Creative Session Three

Creative Session Three

This is how you would set up for commercial print in InDesign & also how to use colour?

When working with multiple pages then this is the software to use.



Recap on the InDesign setup:

Number of Pages: If you are working on the booklet and using a saddle stitch binding then you have to work in multiple of four. It's not only the content that we need to know but we need to know how it is going to be bound.

Facing Pages: This is so two pages will face each other and display them as a spread in screen. This is useful on magazines or booklets.

Start Page Number: You can automatically number the pages. This allows you to say that the first page is going to be 3, then the third page of your document will be number one.

Primary Text Frame: If you are working with a multiple page document and you have text on all pages. This will put a text frame on every single page of your document.

Page Size: This is what your designing and the finished printed trimmed size of what you are going to produce.

Width & Height: You are much more likely to type in width & height than using in a standard page size.

Columns: You don't have to use this as if yet as it will help with layout but can add afterwards.

Gutter: Is the space between the columns! IF YOU DON'T NEED TO USE THESE THEN YOU JUST LEAVE AS 1 COLUMN.

Margin: If this is a fixed page then this will help you design the same on every page. White space is good!


If you click more options:

Bleed: To compensate for the inaccuracies for the final trimming. 3mm is a standard amount. But that us not set in stone.

Slug: This is the outside area of the page used for printer marks and folding marks. The area is trimmed off once everything has been printed.

 This will allow you change this once you have set up your document.

This will allow you change all the details above after you have made your document.

This is by default that it will be on the right side of the screen or get to it by using the window tab at the top then colour and swatches palette. This is a lot simpler than photoshop & illustrator. 
This is the list view in which we had to chose this formulae on photoshop as it shows you the ink mixtures too. 





To apply colour in InDesign is exactly the same as adding colour in illustrator. 

When working with text you are working with text you have an additional option of adding colour.

There is an option to add an outline to text although this would effect legibility as you can see below.

This is the swatches palette menu you need to add a new colour swatch here is how we do that:

These values are very important. In illustrator we came across what this little grey square represented next to your CMYK info values are, this means

There is also the same way of how you add the swatches to the bank and also use pantone swatches too i which there is always a field where you can search for codes. Until you type a number into the field then the spot colour will not change.

This how you create a tint of a colour. It will show you what percentage that the tint is too here is how you do it:

What do we need to pay attention to when working in InDesign so that thinks work when been sent to print.

In Photoshop:

• CMYK this is colour mode in photoshop it is best to work in RGB while working on the screen.
• Actual Size: You need to work to the actual size it is going to be.
• Resolution has to at 300dpi
• File Type has to be saved as a tiff. or psd. NEVER as a jpeg. as you will lose image quality. If you want to keep your layers in photoshop save it as a psd. but if you want the background to be transparent then you have to work with a psd.

In Illustrator:

• CMYK - The colours that have been applied to the artwork.
• If you are working with vectors they are infinitely scalable.
• Save as ai. it is possible to copy and paste in InDesign as you can do this with illustrator.

When putting an image in InDesign you cant make it smaller or bigger in InDesign due to the process that InDesign has to do to make it decrease all the images need to be smallened in photoshop to the actual size. 

When we open a new document our swatch palette will refresh itself.

So we need to place the image on the page by:

This will come up and you have just have to click where you want it to be placed.

Now I have placed this image the ink colour has added to my colour palette at the side. So you can work with the same two spot colours.

This is the spot colours that have been use in this image have been added to my swatches.

To add a file to your page you need to place it not open as this is the way you add any other file in InDesign.

The file is low quality when we place images, this is due to the images been linked and therefore you can manage the images within the InDesign document and means we can edit them in photoshop & illustrator and they will automatically update. And the InDesign document doesn't become too large with all the information.

If you get any messages about an embedded profile it is just because it has been made in an older version than the one we are using. And therefore the software has updated and has slightly changed and therefore there is a mismatch.




So here you can see the spot colours have been added to our swatch palette from the document we have just loaded. This separates your layout to the individual inks. 

For a CMYK print, we would get four printouts this is due to the separations and these are exactly the same as the positives as you use for the screen printing process.

This document will have 5 separations one for each of the process colours and one for each of the spot colours.

We can see these by going to:

This looks very similar to the swatches colour palette.


By changing this to seperations so you can click each option. The image has now enlarged in quality.

Also the overprint menu can separate the colours.

You can see each positive that is been produced and also how they build up. These will be used to make a printing plate. InDesign is using the colour channel information to display how CMYK positives are going to work.

The black is just added to key everything together.

If you have any swatches that you don't use it would be good practice to delete is as this could get sent to the printers and then it would get printed but it would be a blank print but you would get charged for it.


To take this view off just got to:

The main choices are in the output options:
This is the choice about how the separations about how we are going to print them.

A composite print is whatever you see on the screen is whatever is going to come out of the printer. 

The separations option is what the printer would use. You inks section will become activated below. Here we can see the same inks which where in our separation palette. There is a little print option at each of the inks and here we can turn them off & on. Then if I clicked print now it would print out those five print separations.


These are to do with half tones these are how you print tints of a colour. When your working with half tones you have 

Frequency: This is the dots per inch, this is how corse or fine your print is. The typical value of frequency is between 133 & 175 dots per inch.
Angle: If you are working with multiple inks printing one on top of each other, If you your CMYK printing and each of those are printed half tone. And each one of those is printing so they don't interferrence pattern as this will get an interference of dots. So to prevent this appearing on the print each of the dots are printed in a aparticular angle. 

Moirè Pattern

if you are working with solid colours then you wouldn't have to use these. 

Attributes palette is about knocking out. These are object specific, you have to select a shape or object. 

In the overprint preview I would see how these two inks are going to mix.

You have to turn up the transparency.

You would use this for spot varnish. You can just use a spot colour and tell the printer not to print this pantone colour and apply as varnish.

Although, you can see here that it has knocked out the background of the writing onto the picture white and therefore this would not work as an overlay. As on the separations palette when I select all the colours but not the spot varnish one then is taken away from the image.

If I turn off my overprint preview then it just looks normal. So if you are doing pot varnishes or any overlay printing make sure you have overprint selected.