How to work with colour
CMYK - printing inks
- when printed onto paper, they're not opaque inks, mix on the paper
- different percentages will give you combinations which will produce most of the colours needed for print
- subtractive colours, results in an absence (black)
- process colours: refers to CMYK, the inks used in the commercial print process
Working in Illustrator
*Make sure the settings are colour mode CMYK*
CMYK = colour for print
RGB = colour for screen
- best desktop and interface for colour critical work is grey
- to apply colour to a vector shape use the fill and stroke colour keys, the colour palette, or the swatches palette
- the swatches palette allows for consistency throughout your work
- swatches have a default set of colours, but it is much more likely you will create your own specific swatches for the work you are creating
- want to set up and create your own swatch palette in order to produce something that is relevant to the work - clear out all swatches by selecting and dragging to the bin icon
- registration swatch is for trim and crop marks, as well as registering different colours that have been applied
Adding new swatches
- use the colour palette to set different colour ink percentages using CMYK
- go to colour palette menu on the far right, then create new swatch
- swatch name = ink percentages, swatches should now be named using their process ink percentages, not just 'yellow' etc
Changing the appearance of the swatch palette
- menu > small list view
- square on the right hand side confirms colour mode and process that you're working in
Other alternative
- Use colour palette to apply colour to your artwork as you create it
Other alternative
- go to colour palette menu > add used colours
- this will look at any colour you have used on your page on your artwork and this will create a swatch for each colour
*percentages of ink mixture can be changed by double clicking on the swatch*
- the swatches made using 'add used colours' is a global swatch...any colour using this will be automatically updated if the swatch is changed
- using the colour palette you can change the tint of one specific colour swatch so you can have a variety
Commercial print process: creating and applying colour
Spot colour
- printed with an ink which isn't made up of CMYK
- pot of ink that is that colour, not process colours
- can make things look luminous
- fluorescent and metallic inks
- enable us to print colours that we can't with just CMYK
- can control how the inks interact with each other during the print process
- cost considerations: one printing plate, one pass through the printing press, significantly cheaper - save an awful lot of money
- can get colours consistently the same all over the world - half a percentage difference in a CMYK mixture would create a whole different colour
- consistency main reason to specify and use spot colour
- e.g. Pantone, brand of spot colour, with reference numbers
Access to spot colour libraries
Pantone pastels and neons uncoated
- you can search for a specific pantone if you find it in the printed library
Copying your swatch library into a new document
- save swatch library as AI
- save in swatches folder, which is in library folder inside home folder
- this can then be opened from the menu in a new document, swatch menu > open swatch library > user defined
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