Tips and Tricks

Color Background Accuracy?

Just recieved first book and thought in general looked good. I’m a seasoned designer of 35 plus year, so I know something about printing. I chose 6-8 differnt backgrounds throught 80 page book and was generally happy with most color matches. I was not happy with light colored tints, in partichlar a clolor I wanted to look tan. That color was defintely heavey on the green side. I just ran a sample of this color on my good color printer and it was closer to color I was looking for. So I’m wondering is ther some better way to figure out actual printed colors from the custom color making on book smart? Like a PMS book that translates percentagaes of color mixes. I was told by booksmart people that various background colors were not a high concern. However I was told by book smart users don’t mess with colors. Stay with B & W or grey. Anyone have any ideas? I wish you could talk this through with a real person!!

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Posted by
markopolo
Aug 29, 2007 10:30pm PDT
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markopolo
 

I’m a designer for 17+ years. Color is one of my specialties and I’ve been on press more times than most designers have.

You say you are a seasoned designer too, so my suggestion would be to make sure that you increase hte Yellow so that your color doesn’t turn green. Sounds like there was too much Cyan.

To obtain a nice red, use 100%M and 100%Y with a hint of Cyan (not black). This way the Magenta and Yellow are pretty even to begin with. You may even want to add a little more Yellow and decrease the Magenta since the Yellow is a lighter additive color.

This is how I do it for all my publications whether they print on a printing press or digital printer.
Posted by
qwiss13
Aug 30, 2007 1:34pm PDT
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qwiss13
 

Thanks for reply qwiss. I agree with you on using 1005M & 100%Y to achieve a solid red. I’m not sure if light tints @ off whites can really be controlled in this process. If you could type in actual % of process color that would help. I believe that a tan color can shift because of paper and the smallest of color adds and subtractions. Is it possible that book-smart people ever thought of supplying printed samples of color tints and their formulas? I will sleep on this for awile before I reprint. I could always not try for light colored tints and use the basics, save color tints like solids.
Posted by
markopolo
Aug 30, 2007 8:56pm PDT
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markopolo
 

Yes, my book had light tinted backgrounds and the colors were way off and my home printer did an almost perfect match. I couldn’t get answer as to how to remedy this problem so I decided to live with the printed colors and changed one very bad one making it more on the peach side because it went way too yellow. I think all the printing was shifting to the greens for the backgrounds and some of the pictures. Another problem was the trims were way off….margins large on the bottom and small on the top even though they were set up centered. I’m getting a reprint but I was not reassured that this wouldn’t happen again so I made the images slightly smaller so it wouldn’t look so much like a layout mistake. I’m waiting for the reprint.
Posted by
teresamallen
Sep 2, 2007 10:10pm PDT
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teresamallen