Color Issues

• When creating gradients or blends, be aware of the limitations of postscript. Banding can occur in Illustrator or Quark generated blends depending on the colors and length of the gradation.

• Create gradations in Photoshop and add some noise to diminish possible banding.

• When printing spot colors, disable process separation in Quark's Edit/Colors menu. In FrameMaker move the PMS color into the spot color column in the Print menu/print separations dialog box.

• In Quark, when creating CMYK colors, enable process separations in Edit/Colors menu. Colors created in CMYK mode without process separation checked will separate as a spot color.

• When creating CMYK colors, name the colors based on their components and shade ie: M50, Y20.

• In FrameMaker apply color to text with the paragraph or character designer, this is the only way to make a global color change if needed.

• In FrameMaker, only graphic elements that are on a reference page and set up as a property of a paragraph format can have the colors changed on the reference page and updated where it is used.

• All scans should be saved in CMYK mode for film output.

• Spot colors will process separate when created in Photoshop in CMYK or RGB mode. Files that contain only the PMS color can be created in duotone mode using the monotone model.

• Gradations created in Photoshop that consist of a PMS blending to a process color (ie: PMS #314 to Yellow), must be created as two process colors to correctly output two pieces of film (ie: created as cyan and yellow).

• When creating gradations or blends remember how each program handles color separation:
  
  Quark Gradations:
  

  * PMS to PMS separates correctly - 2 plates generated
  * PMS to one process color separates correctly - 2 plates generated
  * PMS to white separates correctly - 1 plate generated
  * PMS to 2 process colors (70M, 30Y - separation on), separates correctly - 3 plates generated
  

  Illustrator Gradations:
  

  * PMS to PMS separates correctly - 2 plates generated
  * PMS to white separates correctly - 1 plate generated
  * PMS to one process color - generates process plates
  

  Illustrator Blends
  

  * PMS to PMS - process separates
  * PMS to white - process separates
  * PMS to process - process separates