanted to have an opaque white
| | 05:58 |
background and then I want
to control the way it crops.
| | 06:02 |
PDFs are a little bit like Illustrator
files in that sense. If I choose Art, you
| | 06:06 |
can see where the little dash line is,
but if I choose Trim, notice that that
| | 06:11 |
dashed line is a little farther out.
| | 06:12 |
So I want it corresponding
to the trim size of the page.
| | 06:16 |
By the way if there were multiple layers
in the PDF, I could choose which layers
| | 06:19 |
to have displayed; that's pretty cool too.
| | 06:22 |
So when I click OK, my place gun is
loaded with my PDFs. You can see that little
| | 06:27 |
PDF icon, and I'm going to
place one in here and one in here.
| | 06:32 |
And why did they fit so nicely--
that's suspicious isn't it?
| | 06:35 |
Well, let me show why.
| | 06:36 |
I am going to back up a little bit and I
am going to select one of these frames,
| | 06:41 |
right click, choose Fitting
and Frame Fitting Options.
| | 06:45 |
You can actually rig up a frame ahead
of time before you bring in graphics
| | 06:48 |
and give it sort of behavior, so that
when you bring in the graphics it sort
| | 06:51 |
of speeds things up.
| | 06:53 |
So this frame is set to fit content
proportionally to pivot from the center of
| | 06:57 |
the frame rather than
the upper-left-hand corner.
| | 06:59 |
And then crop amount, the amount of the image
that's left outside the frame is set to zero.
| | 07:05 |
So it should be flush at the edge of the frame.
| | 07:07 |
If you ever have to do things like
directories or yearbooks or something like
| | 07:11 |
that, when you set up your empty frames
you want to flavor them with those
| | 07:14 |
fitting options, and it
could save you a lot of time.
| | 07:17 |
And I'm going to go get my PDF again.
It's going to be much easier this time
| | 07:21 |
because I know how I want to set it up.
I am going to hold down Shift, while
| | 07:26 |
I click Open. I want to make sure I
get all my pages cut to the trim. No
| | 07:30 |
transparent background. Click OK. And
there you go that makes life so much easier.
| | 07:36 |
As with so many things InDesign,
InDesign tries to make things easy for you.
| | 07:39 |
It tries to show you when you have
problems. It tries to make it easier for you
| | 07:43 |
to bring in graphics and crop them and
position them the way that you want to.
| | 07:47 |
It really is a great timesaver.
| | 07:49 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Copying and pasting graphics | 00:00 |
Sometimes software lets you do things
that it really shouldn't let you do.
| | 00:04 |
For example, while it's easy to copy
and paste from Photoshop into InDesign,
| | 00:08 |
it's not really a good idea,
and I'm going to show you why.
| | 00:11 |
You can also copy/paste from
Illustrator into InDesign, and there are actually
| | 00:15 |
times when that's kind of
handy and it's not a bad idea.
| | 00:18 |
Let's take a look at copying
and pasting from Photoshop.
| | 00:21 |
I have this nice image of the girl. She
is separated from her background because
| | 00:26 |
I used a layer mask.
| | 00:27 |
You can see when I Shift-click on the mask
thumbnail that the background is still there.
| | 00:31 |
So I've selected the Layer; selected
All. I'm going to go Edit > Copy and copy
| | 00:37 |
her to the clipboard.
| | 00:38 |
Now when I switch to InDesign and I paste,
I don't get any sort of error message
| | 00:43 |
from InDesign, but immediately you can
see that there's a bit of a problem.
| | 00:46 |
It didn't honor the layers mask.
| | 00:48 |
And if I go into the Links panel, you
can see that it didn't add a link to the
| | 00:53 |
Links panel, so there's no
relationship between this information that I've
| | 00:56 |
pasted into InDesign and
that original Photoshop file.
| | 01:00 |
In addition to it not being outlined,
if I send this off to somebody and say
| | 01:04 |
gosh can you fix the outline?
| | 01:05 |
They're going to look in the Links
panel and go, I don't have an image that I
| | 01:09 |
can touch, so there's nothing you can
do with this. There are no benefits to
| | 01:13 |
copying and pasting. Frankly, it's
just a bad idea all the way around.
| | 01:17 |
The way to get her into the page, of
course, is the good old-fashioned way
| | 01:20 |
choosing File > Place and getting my
Photoshop file, and now it behaves.
| | 01:26 |
So even though there are nice
relationships between the programs, there are
| | 01:30 |
limits to what they can do, so you want
to make sure that you do it the right way.
| | 01:35 |
Blanket advice, don't copy paste from Photoshop.
| | 01:37 |
Well, what about copying
and pasting from Illustrator?
| | 01:39 |
That's a little more interesting.
| | 01:42 |
I have this shape and I want to use it
in my InDesign file and I want to change
| | 01:46 |
the color of it to reflect
different sections of the table of contents.
| | 01:50 |
Now I could make multiple Illustrator
files each with the correct color or I
| | 01:55 |
could have multiple layers within this
Illustrator file and invoke them with
| | 01:58 |
InDesign's object layer options, but
it's really more simple if I just have a
| | 02:02 |
shape whose color I can change.
| | 02:05 |
If I choose Edit > Copy in Illustrator
and then I go into InDesign and paste, I
| | 02:11 |
don't have a graphic inside a frame. And
I can prove that to you when I switch
| | 02:15 |
to my direct selection tool. Look I
have little selection handles around it.
| | 02:19 |
It's completely editable. It's as if
I had drawn it InDesign, but it's much
| | 02:23 |
easier of course to draw
complex shapes in Illustrator.
| | 02:26 |
If I want to scale it down--it isn't a
graphic inside a frame; it really is a
| | 02:31 |
frame itself. So if I want to scale it
down, I can just hold down Shift and make
| | 02:36 |
it smaller. And I'm going to move it
next to each little color bar and show you
| | 02:41 |
that I can change the color of this,
and in fact if you look in my Tool panel,
| | 02:45 |
you notice that the fill color is the
blue of this little pinwheel, and you can
| | 02:49 |
see it up here in the control panel too.
| | 02:51 |
So I go to my Swatches panel and if I
want to turn this orange, all I have to
| | 02:55 |
do is that. There is a downside to
this; it's not related to the original
| | 03:00 |
Illustrator file. So if I were to
change the shape of the original
| | 03:03 |
Illustrator file, that's not going to have any
effect on this little drawing here in InDesign.
| | 03:09 |
You can look in the Links panel and
you see there's nothing there, so no
| | 03:13 |
relationship between this artwork and
the original in Illustrator, but I do get
| | 03:18 |
this nice flexibility that I can
change the color of it whenever I need to.
| | 03:21 |
I'm going to say that copying and
pasting from Illustrator isn't a bad idea.
| | 03:26 |
Beware that one little downside that
you don't have the link to the original,
| | 03:29 |
but look at the flexibility that you
get, and this means that you can take
| | 03:33 |
advantage of the wonderful drawing
tools in Illustrator, but you can also use
| | 03:36 |
this as a live object in InDesign.
| | 03:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving for users with older versions | 00:00 | I'm using InDesign CS6, but if I have
to collaborate with somebody that's using
| | 00:04 | an earlier version of InDesign, I have
to export this in a format that their
| | 00:08 | version can understand, and that's
called IDML, InDesign Markup Language.
| | 00:14 | I can reach that two different ways;
| | 00:16 | I can go to File > Export or File > Save As.
| | 00:19 | Now in previous versions of InDesign,
this option was only available under Export.
| | 00:24 | It really doesn't matter which
route I take, I end up at the same place.
| | 00:28 | But Save As makes a little
clearer what I'm creating.
| | 00:31 | So I'm going to put this on my
desktop, and I'm going to save it as IDML,
| | 00:35 | InDesign Markup Language.
| | 00:37 | Keep in mind that there could be some
problems if I've created something here
| | 00:40 | that doesn't exist in CS5. I always
recommend that you make a PDF of your
| | 00:45 | InDesign file. Send that with the
IDML file. In that way they can check it
| | 00:49 | against hard copy in a way, and they can
make sure that nothing has happened--no
| | 00:54 | text is reflowed; no crops have changed.
| | 00:56 | Remember that this is a translation
process, so you should be cautious.
| | 01:00 | So when I click Save, it's actually a
background process, but this file is so
| | 01:04 | small that it's already taken place.
| | 01:07 | What's going happen when somebody
opens this up in their version of InDesign?
| | 01:11 | When I choose File > Open and I open up
the IDML file, so we have to wait for it
| | 01:17 | to get open, it has to sort of
reinflate itself, it's actually re-creating the
| | 01:20 | proxies for all the placed graphics and
it's called Untitled. But that's okay.
| | 01:24 | All I have to do to continue with this
is just do a File > Save As, save it as an
| | 01:29 | InDesign file and then I can keep
working on it, once I've determined that there
| | 01:33 | haven't been any problems
introduced by this back save.
| | 01:35 | If you ever have a problem with an
InDesign file that leads you to think maybe
| | 01:39 | it's corrupt, maybe it's exhibiting
misbehavior that you're not seeing in other
| | 01:42 | files, so you notice in InDesign
itself, it's got to be file specific.
| | 01:46 | Using IDML is a great way to rebuild
that file and chances are it's going to fix
| | 01:51 | the problem you're having,
so just do what I did.
| | 01:54 | File > Save As, IDML, and then just open
that IDML file back up, and almost all of
| | 01:59 | the time this will fix problems
that you're having with the file.
| | 02:02 | IDML is meant for a number of reasons.
It's for developers to be able pull out
| | 02:07 | content for repurposing. We use it as a
way to back save, back for users of CS4,
| | 02:12 | CS5, and CS5.5, but it's also a
great way to fix a corrupt file.
| | 02:17 | So IDML is really handy
in bunch of different ways.
| | 02:21 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Packaging up a print job| 00:00 |
As you're finishing up a project in
InDesign, take one last look and make sure
| | 00:04 |
all the pieces are there.
| | 00:06 |
Look down in the lower left-hand corner
and make sure that you have a nice green
| | 00:10 |
light from preflight. You
want to see it say, no errors.
| | 00:13 |
And then you want to gather up all the pieces
so that you can send the job to the printer.
| | 00:18 |
Now some printers are going to ask you
to send a PDF. Most of them are going
| | 00:22 |
to ask you to package up the job and send
all the support art plus the InDesign file.
| | 00:27 |
In this lesson, we're going
to look at creating a package.
| | 00:30 |
All you have to do is go to File > Package,
and then InDesign gives you a little
| | 00:34 |
summary and here I have little yellow
triangle and you might think that that
| | 00:37 |
means it's a problem.
| | 00:39 |
It's not a huge problem.
| | 00:40 |
If this job is going to go digital,
it's okay if the images are RGB.
| | 00:45 |
That's all that InDesign is warning me about.
| | 00:47 |
Of course, you would have had a
conversation with your printer to determine if
| | 00:51 |
it's okay if you submit RGB images.
| | 00:53 |
In the olden days they preferred CMYK--
that's not so crucial anymore--so I going
| | 00:58 |
to tell you that for this
job, this isn't a problem.
| | 01:01 |
If I want to look at the individual
topics, all my fonts are okay. I'm not
| | 01:05 |
using any protected fonts, those are fonts that
forbid themselves from being embedded in a PDF.
| | 01:11 |
Under Links and Images everything is
linked, everything is current. The little
| | 01:15 |
triangle again just means
that some of my images are RGB.
| | 01:20 |
Under Colors and Inks I have one
spot color, and I know that that's what I
| | 01:24 |
want, so that's correct.
| | 01:26 |
Now the Angle and Lines/Inch,
frankly you can ignore those.
| | 01:30 |
The Angle in the line screen in the outgoing
plate, InDesign has nothing to do with that.
| | 01:36 |
This really isn't pertinent.
| | 01:37 |
Print Settings, this is just the
last time it remembers being printed.
| | 01:41 |
It has no effect on how the job is going
to be imaged in the future, so it's one
| | 01:46 |
more bit of settings that you can ignore.
| | 01:48 |
If you are using any third-party
plug-ins, they will be mentioned here.
| | 01:51 |
Generally speaking plug-ins don't
leave any debris in the file that would
| | 01:55 |
cause a problem later on.
| | 01:56 |
There are one or two out there, but
they're very rare, people tend to build very
| | 02:00 |
healthy plug-ins that don't get in the way.
| | 02:02 |
So it's just a chance for you to
check and make sure there's nothing that
| | 02:06 |
they're going need on the other end.
| | 02:07 |
Everything looks good, so
I'm going to click Package.
| | 02:11 |
Then this Instructions screen comes up.
| | 02:14 |
Now the idea here is that you would
put in contact information, phone number,
| | 02:18 |
any special instructions that you
think ought to travel with the job.
| | 02:21 |
I still think it's a really good idea
to print out hard copy on your inkjet
| | 02:25 |
printer or your laser printer, and if
there's anything out of the ordinary that
| | 02:30 |
the printer needs to know, mark it
with a big red marker; it can't hurt.
| | 02:33 |
There is no such thing as too much information.
| | 02:36 |
And by the way, the file name it's
referring to here is not the file name of
| | 02:40 |
your InDesign file, it's the file name of the
little text file that it's going to generate.
| | 02:44 |
We'll pretend that I fill this out,
and I'm going to click Continue.
| | 02:49 |
Then it says, where do you want to
save it and it's actually going to build
| | 02:54 |
its own folder; you don't have to
build a containing folder for it.
| | 02:57 |
And here's what it's going to gather up.
| | 02:59 |
It's going to copy all the fonts that
are used in the InDesign file in this
| | 03:03 |
Except CJK means Except
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean fonts.
| | 03:08 |
Chances are that's not going to be a
problem for you in your workflow, but
| | 03:11 |
just a little heads up. And then Copy Linked
Graphics--of course, you want all your support art.
| | 03:16 |
And then Update Graphic Links in Package...
I'm going to explain that in a minute
| | 03:20 |
when we get our final package.
| | 03:22 |
Those three are checked by default.
| | 03:25 |
The last three you can check if you like.
| | 03:27 |
If you have built-in custom
hyphenation, in essence you've established a
| | 03:31 |
hyphenation dictionary within the document,
| | 03:33 |
you want to make sure that travels with it.
| | 03:35 |
I didn't do that in this
document so I don't need to check that.
| | 03:39 |
If you are using multiple layers, say,
for different language versions, and you've
| | 03:43 |
been printing out your comps like I
told you to do, and maybe you have printed
| | 03:47 |
out the Spanish comp and then the
French comp, and then the English comp, and
| | 03:51 |
you're turning off and on layers as
part of doing that--make sure that content
| | 03:55 |
for many hidden layers are going to be
carried along too, and that's what this
| | 03:58 |
little checkbox is about.
| | 04:00 |
And it generates a little report, if
you want to view it you can check that.
| | 04:03 |
I will say generally speaking I just
check the top three--they are checked by
| | 04:07 |
default--so I just leave them and click Package.
| | 04:11 |
This little warning that comes up,
ideally in the olden days the hope was that
| | 04:16 |
the printing company would just happen
to have exactly the same fonts that you
| | 04:20 |
have and that they would have paid for
a license for the fonts and, of course,
| | 04:24 |
you'd pay for a license for the fonts.
| | 04:26 |
In reality that's impractical, so in
essence the printing company is acting like
| | 04:30 |
an extension of you, they're sort of
like your giant LaserWriter, if you will, and
| | 04:34 |
so they are supposed to use the fonts
you supply to image your job, and that's
| | 04:39 |
it, they're not supposed to use
your fonts on anybody else's job.
| | 04:42 |
They're not supposed to use it for
their own work and they are something
| | 04:45 |
that you should pay for.
| | 04:47 |
I know you did, I do, click OK.
| | 04:50 |
It's packaging the document and then
let's see what I have to show for this.
| | 04:55 |
Here's my little package folder and
inside that package folder here is a copy of
| | 05:01 |
my current InDesign file.
| | 05:02 |
Here's the Links folder and there are
all the images, all the little Illustrator
| | 05:07 |
files, everything that
was placed in the document.
| | 05:10 |
Here's the little Instructions text.
| | 05:12 |
Now even though I didn't fill it out,
it still has some information so it
| | 05:16 |
could come in handy.
| | 05:18 |
And then here are all the fonts.
| | 05:21 |
And there's a neat thing about the
way this document fonts folder behaves.
| | 05:24 |
If you keep this folder structure intact,
this InDesign file when it's activated
| | 05:30 |
is going to look in this
Document fonts folder for the fonts.
| | 05:33 |
What that means is that the printer
or a collaborator, whoever opens up this
| | 05:37 |
InDesign file, they are not going
have to use any kind of font management
| | 05:41 |
program to activate the fonts.
| | 05:42 |
InDesign will do it on its own,
which is really very cool.
| | 05:45 |
That guarantees that they're going to
be using exactly the fonts you used when
| | 05:48 |
you made your InDesign file, and it saves
them having to think about activating them.
| | 05:54 |
The way this works is that InDesign
activates these fonts only for the use of
| | 05:58 |
this document and only
while this document is open.
| | 06:02 |
Even if you opened up another file that
needed the same fonts, it's going to say
| | 06:05 |
that its fonts aren't available.
| | 06:07 |
This little guy has this little folder
full of fonts and they are just for him.
| | 06:11 |
And the other thing I said I would
explain to you about Update Graphic Links
| | 06:15 |
in Package, when you're building your
InDesign file you maybe pulling from
| | 06:19 |
something on a server, you may have a
CD inserted, you may have images on your
| | 06:23 |
desktop, but in this package all the links in
this folder are related to this InDesign file.
| | 06:30 |
So again when it wakes up, it's going to
be looking in this Links folder for all
| | 06:34 |
the links that it needs.
| | 06:36 |
So if you keep this folder together
that's everything you need for the job.
| | 06:40 |
And this is how you want to submit your
job to the printer to make sure that you
| | 06:44 |
don't have that age-old problem of
missing support files or missing fonts.
| | 06:48 |
It's also a great way at the end of
a job to gather up everything that's
| | 06:52 |
pertinent to the job so that when you
go to archive it, you have everything
| | 06:55 |
in one place.
| | 06:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Generating PDFs| 00:00 |
If your printer asks you to submit your
job as a PDF, ideally they should give
| | 00:04 |
you a PDF preset to use
in order to create the PDF.
| | 00:08 |
So we're going to look at what I call
the bulletproof preset in case the printer
| | 00:13 |
doesn't give you any kind of preset.
| | 00:16 |
The first thing you want to do though
before you even commence to making a PDF
| | 00:19 |
is take one good last look at your document
and make sure that there aren't any problems.
| | 00:24 |
If you've been running preflight and I
hope you have, look down on the lower
| | 00:28 |
left-hand corner, make sure you
have a green light and no errors.
| | 00:31 |
Make sure you have bleed, that you
don't have any change in text wrap, no typos
| | 00:35 |
have crept in, because keep in mind
when you make a PDF you're sort of
| | 00:39 |
freeze-drying your job to send to the printer.
| | 00:42 |
It's really difficult to edit PDFs. You
can't count on it. That's why you want
| | 00:46 |
to make sure that
everything is healthy at this point.
| | 00:49 |
First, we're going to look at making a
PDF using a preset supplied by the printer.
| | 00:55 |
To import that preset, I go to File >
Adobe PDF Presets and Define, and here on
| | 01:02 |
the right I click the Load button,
and there is the preset supplied by my
| | 01:07 |
printer, and I choose that and click
Open and now you can see that it's added to
| | 01:12 |
my list of Presets.
| | 01:13 |
Let's take a look and see
how they've set this up.
| | 01:16 |
They've turned off some of the things
that aren't pertinent for print like
| | 01:20 |
Optimize for Fast Web View, Create
Tagged PDF, and under Compression, they
| | 01:24 |
are letting it be downsampled to 300; that's
okay and they're using a bit of JPEG compression.
| | 01:31 |
Some printing companies will turn that
off, but most of them will leave them at
| | 01:35 |
about these settings.
| | 01:36 |
Under Marks and Bleeds, oh this is
good, they've made sure that even if the
| | 01:40 |
designer didn't set up a bleed zone,
it's still going to pick up bleed as long
| | 01:44 |
as there's stuff out there, and
they've checked all the printer's marks and
| | 01:49 |
they are having to convert to a
particular destination profile, which is
| | 01:53 |
obviously for their press.
| | 01:54 |
So we're good to go.
| | 01:56 |
So when I click OK and then I click Done,
now I can commence to making my PDF.
| | 02:02 |
So we've taken a look at the
preset; now let's make the PDF.
| | 02:05 |
So I can just choose Adobe PDF Presets.
I can choose their preset and then it
| | 02:11 |
say, well, where do you want to save this?
| | 02:13 |
I'll put this on my desktop, and I'm
not going to hide my extensions I like
| | 02:17 |
to see my extensions.
| | 02:19 |
So this is going to be my flyer and
when I click Save, notice that it's invoked
| | 02:23 |
that preset because I chose it
sort of on the way out the door.
| | 02:27 |
There are my marks and bleeds, my
output settings, and if I want I could say
| | 02:31 |
View PDF after Exporting, but I know my job
is okay, so I'm just going to click Export.
| | 02:37 |
If you look up here, you'll notice
that there is this little vertical band.
| | 02:41 |
It's really easy to overlook. What
that's telling us is that even though it
| | 02:44 |
looks like nothing is happening,
InDesign is making the PDF.
| | 02:47 |
It's making it in the background.
| | 02:48 |
So now I've made my PDF and I
can send that off to the printer.
| | 02:53 |
But here's another scenario.
| | 02:55 |
If you're sending to a small print
shop that doesn't supply presets to
| | 02:59 |
designers or you're sending off to a
publication, at any point when you are
| | 03:03 |
asked to submit a PDF and you say
okay send me a preset and they say, oh I
| | 03:08 |
don't know just make a PDF.
| | 03:09 |
Well, then you are kind of on your own.
| | 03:11 |
That's not the best circumstance but
here's what you can do in that circumstance.
| | 03:15 |
I'm going to go to File > Adobe PDF
Presets and I'm going to use PDF/X-1a.
| | 03:22 |
I'll just call this one my X1.
| | 03:26 |
That's built up by a standards body
the X-1a, X-3, and X-4, and you notice that
| | 03:30 |
they have dates after them, and by
the way they stand for Exchange; that's
| | 03:34 |
what the X stands for.
| | 03:35 |
The reason they are different years
is that as workflows have become more
| | 03:39 |
sophisticated, there are features that
you can have in a PDF and have them be
| | 03:42 |
safe in a workflow as things get more modern.
| | 03:46 |
But if you have no idea where this
little PDF is going to end up and you want
| | 03:50 |
to make sure that it can be imaged
in any ancient workflow, choose X-1a.
| | 03:55 |
Notice that the compatibility seems
way back, Acrobat 4, well that's because
| | 04:00 |
there's sort of an interesting thing that
happened between Acrobat 4 and Acrobat 5.
| | 04:05 |
Acrobat 5 and above support live
transparency and older workflows that were
| | 04:10 |
built on PostScript don't understand
transparency; later workflows do understand it.
| | 04:16 |
So this, when you have no idea
where you're going ensures that any
| | 04:19 |
fancy transparency stuff you created, it's
going to remain, but not as live transparency.
| | 04:24 |
It's going to get flattened out into
opaque objects that older workflows can digest.
| | 04:30 |
We won't go deeply into what happens;
| | 04:32 |
just know that InDesign does a great job
of flattening out your transparency for
| | 04:35 |
these older workflows.
| | 04:37 |
As far as the Compression
settings leave them as they are.
| | 04:41 |
But one thing that X-1a
doesn't check is Marks and Bleeds.
| | 04:44 |
So if you know that you need to include
marks and you want to make sure that if
| | 04:49 |
you have a bleed zone you check Document Bleed.
| | 04:51 |
If you didn't make an official bleed
zone, make sure that you have appropriate
| | 04:55 |
bleed amount in here.
| | 04:57 |
That's the only thing you really need to
add to X-1a, and then you're good to go.
| | 05:01 |
So when I click Export, you will notice
again I have the little background task
| | 05:05 |
monitor, but keep this in mind in the future.
| | 05:08 |
Always ask the printer or the
publication, or whoever the recipient is, ask them
| | 05:12 |
how you should make the PDF.
| | 05:14 |
When they give you the specs, follow them.
| | 05:17 |
If they can't give you any specs,
remember X-1a, even though it seems like an
| | 05:21 |
ancient format is sort of your
bulletproof lowest common denominator form of PDF
| | 05:26 |
and that should be easily
printed no matter how old the workflow.
| | 05:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
12. Finding Problems Using Overprint Preview in InDesign| 00:00 |
When you're working InDesign by default
it shows you low-res proxies of placed
| | 00:04 |
graphics, and that's okay,
it speeds up performance.
| | 00:08 |
You figure things are going just
fine when they're printed, but you
| | 00:11 |
probably always double check by going to View >
Display Performance and High Quality Display.
| | 00:16 |
And now you can see he
looks a little bit smoother.
| | 00:19 |
Now it really looks back at that
Photoshop file and paints those pixels to screen.
| | 00:23 |
But there is something else going on
here, part of what makes this page look so
| | 00:26 |
interesting is that there are these
blending modes used to make these objects
| | 00:31 |
interact with what's underneath.
| | 00:32 |
For instance, if I select this shape
and I go to Effects, I can see that the
| | 00:36 |
Multiply Blend Mode has been applied to
that shape, and that's been applied to
| | 00:40 |
all of these interesting shapes.
| | 00:42 |
Oh, here is a Color Dodge, and you
probably know by now you can start with a
| | 00:46 |
simple object and use some of these
blending modes and get some really
| | 00:49 |
interesting results.
| | 00:50 |
But do they present an
issue when you go to print.
| | 00:53 |
Well there is a forensic tool that I
would recommend you use especially when
| | 00:56 |
you're using spot colors and you're
experimenting with blending modes.
| | 01:00 |
If I go to View > Overprint Preview,
it's easy to miss, it's the first item in
| | 01:04 |
the top of the menu.
| | 01:05 |
Watch what happens to the display of
all this content on the page. Wow!
| | 01:10 |
That's not what we have in
mind and here's the thing.
| | 01:12 |
This is really how it would print. I
know that's bad news, but you might as well
| | 01:17 |
know it now before it goes to press.
| | 01:19 |
I am going to use a keyboard shortcut to toggle
between having Overprint on and Overprint off.
| | 01:24 |
This is how we thought it was going to
print this is how it's going to print.
| | 01:28 |
Clearly that's not going to work.
| | 01:29 |
Why does InDesign lie to us like that?
| | 01:32 |
Well, I'm guessing that it's in the
interest of increasing performance, but
| | 01:35 |
it's a really scary way to work if you really
don't know how this thing is going to print.
| | 01:39 |
But I am going to tell you that this
circumstance, this disparity between what
| | 01:43 |
you think it's going to do and what
it's really going to do really only happens
| | 01:46 |
when you're using
blending modes with spot colors.
| | 01:49 |
So I'm going to put this back to the
scary Overprint Preview, I am going to go
| | 01:54 |
into my Swatches panel and you can
see I have all these spot colors.
| | 01:57 |
Now if I have my heart set on this
being a spot color job I am going to have to
| | 02:02 |
find some other effects that will print,
but if I don't have to have spot colors
| | 02:06 |
there's really an easy way to fix this.
| | 02:08 |
I can go to Ink Manager and without
having to change all my swatch definitions, I
| | 02:12 |
can just convert them to process right here.
| | 02:14 |
When I just click on the little spot flag,
it turns into a little CMYK flag or I
| | 02:19 |
could've gone down here and
checked All Spots to Process.
| | 02:22 |
It looks bad now, when I click OK, then
it commits to this and it converts all
| | 02:27 |
my spot colors to
process and now it's all right.
| | 02:31 |
It will actually print this way, as
long as I am using only process colors.
| | 02:35 |
So just kind of remember when you're
experimenting, when you're using spot
| | 02:38 |
colors, be careful with the blending
modes, a lot of them will work just fine,
| | 02:43 |
but some of them won't.
| | 02:44 |
And if you want to find out the truth
before it's too late be sure to remember
| | 02:48 |
to turn on Overprint Preview.
| | 02:50 |
If you want you could work with it on
all the time but as part of that it turns
| | 02:53 |
everything to high-res display.
| | 02:55 |
So in a really graphics heavy document
that could slow things down, but it would
| | 02:59 |
mean you'd know the true story
all the way through your job.
| | 03:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Managing swatches in InDesign | 00:00 |
As you experiment with swatches and
when you import vector art containing spot
| | 00:04 |
colors, you may find that your swatches
panel starts to grow and there are colors
| | 00:08 |
in there that you don't remember
adding; you are not sure you're using.
| | 00:12 |
It's a good idea to sort of weed out the extras.
| | 00:14 |
So let's take a look in the
Swatches panel and see what we have.
| | 00:17 |
I have plenty of swatches, a bunch of
process colors, a few spot colors here and there.
| | 00:22 |
I like to start by getting
rid of the unused colors.
| | 00:25 |
So I just go to the Swatches panel menu,
choose Select All Unused, and it's like
| | 00:31 |
a lot of them. When I click the
trash can that cleans house a little bit.
| | 00:35 |
But look at this little band across
the top, this sort of pinky brown.
| | 00:39 |
That doesn't show up in my Swatches panel.
| | 00:42 |
So now I want InDesign to go find
objects that are using colors that aren't in
| | 00:46 |
the Swatches panel and add them,
so that I can police them later.
| | 00:49 |
So back to the Swatches panel menu and
this time I choose Add Unnamed Colors.
| | 00:55 |
And it adds that little color across
the top and it by default names it by its
| | 00:59 |
values if you want to change the name you can.
| | 01:01 |
I'll just double-click, uncheck Name
with Color Value, and just call it medium
| | 01:07 |
brown, for lack of a better name.
| | 01:09 |
But then I start looking at the
remaining spot colors and go, well, I've got
| | 01:14 |
this 7686 and then 7687.
| | 01:17 |
That must be a mistake.
| | 01:18 |
So let's find out what's used where.
| | 01:21 |
If I go to Window > Output > Separations
Preview, this is a great way to find out
| | 01:27 |
a number of things.
| | 01:28 |
Notice how ratty my artwork looks.
| | 01:30 |
That's because I'm working in proxy view;
that typical view that InDesign uses by default.
| | 01:35 |
When I turn on Separations Preview in
the Separations Preview panel notice that
| | 01:40 |
everything sharpens up.
| | 01:41 |
That's because it does two things
when you turn on Separations Preview.
| | 01:45 |
It activates high-resolution display
and it also activates overprint preview.
| | 01:50 |
So you are going to get a true view
of how this is going to print when you
| | 01:54 |
choose Separations Preview.
| | 01:55 |
So now let's do a little forensic work.
| | 01:57 |
I am going to turn off the eyeball by
CMYK and that's got to hide everything
| | 02:01 |
that's created out of process colors.
| | 02:02 |
So you can see a number of these little
stripes across the bottom disappeared,
| | 02:06 |
because they're using CMYK and
that brown bar across the top is gone.
| | 02:10 |
It's pretty clear where the orange is
used, but just to double check if I turn
| | 02:14 |
off the eyeball by 1495 that goes away.
| | 02:17 |
That leaves me with the blues.
| | 02:19 |
If I turn off 7461, the light blue,
that's the little flower shape that's in the
| | 02:24 |
middle of the logo, but now let's
see which is using the wrong blue.
| | 02:28 |
I am going to tell you that in this job
the 7686 is the correct blue, and that's
| | 02:33 |
used in the logo, but
then I have one thing left.
| | 02:36 |
So this 7687, now I am going to have to
turn on something else so I can turn that off.
| | 02:43 |
I turn my process back on.
| | 02:45 |
When I turn off the 7687 you can tell
that it's being used by those little
| | 02:49 |
blocks at the bottom.
| | 02:50 |
I'll turn everything back on.
| | 02:52 |
Those little blocks across the
bottom were created in Illustrator.
| | 02:54 |
So if I were really going to fix them,
I go back into Illustrator, correct the
| | 02:58 |
file, and then update it in InDesign.
| | 03:00 |
And if I am going to use that block
artwork over and over again in multiple
| | 03:04 |
jobs, yes, I should do that.
| | 03:06 |
I should go back to Illustrator and fix the art.
| | 03:08 |
But it's only being used this once and I
don't feel like cranking up Illustrator.
| | 03:12 |
So I am going to see if
InDesign can help me out.
| | 03:15 |
And the truth is it can using
something called Ink Manager.
| | 03:18 |
So in the Swatches panel I click the
Panel menu, go down to Ink Manager, and Ink
| | 03:22 |
Manager's purpose in
life is to fix this problem.
| | 03:25 |
Really, it's so common to map one spot
color to another or to convert a spot
| | 03:30 |
color to process or to map a
spot color to a process channel.
| | 03:34 |
Now it can't do the opposite.
| | 03:36 |
It can't map a process channel to a
spot channel, but that's something you
| | 03:39 |
really have to do anyway.
| | 03:41 |
So let's see how it can help us out.
| | 03:44 |
Pantone 7687 is the wrong color.
| | 03:46 |
I want it to go out on the 7686 plate
and Ink Manager calls that aliasing.
| | 03:52 |
So here I am going to tell
InDesign all the content that uses 7687.
| | 03:56 |
I want you to alias it to the
correct spot plate, which is 7686.
| | 04:02 |
It's not really going to change my artwork.
| | 04:04 |
It's just going to change the outgoing stream.
| | 04:06 |
So if I hit File > Print or File > Export,
the resulting product is going to combine
| | 04:11 |
these colors into one printing plate.
| | 04:14 |
Take a look at the bottom of my
Separations Preview panel, you can see that 7687
| | 04:18 |
is still there, but when I click OK,
Ink Manager has combined the 7687 content
| | 04:25 |
into the 7686 plate.
| | 04:27 |
And when I turn off the eyeball by
that ink, you can see that everything
| | 04:30 |
now travels together.
| | 04:32 |
So I didn't have to go to Illustrator and
fix this, I can fix it right here in InDesign.
| | 04:36 |
But it's a nondestructive change.
| | 04:38 |
If I were to go back to
Ink Manager, I can undo that.
| | 04:41 |
I can say no don't alias it, have it
come out on a separate plate. Hey!
| | 04:45 |
I've seen crazier things happen in
jobs and the nice thing about that is that
| | 04:49 |
it's nondestructive.
| | 04:50 |
The slightly misleading thing about it
is that you don't see any evidence in the
| | 04:54 |
Swatches panel that it's been changed.
| | 04:55 |
7687 is still there and at first
glance you think, gosh, that didn't do
| | 05:00 |
anything, but again if you export
everything is going to get combined into that
| | 05:04 |
one plate and everything will be all right.
| | 05:06 |
So just remember this that you're not
getting any kind of indicator in the
| | 05:10 |
Swatches panel, but if you want to double
check always go back to Ink Manager, or
| | 05:14 |
the easy way, again the forensic way, is
to launch Separations Preview and use
| | 05:19 |
that as a way to check.
| | 05:20 |
In fact, I recommend that you
consider Separations Preview part of your
| | 05:23 |
forensic tools when you're trying to
make sure at the end of the job that
| | 05:27 |
everything is as it should be.
| | 05:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Preflighting in InDesign| 00:00 |
It's important to find little
problems with your job before they become
| | 00:03 |
big problems on press.
| | 00:05 |
Preflight is the process
of finding those problems.
| | 00:09 |
The term originated in aeronautics and
preflight ought to be an important part
| | 00:12 |
of preparing your job for print.
| | 00:14 |
You want to find it now, not
when you're on a press check.
| | 00:17 |
When we look at this page, we
already see some indications of problems.
| | 00:20 |
You can see the little yellow triangle,
it tells me I have a graphic that needs
| | 00:24 |
to be updated and you can see that
reported in the Links panel as well.
| | 00:27 |
You can see that pink highlighting
that InDesign uses to show you that you're
| | 00:30 |
missing a font or a style within that font.
| | 00:33 |
But there's another way to find
problems that sort of like having a second set
| | 00:37 |
of eyes and that's the
preflight feature in InDesign.
| | 00:40 |
If you look down at the lower left, and
that's a place maybe we don't naturally
| | 00:44 |
look, you can see this red dot, that's
kind of scary, and you can see that it
| | 00:47 |
says we have nine errors.
| | 00:49 |
If I double-click on that little
area it will wake up my Preflight panel.
| | 00:54 |
So preflight says, well, you have two
types of errors, you have link errors and
| | 00:58 |
you have text errors.
| | 00:59 |
So if I click the triangle by Links and
then the triangle by Modified Link, it
| | 01:04 |
takes me to something I had actually
noticed, I had this little link that
| | 01:08 |
needs to be updated.
| | 01:09 |
One of the cool things in InDesign CS6
is that I don't really even have to go to
| | 01:14 |
my Links panel to fix this.
| | 01:16 |
I can just click once on the little
yellow triangle and it fixes it. That's great.
| | 01:20 |
Now I still have eight errors left.
| | 01:21 |
So let's see where they are.
| | 01:23 |
When I click the triangle next to
text it says you have two types of text
| | 01:26 |
errors, you have Overset
and you have a Missing font.
| | 01:29 |
Well, we knew about the Missing
font, but let's find that Overset.
| | 01:32 |
So when I click the triangle it
says it's in a Text Frame on page 1.
| | 01:36 |
We only have one page here, but the
nice thing about this, see how that looks
| | 01:40 |
like a little hyperlink.
| | 01:41 |
It is a little hyperlink.
| | 01:43 |
When you click on it, it takes you to
where the problem is and it tries to sort
| | 01:47 |
of call your attention to it.
| | 01:49 |
So here is my frame with overset.
| | 01:50 |
So I'll hover over the bottom edge,
pull down far enough so there's room for
| | 01:54 |
that text to live, and I fix the problem.
| | 01:56 |
You might think of this as sort
of a video game, find the problems.
| | 02:00 |
Then I have been Missing font.
| | 02:01 |
So I am missing City Bold and
Myriad Pro Black SemiExtended.
| | 02:04 |
So we sort of already knew that, but
again in this document it's easy to
| | 02:08 |
visualize your problems.
| | 02:10 |
In a multipage document preflight
really is like a second set of eyes.
| | 02:13 |
So it can sort of go all the way through
your document, highlight your problems,
| | 02:17 |
and sort of lead you by the nose to
those problems so that you can fix them.
| | 02:21 |
So I am going to fix my missing
fonts by going to Type > Find Font.
| | 02:25 |
City Bold, I don't have, because the
designer didn't send it to me, but I've
| | 02:29 |
been told it's okay to
substitute with Myriad Pro.
| | 02:32 |
So I am going to use Myriad Pro Bold and
I want to make sure that Redefine Style
| | 02:38 |
When Changing All is checked.
| | 02:40 |
Now maybe they've used a
style, maybe they didn't.
| | 02:43 |
But if they did, making sure that this
is checked ensures that I've also changed
| | 02:46 |
the specs for the style.
| | 02:48 |
And that's going to make
things a lot easier in the future.
| | 02:51 |
So I'm going to be brave and click Change All.
| | 02:53 |
This doesn't mean I've done anything wrong.
| | 02:55 |
It's just InDesign saying,
well, I did change some styles.
| | 02:58 |
So that looks good.
| | 02:59 |
I have that checked.
| | 03:00 |
So I recommend that you don't
check this Don't show again.
| | 03:04 |
I always like to know if there are
things that InDesign is trying to tell me.
| | 03:07 |
Then the Myriad Pro Black
SemiExtended let's see where that's used.
| | 03:11 |
Since that's used in the text, I think
I'm safe using Myriad Pro Semibold and
| | 03:16 |
again Redefine Style is checked.
| | 03:18 |
I am going to be brave and click Change All.
| | 03:21 |
Everything is happy here, and now
when I come back into the Preflight panel
| | 03:24 |
everything is happy there.
| | 03:26 |
But notice that the profile it's
using is something called Basic.
| | 03:29 |
Working this means that's the active profile.
| | 03:32 |
It looks for common problems.
| | 03:34 |
This is the default profile that
InDesign uses, but maybe there are other
| | 03:38 |
problems that you've had in the past
and you'd like for InDesign to check for
| | 03:42 |
those, or a lot of printers actually
create their own preflight profiles and
| | 03:45 |
give them to customers and you
should import those profiles and use them,
| | 03:49 |
because they're looking for
problems that the printer knows could cause
| | 03:52 |
problems when you go to print.
| | 03:54 |
So I'm going to import a profile.
| | 03:56 |
I am going to Define Profiles.
| | 03:58 |
Now keep in mind you can't change the Basic.
| | 04:01 |
If you wanted to make a new profile, you
just hit the little plus (+) down here,
| | 04:05 |
you could name it whatever you want.
| | 04:07 |
Here are all the options that you have
and as you can see it can get granular
| | 04:11 |
with this and we are not going to
go through every one of the features.
| | 04:15 |
I would encourage you to take a look at these.
| | 04:18 |
But if you're lucky enough to have a
printer that creates profiles and sends
| | 04:21 |
them to you then you want to import those.
| | 04:23 |
So this is the panel menu.
| | 04:25 |
I know you're used to seeing
them in the upper right-hand corner.
| | 04:28 |
This is the only panel I
know where it's down here.
| | 04:31 |
It's sort of huddling with the
Add and Delete profile buttons.
| | 04:33 |
So I go to the Preflight
menu, choose Load Profile.
| | 04:37 |
Now it says unsaved preflight
profile changes have to be changed; save
| | 04:40 |
changes and continue.
| | 04:41 |
It's because I was halfway through
this one, it's a little confused.
| | 04:44 |
I am just going to say to delete it and
then I think it will let me load my profile.
| | 04:49 |
No! I have to save.
| | 04:52 |
Finally, it's going to let
me find it. There we go!
| | 04:55 |
This is called Publication Check.
| | 04:57 |
Let's see what sort of things
it's looking for, Image Resolution.
| | 05:01 |
They set a threshold on each
end of the resolution spectrum.
| | 05:04 |
An image has to be at least 300;
it shouldn't be more than 400.
| | 05:08 |
How would I end up with an
image that's that high-resolution?
| | 05:10 |
Well, if I had a large 300 pixel per
inch image and I scale it way down into
| | 05:15 |
InDesign, the effective
resolution would then be higher than 300.
| | 05:19 |
It's not necessarily a problem.
| | 05:21 |
Some workflows just go ahead
and scale things down anyway.
| | 05:24 |
In some older workflows it may slow things down.
| | 05:27 |
I think it's a good idea to just sort
of keep it between the digits there and
| | 05:30 |
keep it at a reasonable resolution.
| | 05:32 |
So I like for InDesign to warn me.
| | 05:34 |
There are few other
things that it's looking for.
| | 05:36 |
This is an interesting one Bleed/Trim Hazard.
| | 05:39 |
It's something too close to the trim.
| | 05:41 |
Something close enough to the edge that
InDesign suspects it ought to bleed, but it doesn't.
| | 05:46 |
It's really pretty intelligent.
| | 05:47 |
It's really pretty cool.
| | 05:48 |
So that's what this is going to look
for and, of course, some of the text issues,
| | 05:52 |
Overset Text, Font Types Not Allowed.
| | 05:55 |
This is going to warn me if protected
fonts are used and those are fonts that
| | 05:59 |
aren't allowed to be embedded in a PDF.
| | 06:01 |
This is neat, because it will warn you
ahead of time instead of at that last
| | 06:05 |
moment when you go to make a PDF.
| | 06:07 |
So let's see what happens
when we use this profile.
| | 06:10 |
Now it doesn't load itself by default.
| | 06:12 |
It's in the preflight mind, if you
will, but it's not the active profile.
| | 06:16 |
So now I am going to invoke it. Oh!
| | 06:19 |
I thought it was happy, but
now I have other problems.
| | 06:22 |
So it says I have some images that
don't meet the resolution requirements.
| | 06:26 |
Let's see what the issues are.
| | 06:28 |
So if I click on this one,
how do I know which way is it?
| | 06:31 |
If I click the info, this little part
expands and it says now you say color
| | 06:35 |
images have to be at most 400.
| | 06:38 |
This one because it's been reduced is 593.
| | 06:40 |
There are still some judgments that you make.
| | 06:44 |
It finds objects that defy the profile,
but then you have to decide at the last
| | 06:49 |
minute, well, am I going to let this go.
| | 06:51 |
It's not going to prevent you from
printing the job or prevent you from exporting.
| | 06:55 |
It's just InDesign giving you a heads-up.
| | 06:57 |
So let's see how this one is--
| | 06:59 |
580, this one is 402, just barely.
| | 07:02 |
So if I click the little 1, it
takes me to that image, so you can see
| | 07:06 |
it highlighted here.
| | 07:07 |
So this is nice, because it takes you
right to where the problem is and then you
| | 07:11 |
have to decide how you are going to
fix it, whether you are going to fix it.
| | 07:15 |
InDesign is so polite, look it
even tells you how you could fix it.
| | 07:18 |
It says, hey, direct select that image,
use Object Transform and Scale to change
| | 07:22 |
the scaling or edit the source file.
| | 07:24 |
So it's not just a second set of eyes.
| | 07:26 |
It's also a great way to learn a few things.
| | 07:29 |
It's really trying to help you out and
that's really the whole purpose of preflight.
| | 07:32 |
So in this document I'm not going to
take the time to fix everything, but at
| | 07:37 |
least InDesign has given me the
ability to find these problems.
| | 07:40 |
So I highly recommend that
you pay attention to preflight.
| | 07:43 |
If your printer gives you a preflight
profile, by all means incorporate it, and
| | 07:48 |
if they don't give you a profile,
consider some of the problems you've had in
| | 07:51 |
the past, set up your own profile to
anticipate those problems, and then you can
| | 07:55 |
catch them before the job goes out the door.
| | 07:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Links panel in Illustrator| 00:00 |
Illustrator gives you some
options for handling placed graphics.
| | 00:04 |
You can embed them or you can link to them.
| | 00:07 |
Now embedding is going to
increase your file size, but it
| | 00:09 |
facilitates portability.
| | 00:11 |
If you still have access to the
original graphics, you can modify them even if
| | 00:15 |
they're embedded and replace the
embedded versions, but there's no warning that
| | 00:18 |
that linked original has been changed.
| | 00:20 |
So I'm opening up this Illustrator file,
and I get this little error message.
| | 00:24 |
So I know that I'm going to have some problems.
| | 00:26 |
Let's see what's going on.
| | 00:28 |
So it says Choose Replace to find
another file or ignore to leave it unchanged.
| | 00:33 |
I think I know where this file is.
| | 00:35 |
So I'm going to choose Replace and I'm
going to go hunting for it, and it tells
| | 00:39 |
you at the top what the name of the
file is because at about that moment you
| | 00:43 |
have forgotten what you're
looking for. Big long 95.
| | 00:46 |
There we go!
| | 00:47 |
There's my replacement.
| | 00:48 |
When I click Replace, it says, well,
we're still missing some stuff.
| | 00:51 |
All right, let's find this one and 118827.
| | 00:56 |
I'm not seeing anything for that so
that means that I have something missing.
| | 01:01 |
So maybe I can find another name.
| | 01:03 |
Oh, I'll bet you that's
it, TreesForest, Replace.
| | 01:06 |
Now this is why if you're going to fly
blind like this you need some sort of reference.
| | 01:11 |
Ideally, you have a hard copy or
maybe somebody's sent you a PDF.
| | 01:15 |
But this gives you an idea of how
difficult it is to police linked graphics with
| | 01:20 |
an Illustrator file, because if you're
pulling from a server, your hard drive, a
| | 01:25 |
CD that you inserted and you're
placing all these graphics into Illustrator,
| | 01:29 |
when you pass the job off to somebody
else you need to do one of two things,
| | 01:33 |
either you need to manually gather up
all of that placed artwork that's related
| | 01:37 |
to the file or you need to embed it.
| | 01:39 |
So it's a good idea if you organize as
you're going along so that you have a
| | 01:42 |
repository that's common that
you have all your artwork in.
| | 01:45 |
So I think this is going work for me. Ah!
| | 01:47 |
It looks like I found them all.
| | 01:49 |
So I think I'm in good shape there.
| | 01:51 |
But let's take a look at
the links just to make sure.
| | 01:54 |
I've gotten rid of all of my error
messages, but let's go to the Links panel and
| | 01:58 |
just see what's going on.
| | 01:59 |
So when I go to Window > Links, I can see
that I have two graphics that are embedded.
| | 02:04 |
Now this isn't necessarily your problem,
but here's one thing that can happen
| | 02:08 |
when you pass the job off to the printer.
| | 02:10 |
This image, this image, are embedded. The way you
can tell is that you have that little
| | 02:15 |
additional icon there.
| | 02:16 |
What if the job gets to the
printer and they need to color correct?
| | 02:20 |
What if this red is a little bit
off and this blue is a little bit off?
| | 02:24 |
There is nothing they can do, because
they don't have access to the original file.
| | 02:28 |
So they would call you, ask you where's the
original artwork, and if you don't have
| | 02:32 |
any access to it, well, you're kind out of luck.
| | 02:34 |
Let me recommend a third-party
product that's a plug-in to Illustrator that
| | 02:37 |
might be good to have if you come
across this frequently. It's called Scoop.
| | 02:41 |
It's from web site worker72a.com.
| | 02:45 |
It's not an Adobe product,
but what it can do is scoop up;
| | 02:49 |
hence, the name. It can scoop up
all the graphics that are linked to
| | 02:52 |
an Illustrator file.
| | 02:53 |
It can also unembed files that
are embedded in an Illustrator file.
| | 02:57 |
So it's a nice little add-
on to have with Illustrator.
| | 03:00 |
But my message to you is that when
you're building a file like this, organize
| | 03:03 |
your work so that when you go to pass
it off to the printer, you make sure that
| | 03:07 |
you gather up all the placed artwork, so that
| | 03:09 |
that travels with your Illustrator file
and that's going to prevent those 3 a.m.
| | 03:13 |
phone calls asking where's that image?
| | 03:16 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using blending modes in Illustrator and InDesign| 00:00 |
If you have spot color content in
your Illustrator file and you've been
| | 00:03 |
experimenting with blending modes,
let me give you a little warning.
| | 00:07 |
A lot of the blending modes don't
really image the way you think they are going
| | 00:10 |
to image because of what you see onscreen.
| | 00:13 |
So I have two artboards here and they
have the same sort of little items and the
| | 00:17 |
same sort of blending modes applied.
| | 00:18 |
On the left artboard everything is spot color.
| | 00:20 |
On the right artboard everything is process.
| | 00:23 |
Looks fine, but when it goes to the
printer it's not going to image like this,
| | 00:27 |
but how can you find out the true story?
| | 00:30 |
You can turn on Overprint Preview.
| | 00:31 |
Go up to View and it's near the top,
might be easy to overlook, Overprint Preview.
| | 00:36 |
And you have to sort of look from left
to right and compare the items--Normal,
| | 00:40 |
Dark--and that doesn't look
quite the same, Multiply. Wow!
| | 00:43 |
Color Burn;
| | 00:44 |
we don't see any interaction at all.
| | 00:46 |
And as you go down Color Dodge and you
thought it was going look like this, it
| | 00:50 |
really doesn't do anything special.
| | 00:52 |
So already we're seeing things sort
of fall apart, but now these look okay.
| | 00:55 |
Difference and Exclusion; they look just fine,
but there is something else going on there.
| | 01:00 |
If we go to Window and Separations
Preview, if this job is supposed to print in
| | 01:04 |
just two spot colors, the orange and
blue, we want to make sure that we don't
| | 01:08 |
have any process colors.
| | 01:10 |
So if I turn off the orange and the
blue, look I have some remnants behind.
| | 01:15 |
So what that tells you is that where
those two spot colors overlap, Illustrator
| | 01:19 |
can't figure out any way based on the
Blending Mode you've chosen to generate
| | 01:22 |
something made solely of spot colors.
| | 01:24 |
So it has to resort to process.
| | 01:27 |
Well, that's totally going to mess up my job.
| | 01:28 |
I don't want to print four-color
process in addition to my two spot colors.
| | 01:32 |
So what can you do?
| | 01:33 |
It really looks like things
are falling apart, doesn't it?
| | 01:35 |
They don't look at all like we thought
they were going look, some of this isn't
| | 01:39 |
going at all, some of it
is going to turn to process.
| | 01:42 |
There really isn't any good news about this.
| | 01:44 |
There's no way to force these
blending modes to do what you want and keep
| | 01:48 |
your spot color content.
| | 01:49 |
I'm afraid to say it's just one of those things.
| | 01:52 |
So in this case if I really have to
have these visual effects, I'm not going to
| | 01:57 |
be able to do them with spot colors.
| | 01:59 |
So I don't want to discourage you
from using effects, but I want to give
| | 02:02 |
you this tool so that you can find problems
before you get disappointment at the press.
| | 02:06 |
So remember these two forensic tools.
| | 02:08 |
If you go up to View and choose
Overprint Preview, it's going to give you a true
| | 02:13 |
preview of what's going to happen,
and then if you want to make sure that
| | 02:16 |
something is spot and something is
process, and make sure that you don't have
| | 02:19 |
some substitution there, always go
to Window and Separations Preview.
| | 02:23 |
And actually Separations Preview gives
you both of the forensic tools in one spot.
| | 02:28 |
Separations Preview actually depends on
Overprint Preview to even become active.
| | 02:32 |
So I recommend that you use Separations Preview.
| | 02:35 |
It lets you find spot content,
process content, and also it forces that
| | 02:40 |
Overprint View that gives you a truer view of
how this Illustrator file is going to print.
| | 02:45 |
So before you start getting carried away
with those blending modes, because they
| | 02:48 |
are such fun, they are so easy to use,
be sure to double check your work before
| | 02:52 |
you commit to press. Make sure that
everything is going to appear the way you
| | 02:55 |
hope it's going to appear.
| | 02:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
13. AcrobatBasic forensics in Acrobat| 00:00 |
In this movie, I'm going to
show you some basic PDF forensics.
| | 00:04 |
Now if you're creating a PDF out of an
application like InDesign or Illustrator,
| | 00:10 |
if you open up the PDF and you see a
problem, don't try to fix it in Acrobat.
| | 00:14 |
Go back into your originating
application and fix it there and make a new PDF.
| | 00:19 |
But if you're on the receiving end of
PDFs, chances are you have received PDFs
| | 00:24 |
that are, shall we say, less than optimal,
by which I mean they have problems in them.
| | 00:28 |
And sometimes you don't
discover those problems until later.
| | 00:31 |
So in this movie, we're going to
look at some basic PDF forensics.
| | 00:36 |
I'll admit I'm kind of nosy.
| | 00:37 |
When I open up a PDF, I sort of like
to know what application created it and
| | 00:42 |
a few other things.
| | 00:43 |
So if you go to File > Properties and
these little tabs across the top and you can
| | 00:48 |
find out a fair amount about the PDF.
| | 00:51 |
So here I can see that it was generated
by InDesign and it used the PDF Library.
| | 00:57 |
And what that tells me is that whoever made
this exported it directly out of InDesign.
| | 01:02 |
In other words, they didn't print to PDF,
they didn't generate PostScript and distil it.
| | 01:06 |
It came directly out of InDesign,
and that's the way to do it.
| | 01:10 |
It tells me that the PDF version is 1.3.
| | 01:13 |
This is kind of a funny thing;
| | 01:15 |
you add the 1 and the number after the dot (.)
| | 01:18 |
and you get the version of
Acrobat that will open it.
| | 01:20 |
They now tell you this
actually in parentheses.
| | 01:23 |
So what that tells me is that this is
flattened transparency. That's okay.
| | 01:28 |
Remember, I said that when you send to
an older workflow, you might have to go
| | 01:33 |
all the way back to Acrobat 4.
| | 01:34 |
So this isn't a bad thing;
| | 01:36 |
it's just telling me the truth about the PDF.
| | 01:38 |
Under Security, there's no security
applied to it, and by the way, if you're
| | 01:42 |
submitting PDFs for print, you
don't want any kind of security.
| | 01:45 |
You don't want an open password and
you don't want a permissions password
| | 01:49 |
because there are some components of
print workflows that will kick the PDF out
| | 01:53 |
if it has any kind of security on it.
| | 01:55 |
Under Fonts, everything is embedded in subset.
| | 01:59 |
This is good, this means that
this is completely portable.
| | 02:03 |
So I don't have any evil fonts that
haven't allowed themselves to be embedded.
| | 02:07 |
Initial View really has
nothing to do with print.
| | 02:09 |
It's how it's going to look on screen
when you open it up, not pertinent for print.
| | 02:14 |
Under Custom, Acrobat X actually will
look inside a PDF when you open it up
| | 02:18 |
and it will report here whether that PDF
has been made to one of the particular specs;
| | 02:24 |
in this case, PDF/X-1a.
| | 02:25 |
So it's just kind of confirmation.
| | 02:28 |
And nothing under Advanced that
we need to worry about. All right!
| | 02:31 |
So I know that this is a
pretty good healthy PDF.
| | 02:34 |
I have another PDF. Let's take a look at that.
| | 02:37 |
And again, I'm going to go File >
Properties, under Description.
| | 02:43 |
Again, it was exported out of InDesign directly.
| | 02:45 |
This is a more modern PDF; it's 1.6.
| | 02:48 |
Remember, I said add the two numbers.
| | 02:50 |
Sure enough, it's compatible with
Acrobat 7, which ought to be okay again with
| | 02:55 |
any modern workflows.
| | 02:56 |
It shouldn't be a problem.
| | 02:57 |
No Security, Fonts are embedded in subset.
| | 03:00 |
And under Custom as I said, it reports.
| | 03:03 |
It opens up that PDF and it says oh,
it's got a little flag in it that says that
| | 03:07 |
it's PDF/X-4 flavored.
| | 03:09 |
This is a good thing as long
as my workflow supports it.
| | 03:12 |
And PDF/X-4 says that you can have
RGB content, you can even have lab color
| | 03:17 |
content, and that means that the
workflow that's going to process this has to
| | 03:22 |
support that kind of color content and
has to convert it properly in case that's
| | 03:26 |
necessary for print.
| | 03:28 |
So again, another happy healthy PDF.
| | 03:30 |
So this file might be a little bit different.
| | 03:34 |
When I go to Properties, you'll see
that this came out of Illustrator.
| | 03:39 |
And again, it says PDF Library, and
that's because Illustrator understands
| | 03:43 |
innately how to make PDFs.
| | 03:45 |
It doesn't have to look to any
component of Acrobat itself to make a PDF,
| | 03:49 |
neither does InDesign.
| | 03:51 |
This is an Acrobat 7
flavored file. That's fine.
| | 03:54 |
No Security, Fonts are embedded in subset.
| | 03:58 |
And again, Acrobat X looks inside the
file and says, by the way, if you care,
| | 04:03 |
this is an X-4 file. That's good.
| | 04:04 |
So I have three healthy PDFs in a row.
| | 04:07 |
That's kind of rare.
| | 04:09 |
Now this looks just fine.
| | 04:11 |
There doesn't seem to be
anything obvious onscreen.
| | 04:14 |
But keep in mind, there are some
things that can't be visually determined.
| | 04:17 |
By the way, one thing that can be
visually determined but isn't obvious is, gee,
| | 04:22 |
what's the size on this?
| | 04:23 |
Here's an easy way to do
it but it's not obvious.
| | 04:25 |
If you just move your cursor over to
the lower left-hand corner of the screen,
| | 04:29 |
it'll tell you what the dimensions are.
| | 04:31 |
I bet you didn't suspect that.
| | 04:33 |
It's just not obvious at all.
| | 04:35 |
Well, this looks okay, everything seems
to be in place, but let's interrogate.
| | 04:40 |
So when I go to File > Properties,
it's telling me that this came out of
| | 04:44 |
InDesign, it's Acrobat 7. That's fine.
| | 04:48 |
There's no Security.
| | 04:49 |
The fonts all seem to be there
except notice that there's no embedded
| | 04:54 |
subset remark out here.
| | 04:56 |
That's pretty subtle. That's a problem.
| | 04:58 |
That means that whatever font
was used is not inside this file.
| | 05:03 |
And that means that if I pass it off to a
workflow, I'm going to get some font substitution.
| | 05:09 |
But everything looks okay, so what's going on?
| | 05:11 |
Well, if you create a PDF using a font
that can't be embedded but you have that
| | 05:16 |
font active on your system because
after all you just made the PDF, Acrobat is
| | 05:21 |
going to look to your system and go well,
you've got that font active, I can use
| | 05:25 |
it in the display of this PDF.
| | 05:27 |
So here's what I like to do.
| | 05:29 |
I like to go to my Preferences.
| | 05:30 |
Now on Windows that's going to be
under Edit, and on the Mac of course
| | 05:34 |
it's under Acrobat.
| | 05:36 |
And under Page Display, turn off Use local
fonts and watch what happens when I click OK.
| | 05:43 |
Did you see how that text changed?
| | 05:46 |
I wish there were a keyboard shortcut for
that so you could toggle quickly back and forth.
| | 05:50 |
There isn't.
| | 05:51 |
There is a keyboard shortcut for
Preferences and it's kind of a crazy one.
| | 05:54 |
On Windows it's Ctrl+K; on the Mac it's Command
+K. But maybe I can move this out of the way.
| | 06:00 |
And we'll take a look again
at these three lines of text.
| | 06:04 |
So this is what it should look like if
that font were embeddable, but this is
| | 06:08 |
what's going to happen.
| | 06:09 |
When I send this through any
kind of workflow, it's going to
| | 06:12 |
perform substitution.
| | 06:13 |
So let's see if it made any
change in the report here under Fonts.
| | 06:18 |
Yes, it does make a change.
| | 06:19 |
So here's what happened.
| | 06:21 |
As I mentioned earlier, Acrobat says, gosh,
| | 06:22 |
this PDF doesn't have this font embedded,
ah, but that font is active on the system.
| | 06:27 |
So for display, I'll use
the font from the system.
| | 06:30 |
But if the font isn't available on
the system as an embeddable font, then
| | 06:35 |
Acrobat says well, what I'm going to
have to do when I pass this off is I'm
| | 06:39 |
going to have to do a font substitution.
| | 06:41 |
And that's why it says
Actual Font: Adobe Serif MM.
| | 06:44 |
MM stands for Multiple Master.
| | 06:45 |
And this is what happens in
Acrobat when you're missing a font.
| | 06:49 |
It says well, I've got to show you text somehow.
| | 06:51 |
If it's a sans serif font, I have a
Sans Serif Multiple Master that I can kind
| | 06:56 |
of fake your text appearance with.
| | 06:58 |
In this case, it's trying to
substitute for a serif font, so it uses the
| | 07:01 |
Serif Multiple Master.
| | 07:03 |
And it does the best it can.
| | 07:04 |
It keeps the color, it keeps the line
breaks, but it's an approximation of the
| | 07:08 |
appearance, and that's not how
you want your job to go to press.
| | 07:11 |
So this is one of those cases where
frankly this font shouldn't have been used,
| | 07:15 |
or if the license allowed it, it
should have been converted to outlines.
| | 07:19 |
So it's a really subtle thing.
| | 07:21 |
I'm going to recommend that you always
turn off that option for Use local fonts.
| | 07:26 |
And that way you sort of don't get
misled, and even if you don't know what that
| | 07:31 |
text is supposed to look like, it
means that when you go into your
| | 07:34 |
File > Properties, then you're going to
see the real story under the Fonts tab.
| | 07:39 |
Now here's a file that was created by
generating PostScript and then distilling.
| | 07:44 |
That's a really old-fashioned way to make PDFs.
| | 07:47 |
There are some people who still cling
to that; there's no advantage to it.
| | 07:51 |
If you have a printer that tells you to
make your PDF that way or a publication
| | 07:55 |
advises you to do that, see if
they can give you a good reason why.
| | 07:58 |
And I think you'll find that their
answer is going to be, well, we've kind of
| | 08:02 |
always done it that way, and I'm willing to
bet that if you just export a PDF, life is good.
| | 08:07 |
But you've seen some previous
versions of this and, boy, what's happened to
| | 08:10 |
this guy right here?
| | 08:11 |
Well, there's some transparency used around him.
| | 08:15 |
And remember I said that
transparency gets flattened?
| | 08:18 |
This is what flattened transparency looks like.
| | 08:20 |
Don't panic though.
| | 08:21 |
It doesn't mean that he is going to
render as some sort of white ghost head there.
| | 08:26 |
If I go back--well, actually the best
way to do this is if I go to Tools and I
| | 08:31 |
turn on my Print Production tools and
I activate Output Preview, there's this
| | 08:37 |
wonderful option for simulating overprinting.
| | 08:39 |
It's a long story what's going on here,
but InDesign has had to sort of take
| | 08:44 |
this thing apart and reassemble it
as it went out the door in PostScript.
| | 08:48 |
PostScript doesn't support live transparency.
| | 08:51 |
And the trick it uses to mimic the live
transparency with opaque stunt doubles, if you will,
| | 08:55 |
is that it uses overprint.
| | 08:58 |
So when we look at it here using Output
Preview, you can see that it actually is
| | 09:02 |
okay as long as this job is sent to an
imaging device that honors overprint.
| | 09:07 |
Now some lower end digital devices like
perhaps your in-house printer, maybe you
| | 09:12 |
have a little proof printer, that may
not honor overprint, so you could get some
| | 09:16 |
weird-looking output.
| | 09:17 |
But when it goes to a high-end device,
your high-end digital or the front end
| | 09:21 |
for the plate makers for offset
presses, everything is going to be okay.
| | 09:25 |
So it freaks you out when you see it,
but it's actually going to be okay.
| | 09:29 |
It's just sort of evidence of what
goes on when InDesign and Illustrator does
| | 09:33 |
the same thing when they
have to flatten transparency.
| | 09:35 |
And then one last thing, I mentioned
that you should not send PDFs out into the
| | 09:40 |
world if they are intended for
print with any kind of security setting.
| | 09:44 |
So this looks just fine, but when you
look up here in your tools, you'll see
| | 09:48 |
that a number of them are grayed out.
| | 09:50 |
It's saying that, well, you can't print it.
| | 09:52 |
I can't put comments.
| | 09:53 |
Let's find out what our settings are.
| | 09:55 |
So if I go to File > Properties and I
check the Security, it didn't require a
| | 10:02 |
password to open it, but it has a
password to protect the permissions that have
| | 10:06 |
been restricted on it.
| | 10:07 |
So it says no, you can't print it, you
can't change it in any way, you can't
| | 10:12 |
copy any content out of it,
you can't take a page out.
| | 10:15 |
So that's appropriate if you're sending
important information to somebody in the field.
| | 10:19 |
It's not appropriate when you're
creating a PDF that's going to go to print
| | 10:24 |
because as I mentioned earlier, some
parts of the print workflow are going to
| | 10:27 |
reject this PDF if it has any
kind of security attached to it.
| | 10:32 |
So the scenario is that you're on the
receiving end of these PDFs and you want
| | 10:36 |
to find problems before you pass them
on as part of your project and they get
| | 10:41 |
handled by the printer.
| | 10:42 |
So in the case of PDFs with problems
that you didn't create, you always go back
| | 10:47 |
to the original creator of the file,
ask him to fix the problems, submit you a
| | 10:51 |
new PDF that you can use,
and be sure it's going to work.
| | 10:54 |
And security, this one last thing,
you want to make sure that they send you
| | 10:58 |
a PDF that has no security on it and
it should behave through the rest of
| | 11:02 |
the workflow.
| | 11:03 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Output Preview| 00:00 |
When you receive a PDF and you want to
check to see if perhaps there are some
| | 00:04 |
problems with it, your best set of
tools is really the print production tools.
| | 00:08 |
When you click Tools though, print
production tools aren't available by default.
| | 00:13 |
So to open them, go up to this little
tiny icon at the upper right and choose
| | 00:18 |
the Print Production tools from the list.
| | 00:21 |
And so here are your Print Production tools.
| | 00:23 |
I recommend that you start with Output Preview.
| | 00:27 |
It gives you a lot of
information right off the bat.
| | 00:29 |
So we immediately realize
that we have four spot colors.
| | 00:32 |
You can pretty much tell where they are,
but here's a good way to double check.
| | 00:36 |
Turn the little checkmark off and on.
| | 00:39 |
You can see that the barrel of the
paintbrush uses the 7571, the bristles of the
| | 00:44 |
paintbrush in some instances are using
the 485, and then the two blues are used
| | 00:51 |
in the bodies of these two bears.
| | 00:52 |
Now this is a demo file, this would be
sort of an absurd file to print, but it's
| | 00:57 |
a great way to show you the
capabilities of the Print Production tools and the
| | 01:01 |
Output Preview feature in particular.
| | 01:03 |
There's some other things
that I can have it show us.
| | 01:07 |
If I come up here to Show, I can say,
hey, show me if any of these are CMYK.
| | 01:12 |
So it hides everything that's not CMYK.
| | 01:14 |
So you might think that this is
grayscale, Acrobat thinks of it as being CMYK
| | 01:19 |
but just being black only.
| | 01:21 |
And notice when I roll my cursor over it,
look at the numbers next to the plates
| | 01:25 |
over here in Output Preview.
| | 01:27 |
You can see that I'm only
getting numbers next to the black.
| | 01:30 |
And if I scroll over this little guy over
here, it's going give me all the CMYK values.
| | 01:35 |
By the way, the Sample Size down
here by default is a Point Sample.
| | 01:39 |
I recommend that you
change it to at least the 3x3.
| | 01:43 |
You might want to use the 5x5.
| | 01:45 |
But that way, you're not picking on
just one little renegade pixel that
| | 01:48 |
doesn't represent the area.
| | 01:50 |
So when I move this out of the way, you
can see, okay, those are my CMYK components.
| | 01:54 |
So we suspect that some of them
are spot, so I can say, hey, show me
| | 01:59 |
everything that's spot color.
| | 02:01 |
So that would be these two little bears. Gee,
| | 02:04 |
why is this little beret spot,
we don't have the spot black.
| | 02:07 |
I'm going to find out about that in a minute.
| | 02:09 |
I'm going to ask it to
show me everything that's RGB.
| | 02:12 |
So it does a really good job of
selectively showing you stuff, but think if
| | 02:17 |
it were little bitty details in a very complex
page, it might be sort of hard to pick these out.
| | 02:23 |
If you're trying to do that, well,
we're going to take a look at the preflight
| | 02:27 |
possibilities later on.
| | 02:28 |
Keep in mind that Output Preview is a
visual check and it relies on you to
| | 02:32 |
sort of pay attention.
| | 02:33 |
So let's look at some of the other
ways that we can look at this page.
| | 02:37 |
Under Color Warnings, I'm
going to go back to show me all.
| | 02:41 |
In the Color Warnings, let's see if
there's anything that's set to Overprint.
| | 02:45 |
Nope, apparently not, nothing lights up.
| | 02:48 |
Let's see if there's anything
considered rich black. Ah, this is.
| | 02:52 |
Now a lot of blue going on in the page.
| | 02:55 |
If I find that that blue highlight
isn't really obvious, I can click on this
| | 02:59 |
little color block next to the Rich
Black checkbox and I can pick another color
| | 03:03 |
to use for the indicator.
| | 03:05 |
I'm going to go for the
bright green. All right!
| | 03:08 |
So if I scroll back over these, I have
to just sort of remember where they are.
| | 03:12 |
If I go back to Separations, if I
scroll over this little black beret, look at
| | 03:16 |
the total area coverage over
there in Output Preview, 800%.
| | 03:19 |
How is that possible?
| | 03:21 |
Well, that's because somebody used
registration as the color of the beret.
| | 03:26 |
And I always tell people, don't use
registration either in Illustrator or InDesign.
| | 03:30 |
It's not a color to be used in the page.
| | 03:33 |
And what registration does is put
in 100% of every printing plate.
| | 03:37 |
So you can see it's 100% of every color.
| | 03:40 |
That's not a rich black;
| | 03:41 |
that's an opulent black and that's
an area that frankly just wouldn't
| | 03:45 |
print correctly on press.
| | 03:47 |
So that's a big heads-up there.
| | 03:50 |
An Object Inspector is a sort of
a core sample of what's going on.
| | 03:54 |
So if I click here, it tells me that
it's DeviceRGB and it gives me color values
| | 03:59 |
in sort of an odd way, but
it's in percentages of 1.
| | 04:03 |
If we come down on the rich black beret,
it says, well, it's 7690 and then it's
| | 04:08 |
filled with everything else.
| | 04:10 |
That's why it says ColorSpace:
| | 04:12 |
Separation, All, and this
is PANTONE 7690 and so forth.
| | 04:17 |
Now let's look at one more little part of this.
| | 04:20 |
If I click over here, this is actually an image.
| | 04:22 |
Everybody else is made out of Vector Art,
but this little guy is a Photoshop guy
| | 04:26 |
and so it will actually tell me the
resolution of this, so it tells me that it's
| | 04:31 |
340.909 pixels per inch.
| | 04:34 |
So this is about the only way I
know of to find out the resolution of
| | 04:40 |
placed image parts.
| | 04:41 |
Now you can do it through preflight,
but this is a way to do it visually.
| | 04:45 |
So these are great little forensic tools for
finding out what's wrong with this picture.
| | 04:50 |
Now you have to keep in mind that
there's a limit to what you can fix in Acrobat
| | 04:55 |
and in subsequent movies I'm going to
show you some of the things that you can
| | 04:59 |
fix and I'm also going to demonstrate
the difficulties in trying to fix some
| | 05:02 |
simple things like text.
| | 05:04 |
And that's because you should consider
a PDF as sort of a sealed final product.
| | 05:09 |
The ideal is that you
don't try to take a PDF apart.
| | 05:12 |
It should be a healthy PDF with good
content and you shouldn't have to repair it.
| | 05:17 |
But we all know how it is in real life,
people can send you things with problems.
| | 05:21 |
So at least this first step using
Output Preview, which is part of the Print
| | 05:25 |
Production tools, at least
you can start to find problems.
| | 05:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dealing with display artifacts| 00:00 |
This has probably happened to you,
you've received your PDF and it has
| | 00:04 |
these white lines in it.
| | 00:06 |
So you can see above my cursor there's
this white line that looks like a gap,
| | 00:10 |
and you can see a little bit
down here and one on the left.
| | 00:13 |
So I'm going to tell you that that
white line is not going to image when
| | 00:17 |
this job goes to press.
| | 00:18 |
And I'm going to explain to you why it's there.
| | 00:21 |
First, I want you to take a look at
this pinwheel on the right and this text.
| | 00:25 |
They look nice and smooth, don't they?
| | 00:27 |
That's because they are vector art, you know
that vector art is always going to print smoothly.
| | 00:31 |
I'm going to go to my Preferences,
now on Windows it's going to be under
| | 00:35 |
Edit > Preferences, and in the left-hand
column choose Page Display. Notice this
| | 00:40 |
Smooth Line Art. This is an
option that's on by default.
| | 00:44 |
When I uncheck it, and I click OK, hey, my
white lines are gone, that's great. Oh!
| | 00:49 |
But now my vector art looks really pixelated.
| | 00:52 |
So here is what's going on.
| | 00:53 |
Acrobat by default wants to smooth
line art and make it look nice on screen;
| | 00:58 |
wants it to look the way it's going to image.
| | 01:01 |
But why it makes the white line?
| | 01:03 |
Well, it's a little bit more complex.
| | 01:04 |
I'm going to go back to Preferences,
turn that default setting back on, and we
| | 01:08 |
see the white line return.
| | 01:10 |
This job uses transparency. You can see
the glow around the guy, and coming out
| | 01:16 |
of InDesign when this PDF was
made it was set to Acrobat 4.
| | 01:19 |
It is a PDF/X-1a file.
| | 01:22 |
Acrobat 4 doesn't support live
transparency, so InDesign has to sort of take
| | 01:26 |
the file apart and reassemble it in a form
that is understood by these older workflows.
| | 01:32 |
So the white lines are where little
segments touch each other, so it's had to
| | 01:36 |
sort of cut apart that purple
background and reassemble it.
| | 01:39 |
They touch each other; there's no gap.
| | 01:42 |
But what's happening is that Acrobat is
trying to soften that intersection where
| | 01:46 |
those two pieces touch, and it's doing
the same thing that it's doing around the
| | 01:49 |
vector artwork on the right-hand page.
| | 01:52 |
So it's trying to make things look
better but one of the unfortunate side
| | 01:55 |
effects is that you see
this illusion of white lines.
| | 01:57 |
And I say illusion
because it's not going to print.
| | 02:01 |
So just know in your heart everything is
fine, but here's another thing to consider.
| | 02:05 |
If you're sending a PDF to a client,
you don't want them to see those white
| | 02:09 |
lines because you'll have to go
through this big long explanation, have them
| | 02:12 |
change their settings,
and that's really annoying.
| | 02:15 |
So if you're using transparency in
InDesign or in Illustrator for that matter,
| | 02:20 |
when you go to make a PDF to send to
a customer just for approval, make it
| | 02:24 |
Acrobat 5 or above because those
versions support live transparency, there's no
| | 02:28 |
flattening that takes place, and they'll
see no artifacts onscreen and then you
| | 02:33 |
won't have to explain to them.
| | 02:35 |
But if you're submitting the PDF/X-1a
file, which is Acrobat 4 flavored, to the
| | 02:39 |
printer, just know that even though
you see these lines onscreen, they're
| | 02:43 |
just a display artifact in Acrobat; they are
not something that's going to image on your job.
| | 02:48 |
So now you know where they come
from and you know how to hide them.
| | 02:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using TouchUp tools| 00:00 |
There are some limitations to what you
can repair in a PDF, so let's look at
| | 00:05 |
some of the repair tools.
| | 00:06 |
Now the two handiest ones don't appear
by default in your toolbar, but it's easy
| | 00:11 |
to put them up there.
| | 00:12 |
If you right-click, and on a Mac
of course you can Ctrl+Click and you
| | 00:16 |
choose Quick Tools.
| | 00:18 |
Here on the left, under Content, Edit
Object and Edit Document Text, so I'm
| | 00:24 |
going to choose Edit Document Text,
hit the little triangle to add it to my
| | 00:28 |
Quick Tools and, of course, Edit Object, and
when I click OK, I now have two new tools up here.
| | 00:35 |
So first, let's look at editing text.
| | 00:37 |
I'm going to choose my Edit Text tool.
I'm going to come down here and my goal
| | 00:42 |
here is to change this ampersand to
the word "and," so I highlight it and when
| | 00:47 |
I type "and" Acrobat sort of hollers at
me and I get this alert. It says, well,
| | 00:53 |
that uses a font that's
not available on my system.
| | 00:57 |
So the truth is that since I don't
have the font I'm not going to be able to
| | 01:01 |
edit this text the way I'd really like to.
| | 01:04 |
Now I can change the font, but
that's really going to change the design.
| | 01:07 |
So this is something that you're
frequently going to see when you try to fix
| | 01:11 |
somebody else's PDF.
| | 01:13 |
Now if you want to change
the font, here's what you do.
| | 01:16 |
Then I'm going to have to change
this whole line, so I'm going to select
| | 01:19 |
the whole line. I'm going to right-
click and choose Properties, and I'm
| | 01:24 |
going to change the used font to
something that I know that I do have on my
| | 01:28 |
system, MyriadPro-Regular.
| | 01:29 |
Now it's going to change the look of it,
but if I want to change that ampersand
| | 01:34 |
to "and," that's what I'm going to have to do.
| | 01:36 |
And this is something important
to check: Can I embed that font?
| | 01:40 |
Because here's an interesting thing,
when you use any program to make a PDF, all
| | 01:45 |
the fonts that are embedded in that PDF
carry with them little flags that say I
| | 01:49 |
can be embedded or I cannot be embedded
or I can be embedded for creation of the
| | 01:54 |
PDF but I can't be used for editing,
and it's going to vary from font to font
| | 01:58 |
because it's based on what the
font vendors put in the font.
| | 02:02 |
And that's why if you've tried this it
may seem to you that sometimes it works
| | 02:06 |
and sometimes it doesn't.
| | 02:07 |
Well, it depends on the particular font.
| | 02:09 |
So when I click Close I've now changed the font.
| | 02:12 |
So let's see if I can now convert that
ampersand to the word "and." Yes, I can,
| | 02:17 |
but of course it's using a different
font from the font used in the rest of that
| | 02:21 |
address, but it might just bail
me out if this job is on deadline.
| | 02:25 |
Let's see what happens if I have a
font that does allow itself to be
| | 02:28 |
embedded and edited.
| | 02:30 |
So up here on the left I'd like to
change this to Roux Academy, so I just click
| | 02:35 |
with my Edit Text tool, type Academy.
| | 02:39 |
Notice what happens. Acrobat thinks of
this line by line. It does not think of
| | 02:44 |
this text as a paragraph.
| | 02:46 |
We see it that way, but under the hood
in Acrobat it's really just seen as a
| | 02:50 |
succession of characters.
| | 02:52 |
So you can imagine the fun this would be
to go through and convert each line, to
| | 02:57 |
force my own little line breaks there;
I'm going to lose my justification.
| | 03:01 |
Truthfully, the message here is that
any time you try to edit text in an Acrobat
| | 03:05 |
file, it's really going to be a
challenge. Sometimes you get lucky, but I want
| | 03:09 |
you to expect these strange results,
because frankly that's most of the time
| | 03:13 |
what's going to happen.
| | 03:15 |
But oddly, you're going to have better
luck trying to edit graphics in a PDF.
| | 03:19 |
So let me choose the TouchUp Object tool,
and let's say that this logo up here,
| | 03:24 |
I don't have the original file, I
need to change the color of the logo.
| | 03:28 |
If I drag a little marquee around it, you
can see all the little teeny selection blocks.
| | 03:32 |
If I right-click, I'm going to see this
option, Edit Objects, because it's vector art.
| | 03:39 |
Acrobat says, well these are
objects and so those ought to be opened in
| | 03:43 |
Illustrator and it gives you a little warning.
| | 03:45 |
It says, well, there is some transparency
in there. Basically the short story is,
| | 03:49 |
well, you're playing with fire
here; things could fall apart.
| | 03:51 |
I thought I should warn you.
| | 03:52 |
Well, there it is in Illustrator, so I'm
just going to select this and I'm going
| | 03:58 |
to change the color, just as a
way to show you what goes on.
| | 04:01 |
I'm going to go to Edit > Edit Colors >
Recolor Artwork, switch it to the Edit mode,
| | 04:07 |
lock all my little colors together,
and then we're just going to swing these
| | 04:11 |
nodes around the spectrum and
you can see that it's changed.
| | 04:14 |
Now before I save this, I
want to point out something.
| | 04:17 |
Look up in the title bar. It has
this bizarre name, sort of a random
| | 04:21 |
construction of numbers, dot pdf.
| | 04:24 |
So here's what I've just done, I've
gone into the PDF and I've selected these
| | 04:28 |
little components that are vector art
and I've sort of duplicated them, come out
| | 04:32 |
to Illustrator and changed them.
| | 04:34 |
When I choose File > Save;
| | 04:36 |
what happens is that Illustrator
communicates that back to Acrobat. You think
| | 04:40 |
nothing has happened, but then when you
switch back to Acrobat, you can see that
| | 04:44 |
it's changed the color.
| | 04:45 |
Here's a little thing to consider too.
| | 04:47 |
While I'm in Illustrator, I have
extracted that vector component. What if I
| | 04:52 |
need this logo and it's been lost by
somebody and the only vestige of it is
| | 04:57 |
what's in that PDF?
| | 04:59 |
As long as I have it here in Illustrator I
can do a File > Save As, and I have vector art.
| | 05:04 |
So this is a way to extract vector art
from a PDF if you can't get it any other way.
| | 05:10 |
What if I have an image that I need to fix?
| | 05:12 |
Well, I'm going to come down here, and
again, I'm using my TouchUp Object tool
| | 05:16 |
and I want to change the color of
this guy's shirt and again, you only do
| | 05:20 |
desperate things like this if you have
no access to the original. It's always
| | 05:23 |
better to go back to your original file,
make the changes you need to make and
| | 05:27 |
then generate a new PDF.
| | 05:28 |
But let me show you what
you can do with an image.
| | 05:31 |
I'm going to right-click and this time
notice that it says Edit Image, because
| | 05:35 |
Acrobat recognizes it's made out of
pixels and it says well to do that I'm going
| | 05:39 |
to have to send this off to Photoshop.
| | 05:41 |
It gives me another little warning,
it says, it's using transparency and it
| | 05:44 |
might look different, do
you want to edit anyway?
| | 05:47 |
Well, yeah I have to
change the guy's shirt to green.
| | 05:49 |
So when I click Yes, I also get this,
now this is an important consideration.
| | 05:54 |
I have sort of snuck into the PDF,
grabbed that image content, and I'm taking it
| | 05:58 |
out, going to sneak it over
to Photoshop and change it.
| | 06:01 |
In order to slip it back into
the PDF it has to be flattened.
| | 06:05 |
So you can add layers to correct it, but you
have to flatten it before you send it back.
| | 06:09 |
When I say flatten notice that this
is a floating layer, so it's not really
| | 06:13 |
a flat image, but to send it back
to Acrobat, I have to send it back in
| | 06:18 |
exactly the same shape.
| | 06:19 |
So I'm going to come over here to my
Adjustments panel and I'm going to get a
| | 06:23 |
fix on my little hue/saturation, but
I want to apply it only to his shirt.
| | 06:27 |
So I'm going to get my Quick Selection
tool and I'm going to drag around on his
| | 06:32 |
shirt and select it.
| | 06:33 |
Now if I were doing this for real, of course
I would be very careful making my selection.
| | 06:37 |
What I really want to show you
here is just sort of that relationship
| | 06:40 |
between Acrobat and Photoshop, so
I'll be good enough to take out this
| | 06:45 |
little tripod there, there we go.
| | 06:47 |
Now, coming over to my Adjustments panel,
I'm going to choose Hue/Saturation and
| | 06:51 |
I'm just going to change the color of his shirt.
| | 06:53 |
Well, let's make it green, there we go,
maybe back off on the saturation a little
| | 06:59 |
bit, and that's good enough.
| | 07:02 |
But remember I can't send it back to
Acrobat this way. I have to sort of squish
| | 07:07 |
it down, so I'm going to say
that I want to merge these layers.
| | 07:11 |
So I'm going to hold down Shift, select
both my hue/saturation and my layer 0,
| | 07:15 |
and in the Layers panel I'm
going to choose Merge Layers.
| | 07:19 |
So it keeps the transparency, but now it's
just the way it was when I took it out of Acrobat.
| | 07:24 |
Again I want you to look at the title,
it's this random name, and this is what's
| | 07:29 |
called a Touchup image or a Touchup file,
and member that if I needed this image
| | 07:33 |
I could save this, although any
background that was gone because of a layer
| | 07:38 |
mask that's gone forever, but at
least I have the image and it's full
| | 07:42 |
resolution. But what I want to do here
of course is communicate back to Acrobat
| | 07:45 |
that I've changed this. All I have to do
is choose File > Save and Photoshop talks
| | 07:50 |
back to Acrobat and says here comes
your new image content, and there we go.
| | 07:55 |
So here's the irony. It's really easier to
fix graphics in a PDF than it is to fix text.
| | 08:00 |
And keep in mind that using the
TouchUp tools not only can change content and
| | 08:05 |
it's safe to do this, it writes it back
into your PDF. But remember it's also a
| | 08:09 |
great way to extract content if you
need something like an image or a piece of
| | 08:13 |
vector art that you can't find anywhere else.
| | 08:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Converting colors| 00:00 |
When I first opened this PDF, I see
some things that might be a problem.
| | 00:04 |
These two bears ought to match, but
the bear on the left has darker arms and
| | 00:08 |
legs than the bear on the right.
| | 00:10 |
So let's see what's going on.
| | 00:12 |
First, I am going to open up my Print
Production tools and then I am going to
| | 00:16 |
choose Output Preview.
| | 00:17 |
And that ought to be a great step for you.
| | 00:20 |
Any time you open up a PDF from
somebody else if you suspect there might be
| | 00:23 |
problems, it's always good to check.
| | 00:25 |
Now here is some confirmation. I have two
dark blue Pantone colors and I have two reds.
| | 00:29 |
So let's see what's used where.
| | 00:32 |
When I turn off the checkmark by 7700,
that's why the bear on the left doesn't
| | 00:36 |
match the bear on the right.
| | 00:38 |
Those parts of the bear
really should be using 7690.
| | 00:40 |
And then where are my two reds?
| | 00:43 |
I'll turn off the 7626. Ah,
| | 00:46 |
that's used in the bristles on the
brush of the left and the 485, which is the
| | 00:51 |
correct color, that's used by the bristles
in the brush held by the bear on the right.
| | 00:55 |
So I need to combine the 7690 and the
7700 into the correct ink, which is 7690.
| | 01:02 |
And I need to combine my two spot reds into 485.
| | 01:05 |
But while I am in the neighborhood,
you should check for something else.
| | 01:08 |
Now my printer has told me that they want
a PDF that has CMYK image content not RGB.
| | 01:13 |
So let's see if we have any RGB.
| | 01:17 |
Sure enough our photographer is RGB.
| | 01:19 |
So that's something I'll need to fix.
| | 01:22 |
To fix the spot colors I'm going to use
Ink Manager, so here's a little link to
| | 01:26 |
Ink Manager right here and when I
click that I get up a little dialog that's
| | 01:30 |
going to let me map the wrong
spot colors to the right spot colors.
| | 01:34 |
Now my display looks a little out of whack
here, so we are going to just go by the numbers.
| | 01:39 |
My 7700 that's the incorrect
blue; 7690 is the correct blue.
| | 01:45 |
So I select 7700 and I tell Acrobat I
want you to map that to alias it to the
| | 01:50 |
correct PMS color, which is the 7690.
| | 01:54 |
And you can see this little
indicator. It says I am going to do that.
| | 01:57 |
And then the wrong red is the 7626.
| | 02:00 |
Again, I am going to tell it to alias
the wrong color to the right color, which
| | 02:04 |
is 485, and we see the little indicator.
| | 02:06 |
Now when I click OK, first let's take
a look back here in my Output Preview,
| | 02:11 |
you can see the extra colors are
still there, but when I click OK in Ink
| | 02:14 |
Manager they go away.
| | 02:17 |
And Acrobat is going to combine those.
| | 02:19 |
However, Acrobat doesn't combine them
until I use a second process, which is
| | 02:24 |
called Convert Colors.
| | 02:25 |
But that's also going to let me
convert my RGB guy to a CMYK guy.
| | 02:31 |
So it remembers what I asked it to do in Ink
Manager, but now I have to sort of make it real.
| | 02:36 |
So when I choose Convert Colors (if you
look at the bottom and this is easy to
| | 02:40 |
overlook), it says, hey, according to
Ink Manager you also want me to do this
| | 02:44 |
remapping; that's great.
| | 02:45 |
So I've said here that Any Object, Any
Colorspace, whatever it is convert to the
| | 02:50 |
output profile, and in this case,
it's going to run on a web press.
| | 02:54 |
This is the default here and so
all I really have to do is click OK.
| | 02:58 |
So it's a big confusing dialog box, but
the short story is that if you've made
| | 03:02 |
any choices in Ink Manager, Convert
Colors is going to exercise those choices
| | 03:07 |
and then anything else that falls
outside this color space, which is CMYK, it's
| | 03:12 |
going to convert to CMYK.
| | 03:14 |
So let's see what happens.
| | 03:16 |
When I click OK, it says this can't
be undone, do you want to proceed?
| | 03:21 |
I click Yes and you can see a
little color change over here.
| | 03:25 |
Let's double check.
| | 03:26 |
I go back to Output Preview,. It's
gotten rid of my extra blue and it's gotten
| | 03:30 |
rid of my extra red.
| | 03:31 |
This is great and let's see if
it's fixed my RGB photographer.
| | 03:35 |
I ask it to show me any RGB. That's gone.
| | 03:38 |
If I'm paranoid, and printing will make
you paranoid, I want to double check and
| | 03:42 |
make sure that he is CMYK, and he is.
| | 03:45 |
So now when I save this file all my color
problems have been fixed. This is great.
| | 03:50 |
So remember Output Preview lets you
find the problems; Ink Manager lets you map
| | 03:54 |
one spot color to another, or if you
need to it can turn a spot color to process.
| | 03:59 |
And then none of that really comes
true until you use Convert Colors that
| | 04:03 |
exercises what you've asked for in Ink
Manager and it's going to convert any RGB
| | 04:07 |
content to your target CMYK profile.
| | 04:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using preflight profiles| 00:00 |
Acrobat ships with a wide variety of
preflight profiles, and preflight is just
| | 00:05 |
trying to find out what's
wrong with this picture.
| | 00:08 |
So under the Prepress topic,
I'm going to choose Magazine Ads.
| | 00:13 |
Now I could choose Analyze and Fix,
but I'm just going to choose Analyze.
| | 00:17 |
And when I choose Analyze and set
Acrobat in motion, it finds a lot of problems.
| | 00:22 |
First of all, it says it's not
compliant with PDF/X-1a, although that
| | 00:26 |
doesn't mean that it wouldn't image correctly,
but it just feels compelled to tell me that.
| | 00:31 |
But now I see some things that I
know are going to cause problems.
| | 00:33 |
It says that I have low-resolution images.
| | 00:36 |
So when I click on the little triangle
next to that error entry, then I can find
| | 00:40 |
out which images are causing the problem.
| | 00:42 |
When I click on this little icon,
nothing happens until I press Show in Snap,
| | 00:47 |
and I realize Show in Snap doesn't make
any sense until you find out that this
| | 00:52 |
is called the Snap View.
| | 00:53 |
So as I click on one of the other icons,
I'll see the other images causing a problem.
| | 00:59 |
This is nothing that I can fix in
Acrobat, I have low-resolution image content.
| | 01:03 |
So either the original image was low
resolution or perhaps the PDF was made with
| | 01:08 |
a setting that downsampled the
image so that it's not appropriate.
| | 01:12 |
So I can't fix this here but at least
I know what the problem is and I can
| | 01:17 |
communicate back to the creator of this
file and hopefully they can fix the problem.
| | 01:21 |
But there is another issue that people
often want to fix, and this is going to
| | 01:26 |
require me to create my own preflight profile.
| | 01:28 |
So here I have a PDF that has the
trim marks, bleed marks, all the page
| | 01:33 |
information, and I want to just
trim it off just to the very trim.
| | 01:37 |
So again nothing built into Acrobat
that will do this but I can fix this myself
| | 01:41 |
by creating what's called a Fixup.
| | 01:44 |
So this third little icon up here that
looks like a little wrench that gives you
| | 01:48 |
the list of built-in fixups I know you
tend to think of fixing as being separate
| | 01:52 |
from preflighting, but in Acrobat's
mind they all fall under the same topic.
| | 01:57 |
So under Options here, I'm going to
tell Acrobat I want to create a new
| | 02:01 |
preflight fixup, and I'll just call this
CroptoTrim, and what I need is under the
| | 02:08 |
Pages topic, so in this left-hand
column I choose Pages and then I'm going to
| | 02:13 |
scroll all the way around and
choose Set page geometry boxes.
| | 02:18 |
So this only works if the
application that created this PDF put in their
| | 02:23 |
information that identifies where
the trim is and where the bleed is.
| | 02:26 |
It's not just that it's visible to us,
it's actually invisible information in
| | 02:30 |
the PDF that identifies those edges.
| | 02:33 |
So what I want Acrobat to do is crop
this page at that TrimBox, and the way you
| | 02:40 |
tell it that is backwards I think from
your logic, so the source, in other words
| | 02:44 |
what I want to have controlled is my CropBox.
| | 02:47 |
The destination, which to me
is the source, is the TrimBox.
| | 02:51 |
So I'm going to say that I wanted to
crop it off to where the trim is indicated
| | 02:55 |
internally in the file.
| | 02:57 |
Yes, I know this is backwards but just
remember that it's backwards and that'll
| | 03:00 |
help you when you try to make your own fixups.
| | 03:03 |
When I click OK, now I just have
the recipe but I haven't run it yet.
| | 03:08 |
So there's my new little CroptoTrim
fixup that I made, when I press the Fix
| | 03:12 |
button, it's going to ask me where I
want to save this because it's going to
| | 03:17 |
make a permanent modification to the file.
| | 03:19 |
And when it's done, look,
it's trimmed it off to trim.
| | 03:22 |
So do keep in mind that this only works
if the PDF has the trim area correctly
| | 03:27 |
identified within the PDF.
| | 03:28 |
But InDesign and Illustrator both do that.
| | 03:31 |
So remember that preflight can help you
find problems that would be hard to find
| | 03:35 |
by just looking at the file, and fixups
can fix some problems, and both of those
| | 03:39 |
together can save you some time.
| | 03:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
14. Wrapping It UpSubmitting the job| 00:00 |
When it's time to submit your job for
print, the printer will tell you how they
| | 00:03 |
want you to supply the files.
| | 00:05 |
If they ask you for native files,
here are some considerations.
| | 00:09 |
InDesign's native file format is INDD,
and you need to use File > Package in order
| | 00:14 |
to gather up all the fonts and all the
graphics that are used by the file. Just
| | 00:18 |
sending the printer the
InDesign file isn't sufficient.
| | 00:20 |
So you want to give them all those
necessary files just in case they need to
| | 00:24 |
make some modifications.
| | 00:25 |
Of course this can end up with a
large file size because InDesign files
| | 00:29 |
themselves are a little large, and if
you have a multiple page document and has
| | 00:33 |
lots of images in it; that total
collection could be kind of large.
| | 00:37 |
If you're working in Illustrator and
Illustrator's AI format is your final file format.
| | 00:42 |
You have to keep in mind that
Illustrator doesn't have a built-in collection
| | 00:46 |
feature as InDesign does.
| | 00:47 |
So that means it's up to you to
remember to include any images that are
| | 00:51 |
linked to the Illustrator file or if
you want to, you can also embed them in
| | 00:55 |
the Illustrator file.
| | 00:56 |
I am a fan of linking images because
it's impossible to unembed images that
| | 01:01 |
have been embedded in an Illustrator
file, and if there is a chance that an
| | 01:06 |
image needs to be retouched or color-
corrected that's much easier if you have
| | 01:09 |
the linked file as a separate file.
| | 01:11 |
And of course you have to remember to
include any necessary fonts, in other
| | 01:14 |
words everything the printer needs to
re-create what you did in Illustrator.
| | 01:18 |
If you're using QuarkXPress, Quark's
native file format could be either a QXD or
| | 01:23 |
a QXP file depending on the
version that you're using.
| | 01:27 |
Quark has a Collect for Output feature,
and that will gather up all your fonts
| | 01:30 |
and all your placed graphics, and again
that gives the printer all the necessary
| | 01:34 |
files if they need to make some modifications.
| | 01:37 |
If your printer asks for a PDF, the
wonderful thing about PDFs is that they
| | 01:41 |
contain all the necessary information
for print. You don't have to worry about
| | 01:45 |
gathering up images and gathering up
fonts because everything is within the PDF,
| | 01:49 |
and usually that's a smaller total
file size than a collection of support art
| | 01:54 |
and fonts as you'd have with a page layout file.
| | 01:57 |
But there is a downside to PDFs, they
are difficult to edit, sometimes it's
| | 02:01 |
impossible to fix something that's
wrong with a PDF and they're unusable if
| | 02:05 |
they're incorrectly created.
| | 02:07 |
For example, if you've used low-
resolution images or the file has been
| | 02:11 |
created the wrong size.
| | 02:13 |
Most printers will suggest that you
submit both packaged native files and a
| | 02:17 |
print-ready PDF. That way if the
PDF is perfect, they are ready to go.
| | 02:21 |
If there are problems, then they have
the original file and they can make
| | 02:24 |
repairs, and the truth is, there is
no such thing as too much to work with.
| | 02:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Being a good print customer| 00:00 |
I hope that during this course, you've
picked up some things that are to make
| | 00:03 |
you a better print customer.
| | 00:05 |
Always communicate with your printer.
There are absolutely no stupid questions,
| | 00:09 |
and more information is
better than not enough information.
| | 00:13 |
Always remember that printing is a
physical process and you have to consider
| | 00:17 |
both the possibilities and the limitations.
| | 00:18 |
I want you to be realistic and as
time goes by you will develop a sense of
| | 00:23 |
what's possible in print and what's not.
| | 00:26 |
Always be curious. If your printer
says they have to fix a problem with your
| | 00:30 |
file find out why, find out how they
fixed it, and then you can prevent that
| | 00:34 |
problem in the future.
| | 00:35 |
If the printer has had to change
any of your files to accommodate their
| | 00:39 |
printing process, ask for a copy of
those corrected files, and look at them and
| | 00:42 |
see what they did and maybe you can have a
head start with the next job you submit to them.
| | 00:47 |
Always be available for questions
during the life of the print job and keep in
| | 00:50 |
mind that the more you know the
better print customer you are.
| | 00:54 |
After all, you want your printer to be
glad to see you come through the door.
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ConclusionNext steps| 00:00 |
In this course, I hope you've
learned some useful concepts to make your
| | 00:04 |
printing life easier.
| | 00:05 |
I really think that until you've seen
paper fly through a press at 30 miles an
| | 00:09 |
hour, it's sort of hard to imagine the
complexity of the printing process, and
| | 00:13 |
that's why I've frequently tell
designers they really should arrange to tour a
| | 00:17 |
printing plant and see how
everything fits together.
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In fact some printers even offer
customer education days to provide an
| | 00:24 |
opportunity for customers to learn
more about the whole process, and I'd
| | 00:27 |
encourage you to attend such an event.
| | 00:30 |
There are a number of lynda.com
titles to help you sharpen your skills in
| | 00:33 |
the popular design programs and
Designing a Brochure Hands-On Workshop with
| | 00:38 |
Nigel French is a great overview of
designing and preparing projects for
| | 00:42 |
print and finishing.
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But in the long run, one of your
best teachers for the concepts of print
| | 00:47 |
production is going to be your own experience.
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You're going to learn something new
with each print job; what works, what
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doesn't, what not to do. And don't
forget, your printer can be both your guide
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and your partner in that adventure.
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