Preparing artwork for color separating, Print color separations – Adobe Illustrator CS3 User Manual
Page 410
ILLUSTRATOR CS3
User Guide
404
See also
“About process colors” on page 98
“About spot colors” on page 97
Preparing artwork for color separating
Before you print color separations from Illustrator, it’s a good idea to perform the following prepress tasks:
•
Set up color management, including calibrating your monitor and selecting an Illustrator Color Setting.
•
Soft-proof how color will appear on the intended output device.
•
If the document is in RGB mode, choose File > Document Color Mode > CMYK Color to convert it to CMYK Mode.
•
If your artwork contains color blends, optimize them so that they print smoothly (without discrete bands of color).
•
If your artwork requires trapping, set up appropriate overprinting and trapping.
•
If your artwork contains areas of transparent, overlapping colors, preview which areas will be affected by flattening
and note which flattening options you want to use.
Use the Live Color dialog box to globally convert and reduce colors. For example, if you want to convert a process
color document to a 2-color spot document use the Assign portion of Live Color, and specify which colors you want
and how they are assigned to existing colors.
See also
“Printing and saving transparent artwork” on page 417
“Reduce colors in your artwork” on page 122
“Set up overprinting” on page 425
“About color management in Adobe applications” on page 130
Print color separations
1
Choose File > Print.
2
Select a printer and PPD file. To print to a file instead of a printer, select Adobe PostScript® File or Adobe PDF.
3
Select Output on the left side of the Print dialog box.
4
For Mode, select either Separations (Host-Based) or In-RIP Separations.
5
Specify an emulsion, image exposure, and printer resolution for the separations.
6
Set options for the color plates you want to separate:
•
To disable printing of a color plate, click the printer icon
next to the color in the Document Ink Options list.
Click again to restore printing for the color.
•
To convert all spot colors to process colors, so that they are printed as part of the process-color plates rather than
on a separate plate, select Convert All Spot Colors To Process.
•
To convert an individual spot color to process colors, click the spot color icon
next to the color in the
Document Ink Options list. A four-color process icon
appears. Click again to revert the color back to a
spot color.