Chicago InDesign User Group

Meeting Notes Archive

Thursday, September 16, 2004
InDesign® User Group Meeting
Digital Bootcamp
Host: Mike Carruth

Topic

Color Management

Presenters: Ben Greiner and Chris Youngstead from Forget Computers

Our fall meeting was a welcome reunion after the summer break, and a packed house it was. We now have a new host for our meetings at Digital Bootcamp, with the gracious support of “Commander-in-Chief” Mike Carruth. Our speakers from Forget Computers took a quick tally of the number of people using CMS (color management systems). Only a small number of hands went up. Ben Greiner launched the CMS discussion with an attractive slide presentation.

Most important term of the evening: delta-e, which measures the variance between colors that are intended to be “identical” in some perfect world, but are in fact visibly different when compared in various states — the raw image data from a particular digital camera, a digital scan of a printed image from a particular scanner, the image as displayed on a particular monitor, or the output to a particular printer. Each device puts a particular spin on the color. A delta-e of “1” is a very close color, while a delta-e of 8 is not at all close. Within the graphic arts industry, anywhere from a delta-e of 2 to 6 is considered acceptable. Your tolerance for color differences will be heavily influenced by decisions regarding those old practicalities — time and money!

Here are some salient points from the presentation:

The goal of CMS is not necessarily “perfect-match” color but consistent “acceptable” color.

The variables that CMS works with are 1) the profiles of each input and output device (the particular way a device skews color compared to the CIE mathematical definitions), 2) the viewing box used to evaluate color, and 3) the training given to those who will work with color differences.

Necessary steps to CMS: “Think” in RGB, calibrate and profile your devices, create appropriate color settings in Photoshop®, get people involved and trained, and talk to your vendors. It is possible to stay with an RGB workflow today, although many high-end CMS clients prefer to stay with the tried-and-true CMYK workflow.

CMS is not on by default in Adobe apps. You must turn it on in each program. The location is the same in all applications — Mac: [application] menu > Color Settings or Win: Edit > Color Settings. Check the box at the top: Enable Color Management. Use Adobe RGB 1998 for you, monitor display settings and US Prepress Defaults for output. All Adobe applications let you preview CMYK while working in RGB.

Since CMYK has a smaller color gamut (number of possible colors using a particular device or color space), don’t convert colors from CMYK back to RGB — you’ll have less than you started with, if that start was in RGB.

If you have a well-functioning CMS in place, you can trust your monitor to soft-proof color.

Jim Cooper finished off the meeting with some hot tips for using grids and guides by employing effective plugins for InDesign from WoodWing.

Notes by Eda Warren, Adobe Certified Training Provider and Adobe Certified Expert on InDesign CS.

go-training.com
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