Tài liệu InDesign CS5 Bible- P6 pptx

Defining Colors, Tints, and GradientsIN THIS CHAPTERGetting acquainted with color terminology Making sense of process and spot colors Working with color models in InDesign Defining colo

3 Type the distance between grid lines in the Gridline Every field If your basic

mea-surement unit is an inch, you probably want to use the default value of 1 inch

4 Type the number of divisions between grid lines in the Subdivisions field If your

basic measurement unit is an inch, you can specify a value of 6 to subdivide the grid into 1-pica squares Or, if you prefer, you can type a value of 4, 8, 16, and so on to subdivide the grid into standard divisions of an inch

5 Click OK to close the dialog box and return to the document.

and grids when you drag them in the snap zone To specify the snap zone (the distance — in pixels —

at which an object snaps to a guide), choose InDesign ➪ Preferences ➪ Guides & Pasteboard or press Ô+K on the Mac, or choose Edit ➪ Preferences ➪ Guides & Pasteboard or press Ctrl+K

in Windows, and type a value in the Snap to Zone field in the Guide Options section of the dialog box

Setting the snap zone is just the first step You must turn on the snap-to feature in InDesign as well for whichever elements you want to snap to:

l For guidelines and baseline grids, be sure Snap to Guides is turned on Choose View ➪ Guides & Grids ➪ Snap to Guides or press Shift+Ô+; (semicolon) or Ctrl+Shift+;

(semicolon) Note that the guidelines must be visible for objects to snap to them; to make them visible, choose View ➪ Guides & Grids ➪ Show Guides or press Ô+; (semicolon) or Ctrl+; (semicolon), but the baseline grid need not be visible

l For document grids, be sure that Snap to Document Grid is turned on Choose View ➪ Guides & Grids ➪ Snap to Document Grid or press Shift+Ô+' (apostrophe) or Ctrl+Shift+' (apostrophe)

In both cases, if the menu option has a check mark to its left, it is turned on Choosing it toggles between turning on and off the snap-to feature

Summary

If you want to be a true InDesign expert, you must take advantage of four of its most powerful

fea-consistency across documents A master page is a preformatted page design that you can apply to document pages in a multipage publication; a template is a preconstructed document that serves as the starting point when you need to create multiple versions of the same publication; a library is a storage file in which you can save any object you’ve created with InDesign for use in other publica-tions; and a style is a saved set of formatting that you can apply to items to guarantee consistency, both when you apply the style and when you modify the style to ensure all items with the style applied are updated automatically.

To help you place and align objects, InDesign lets you create three types of guidelines: ruler guides, the baseline grid, and the document grid You can also move the column guides that InDesign creates automatically for you You can show or hide guidelines, and you have the option

to snap object edges to guidelines when you click and drag them in the specified snap zone

Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients

IN THIS CHAPTERGetting acquainted with color terminology

Making sense of process and spot colors

Working with color models

in InDesign Defining colors and tints Mixing colors

Importing colors from files Sampling colors from images Understanding color issues

in imported graphics Working with gradients Editing, copying, and deleting swatches

Applying colors, tints, and gradients

Whether you want to produce limited-run documents on a color

printer, create newsletters using spot colors, publish magazines and catalogs using process colors and special inks, or produce documents to be distributed electronically on computer screens, InDesign offers the tools that you need to do the job well

In printing, color is a complex issue, which involves both physics and istry The inks that produce color are designed chemically to retain those colors and to produce them evenly so that your images don’t look mottled or faded How light reflects off of ink and paper to your eye determines the color you see, and many factors (particularly different textures of paper) can affect the physics of how the light carries the color

chem-You also have implementation issues to consider: How many colors can your printing press produce, and how much will it cost? When do you decide to

go for the exact pure color, and when do you decide to go with a close enough version that costs less to print?

For on-screen use, color is easier to deal with, because what you see as you

do your layouts matches what the readers will see on their screen — the exception being that Web browsers may not show the same color subtleties for HTML pages you create in InDesign as can be displayed on-screen in Flash and PDF files

After you have figured out what your color capabilities are, you can get into the nitty-gritty of actually using color in your graphics or applying colors to text and layout elements (such as bars along the edge of a page), or you can use color both ways To a great extent, where you define and apply color

Chapter 29 covers color matching and other high-end color-output issues in depth This chapter concentrates on how to create and apply colors within InDesign n

Defining Color Terms

Color is an expansive (and sometimes confusing and esoteric) concept in the world of publishing

The following definitions, however, should start you on your way to a clear understanding of the subject:

l Build: Attempts to simulate a color-model color by combining the appropriate

percent-ages of the four process colors

l CMYK: A standard that specifies colors as combinations of cyan, magenta, yellow, and

black These four colors are known as process colors.

l Color gamut: The range of colors that a device, such as a monitor or a color printer, can

produce Each color model has a different color gamut

l Color model: An industry standard for specifying a color, such as CMYK or Pantone.

l Color separation: A set of four photographic negatives, one filtered for each process

color, shot from a color photograph or image When combined, the four negatives duce that original image

repro-l Color space: A method of representing color in terms of measurable values, such as the

amount of red, yellow, and blue in a color image The color space RGB represents the red, green, and blue colors on video screens

l Four-color printing: The use of the four process colors in combination to produce most

other colors

l Lab: A standard that specifies colors by one lightness coordinate (indicating luminance, the

intensity of the light) and two color coordinates, green-red and blue-yellow The name refers to the mathematical approach used to describe the colors in a cubic arrangement:

luminance, a-axis (green-red), and b-axis (blue-yellow); thus the term Lab Note that you may see the term CIE Lab in other programs and in some design books; it’s the same thing

as Lab; CIE means Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage (International Committee on

Illumination), the international standards group that created the Lab specification

l Process color: Any of the four primary colors in publishing — cyan, magenta, yellow,

and black (known collectively as CMYK)

l RGB: The standard used by monitors, and the abbreviation from the three colors in it:

red, green, and blue One of the biggest hurdles to producing color documents that look

as you’d expect is that computers use RGB whereas printers use CMYK, and the two don’t always produce colors at the same hue

l Spot color: A single color applied at one or more places on a page, such as for a screen or

as part of an illustration You can use more than one spot color per page Spot colors can also be process colors

l Swatchbook: A table of colors collected together as a series of color samples The printer

uses premixed ink based on the color model identifier you specify; you look up the bers for various colors in the table of colors in a swatchbook

num-l Web-safe colors: A palette of 216 RGB colors that browsers display the same way on

pretty much any color monitor, ensuring color fidelity The Web-safe palette comes from

an era when monitors displayed perhaps thousands of colors, not the millions of today, so there’s less of a reason to stick with Web-safe colors for HTML (Web) documents as there had been in the 1990s; but do note that if you use other RGB colors in Web pages, differ-ent browsers may display them slightly differently from each other, eliminating or distort-ing some of the subtleties you see on your screen when laying out the pages

Note

Until 2008, Pantone offered a six-color, high-fidelity variant of CMYK called Hexachrome InDesign never ported this Pantone standard, but you may have files that use Hexachrome colors Pantone used to sell soft- ware called HexWare that added Hexachrome output capability to Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator If you import Hexachrome-containing color libraries from those programs into InDesign, those Hexachrome colors appear as InDesign color swatches n

sup-Understanding Process and Spot Color

This section briefly explores the differences between spot and process colors, the two primary ways

of indicating color in print documents

Identifying methods of color printing

Several forms of color are used in printing, but the two most prevalent ones are process color and spot color

Process color is the use of four basic colors — cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (known collectively

as CMYK) — mixed to reproduce most color tones the human eye can see A separate negative is

produced for each of the four process colors This method, often called four-color printing, is used

for most color publishing

Note

As with CMYK colors, RGB and Lab colors are created by mixing colors; however, InDesign refers to RGB and Lab colors as mixed colors, leaving the term process color for CMYK because that’s an industry-standard term

Spot color is any color ink — whether one of the process colors or some other hue — used for

spe-cific elements in a document For example, if you print a document in black ink but print the

com-pany logo in red, the red is a spot color A spot color is often called a second color even though you

can use several spot colors in a document Each spot color is output to its own negative (and not color-separated into CMYK) Using spot color gives you access to special inks that are truer to the desired color than any mix of process colors can be These inks come in several standards and include metallics, neons, and milky pastels You even can use varnishes as spot colors to give lay-out elements a different gleam from the rest of the page Although experienced designers some-times mix spot colors to produce special shades not otherwise available, you probably won’t need

to do so

There are several advantages to spot colors You can use colors like metallic inks that are ble to create with CMYK Also, your printed results will be more consistent than with CMYK sepa-

impossi-rations, which can suffer from color shift (variation in the hue produced) over the length of a long

printed piece But spot colors work only in objects that have distinct, continuous hue, such as a solid brick red, that can be printed with just one ink To produce any image with multiple colors, such as a photograph, you need to use multiple inks, and because printing presses can traditionally print only four to eight colors on a page, you have to mix colors to create the range of hues in such multicolor objects

Tip

If you create spot colors, I suggest that you include the word Spot as part of the name so that you can quickly tell in a panel or menu whether a selected color will print on its own plate or be color-separated InDesign does use an icon to tell you whether a color is process or spot, as well as what color model (CMYK, RGB, or Lab) in which it was defined (see Figure 8.1 later), but often it’s easier to see the word than a tiny icon n

Note

Adobe programs, including InDesign, show that spot colors such as Pantone, Toyo, and DIC (Dainippon Ink &

Chemical) are based on the CMYK color model, even though they’re not It doesn’t really matter because if you print them as a spot color, they get their own plate and your printer uses the actual Pantone, Toyo, or DIC ink

And if you color-separate them into process colors, you get the CMYK values shown in the Swatch Options log box; or you can hold the mouse over the color name in the Swatches panel (if the Tool Tips option is enabled in the Preferences dialog box, as described in Chapter 3) n

dia-Mixing spot and process colors

Some designers use both process and spot colors in a document in a procedure known as using a

fifth color Typically, the normal color images are color-separated and printed using the four

pro-cess colors, whereas a special element (such as a logo in metallic ink) is printed in a spot color The process colors are output on the usual four negatives; the spot color is output on a separate, fifth negative and printed using a fifth plate, a fifth ink roller, and a fifth inkwell You can use more than five colors, however; you’re limited only by your budget and the capabilities of your printing

Converting spot color to process color

InDesign can convert spot colors to process colors This handy capability lets designers specify the colors they want through a system with which they’re familiar, such as Pantone, without the added expense of special spot-color inks and extra negatives Conversions are never an exact match, but guidebooks are available that can show you in advance the color that will be created And with sev-eral Pantone and HKS variations, designers can pick a Pantone or HKS color that color-separates predictably

You can set InDesign to convert some spot colors in a document to process colors while leaving others alone: Just use the Color Mode pop-up menu in the Swatch Options dialog box, covered later in this chapter (For example, you can keep a metallic silver as a spot color so it prints with a metallic ink, rather than be converted to a grayish color that is the closest the CMYK colors can produce to simulate a silver However, you would convert common colors such as deep blue, pur-ple, and green to process colors, because the CMYK inks can combine fairly accurately to repro-duce them.) You can also leave all spot colors as spot colors or convert all spot colors to process colors

Caution

Colors defined in one model and converted to another may not reproduce exactly the same because the ics underlying each color model differ slightly Each model was designed for use in a different medium, such as with paper or on a video monitor n

phys-Working with Color Models

Once you understand color terminology and the difference between process and spot colors, you can start thinking about the type of colors you create in InDesign (You define colors in the Swatches panel, as described later in this chapter.) The color models fall into two broad classes:

l Those that let you define a color by selecting a color from a color wheel (which represents a spectrum of available colors) or by entering specific values for the color’s constituent colors

(the colors that make up the color), which include CMYK, RGB, Lab, and Multi-Ink

l Those that have a predefined set of colors, which you select from a palette of swatches

These swatches include ANPA (American Newspaper Publishers Association, now called the Newspaper Association of America, or NAA), DIC (Dainippon Ink & Chemical), Focoltone, Trumatch, 13 variants of Pantone, eight variants of HKS, and two variants of Toyo There are also two sets of colors meant for use on computer displays and a third for use on the Web Plus, you can add additional palette sets

Note

adjec-Keep in mind that the colors shown are only on-screen representations; the actual colors may be different The differences are particularly noticeable if your monitor is running in 8-bit (256 hues) color mode Check the actual color in a color swatchbook for the model you are using (Art and printing supply stores usually carry these swatchbooks See the sidebar “Using Color Swatchbooks”

for lists of other sources.) You can also calibrate your monitor display with tools from X-Rite (www.xrite.com) and X-Rite’s Pantone subsidiary (www.pantone.com); this keeps the colors

as close as possible to actual output

Tip

InDesign uses the same swatch format as Illustrator, so you can import color models into InDesign created in

or for Illustrator InDesign also supports the Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) format that all Adobe CS2, CS3, CS4, and CS5 applications that have color libraries support for color exchange n

Anyone who uses a lot of color should have a color swatchbook handy You probably can get one at your local art supply store or from your commercial printer (prices typically range from $50 to $100, depending on the color model and the type of swatchbook) If you can’t find a swatchbook, here’s where to order the most popular ones:

l Pantone: Several Pantone swatchbooks are available, including ones for coated and uncoated

paper, and for spot-color output and process-color output If you are converting (called

build-ing in publishbuild-ing parlance) Pantone colors to CMYK for four-color printbuild-ing, I particularly

rec-ommend the Pantone Formula Guide swatchbook series, which also indicates which colors

reproduce well on RGB devices such as computer monitors www.pantone.com

l Trumatch: Based on a CMYK color space, Trumatch suffers almost no matching problems

when converted to CMYK Variants of the swatchbooks for coated and uncoated paper are available www.trumatch.com

l ANPA: Designed for reproduction on newsprint, these colors also are designed in the Lab

color space The NAA’s Web site (www.naa.org) unfortunately has no substantive tion on these colors

informa-l Focoltone: Like Trumatch, this color model is based on the CMYK color space

l HKS: This color model is used mainly in Germany and other European countries, with

vari-Using Color Swatchbooks

Understanding Paper Variation Models

Both the Pantone and HKS color models recognize that the type of paper on which you print affects how a color appears, so their swatch libraries have variations based on popular paper types

Here’s how they work:

l Pantone Process Coated: Use this variant when you color-separate Pantone colors and

your printer uses the standard Pantone-brand process-color inks on coated paper Colors

in this variant have the code DS added before the numerals in their names and the code C

after the numerals.

l Pantone Process Uncoated: Use this variant when you color-separate Pantone colors and

your printer uses the standard Pantone-brand process-color inks on coated paper Colors

in this variant have the code DS added before the numerals in their names and the code U

after the numerals.

Note

The DS code stands for digital SWOP, or Specifications fo r Web Offset Publications, a prepress standard for the web-offset printing process used by magazines, catalog, and most high-run printing presses n

l Pantone Solid Coated: Use this variant when your printer uses actual Pantone-brand inks

(as spot colors) when printing to coated paper stock Colors in this variant have the code

C appended to their names

l Pantone Solid Matte: This is the same as Pantone Coated but for paper with a matte

finish Colors in this variant have the code M appended to their names

l Pantone Solid Uncoated: This is the same as Pantone Solid Coated but for uncoated

paper Colors in this variant have the code U appended to their names

l Pantone Metallic Coated: This contains metallic colors designed for coated papers

(which helps make them shine like metal) Colors in this variant have the code C appended to their names

l Pantone Pastel Coated: This contains pastel colors designed for coated papers (which helps

make them more lustrous) Colors in this variant have the code C appended to their names

l Pantone Pastel Uncoated: This contains pastel colors designed for uncoated papers

(which helps make them have the visual texture of eggshells) Colors in this variant have

l Dainippon Ink & Chemical (DIC): Like Pantone, the DIC color set is a spot-color-based system

l Toyo: Similar to Pantone in that it is based on spot-color inks, this model is popular in Japan

l Pantone Color Bridge Uncoated: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well

with process colors, for use on uncoated paper Colors in this variant have the code U appended to their names

l Pantone Color Bridge Euro: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well with

process colors on European printing presses, for use on any paper Colors in this variant have the code EC appended to their names

l Pantone Solid to Process: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well with

process colors, for use on any paper Colors in this variant have the code PC appended to their names

l Pantone Solid to Process Euro: This contains Pantone solid colors that reproduce well

with process colors on European printing presses, for use on any paper Colors in this variant have the code EC appended to their names

l HKS E: Use this HKS variant for continuous-form stationery Colors in this variant have

the code E appended to their names

l HKS E Process: Use this HKS variant for continuous-form stationery printed with process

colors Colors in this variant have the code E appended to their names

l HKS K: Use this HKS variant for glossy art paper (highly coated) Colors in this variant

have the code K appended to their names

l HKS K Process: Use this HKS variant for glossy art paper (highly coated) printed with

process colors Colors in this variant have the code K appended to their names

l HKS N: Use this HKS variant for natural paper (uncoated) Colors in this variant have the

code N appended to their names

l HKS N Process: Use this HKS variant for natural paper (uncoated) printed with process

colors Colors in this variant have the code N appended to their names

l HKS Z: Use this HKS variant for newsprint Colors in this variant have the code Z

appended to their names

l HKS Z Process: Use this HKS variant for newsprint printed with process colors Colors in

this variant have the code Z appended to their names

Note

When printing on uncoated stock with any colors designed for use on coated stock, you usually get weaker, less-saturated color reproduction n

Defining Colors and Tints

InDesign comes with a few predefined colors: [Black], [Registration] (black on each negative for

New Feature

The six common colors’ names differ based on whether you created your document with a Print or Web intent,

as explained in Chapter 4 If you created a document with a Print intent, the color swatches are based on their CMYK values (so cyan is C=100 M=0 Y=0 K=0, containing 100 percent cyan and 0 percent of the other three process colors, and green is C=75 M=5 Y=100 K=0, containing 75 percent cyan, 5 percent magenta, 100 percent yellow, and 0 percent black) If you created a document with a Web intent, their names are RGB Cyan, RGB Green, and so on This contextual naming is new to InDesign CS5, replacing the old names of Cyan, Green, and

so on Also new to InDesign CS5, the swatches are now set to the CMYK model if you created a print document and all set to the RGB model if you created a Web document; previous versions of InDesign mixed CMYK and RGB colors in the default Swatches panel colors n

Before you can apply any colors — whether to bitmap images or to layout elements such as strokes, text, frames, and shapes — you must first define the colors InDesign offers five ways to create colors: via the Swatches panel, via the new mini-Swatches panel in the Control panel, via the Kuler panel, via the Color panel, and by double-clicking the Fill or Stroke iconic button on the Tools panel You can also import colors from other Adobe programs and from some color images

No matter how you define colors, you have a couple of decisions to make first:

l Do you want to create your own color by mixing basic colors such as red, green, and blue (called RGB and typically used for screen display), or cyan, yellow, magenta, and black

(called CMYK or process colors, and typically used for printing presses)?

l Do you want to use a color from an ink maker such as Pantone or Toyo? These colors —

called spot colors — are typically used as an extra ink on your document but can also be

converted to the standard four-process colors; therefore, they’re handy when you know the color you want when you see it

All of InDesign’s color-creation tools support both process and spot colors, and all have access to the predefined colors such as Pantone and Toyo as well as to the free-form color pickers for mixing CMYK, Lab, or RGB colors If you plan to print the color on its own printing plate, you need to use

a predefined color so that you know the printer can reproduce it If you plan to color-separate a color into the four CMYK plates (so the mix of these four process colors simulates the desired color), it doesn’t matter whether you use a predefined color or make one of your own One advan-tage to using a predefined color is that it’s easy to tell other designers what the color is; another is that you get very close matches if you start with a predefined color and then end up having it color-separated in some documents and kept as a spot color in others

modify a swatch and ensure that all objects using that swatch are updated, and you can delete a swatch and tell InDesign what color to use in its place Furthermore, when you print, you have control over how each color is handled (whether it is printed to its own plate, whether it is printed

at all, and whether there should be any adjustments to its ink density or screening angle) The top

of Figure 8.1 shows the Swatches panel

Show All SwatchesShow Color SwatchesShow Gradient SwatchesCreate New SwatchDelete Selected Swatches

Mixed-ink groupSpot color

Mixed-ink colorLab color

New Feature

InDesign CS5 adds Stroke and Fill iconic buttons to the Control panel If you click the triangle button to the right of either button, a miniature version of the Swatches panel appears It has the same capabilities of the regular Swatches panel, including the same flyout menu — it’s just shorter in depth (Figure 8.1 shows this new mini-Swatches panel.) n

Tip

Because regular black can appear weak when it’s overprinted by other colors, many designers create what ers call superblack or rich black by combining 100 percent black and 100 percent magenta (Some use cyan instead of magenta.) You can define superblack as a separate color or redefine the registration color as 100 percent of all four-process colors, and use that as a superblack Note that superblack should be used only in large areas — using it on type or small objects increases the chances of registration problems for those items n

print-To create your own color, go to the Swatches panel (choose Window ➪ Color ➪ Swatches or press F5) and select New Color Swatch from the flyout menu You get the New Color Swatch dialog box shown in Figure 8.2 Now follow these steps:

1 In the Swatch Name field, give your color a name that describes it, such as Lime

Green or Bright Purple You can also select the Name with Color Value option, which

uses the color values to make up the color name as is done for the swatches in Figure 8.1

This option is available only for CMYK, RGB, and Lab colors, not for swatch-based colors such as Pantone

2 In the Color Type pop-up menu, choose from Process or Spot These are covered

ear-lier in this chapter; leave the color type at Process if you’re not sure

3 In the Color Mode pop-up menu, choose the mixing system or swatch library (both

are considered to be color models) you want to use: CMYK, RGB, Lab, or a

swatch-based model (These are covered earlier in this chapter.)

You can change the appearance of the entries in the Swatches panel (and mini-Swatches panel) by using the three options in the panel’s flyout menu: Name (the default), Small Name (a tighter list view), Small Swatch (no names, just small icons), and Large Swatch (no names, just larger icons)

Also, use the Hide Options menu to suppress the display of the Stroke, Fill, Formatting Affects Container, and Formatting Affects Text iconic buttons and the Tint field and pop-up menu; choosing Show Options brings them back

Finally, you can use the Show All Swatches, Show Color Swatches, and Show Gradient Swatches iconic buttons at the bottom of the panel to control what swatches appear

Personalizing the Swatches Panel

FIGURE 8.2

The New Color Swatch dialog box lets you define colors (At left is the dialog box for CMYK color mixing; at right is the dialog box for the swatch-based spot colors such as Pantone colors.) An identical dialog box named Swatch Options lets you edit them

You can name a CMYK, RGB, or Lab color anything you want (Colors defined in other models use their official names, such as Pantone 147U or ANPA 1732-4 AdPro.) To make it easier to remember what a defined color looks like, you should use either descriptive names (such as Grass Green or Official Logo Blue) or use names based on the color settings Choose one naming convention to keep things consistent

The benefit of using descriptive names is that they have intrinsic meaning, which helps designers choose the right one For example, there’s no confusion that Official Logo Blue is the color to be used for the company logo, but the proper usage of the same color using a name based on its color values won’t be so obvious

The benefit of using color-value names is that designers who do a lot of color work know what that color is Grass Green could be any of several colors, but C=30 M=0 Y=50 K=5 can be only one color

A good strategy is to use the color-value names for all colors — with a twist: For colors that have cific usage, add that to the color name For example, you might use a grassy green for a particular fea-ture article, so you would just name it based on its color values (for example, C=30 M=0 Y=50 K=5)

spe-But your magazine logo color would be named something like Logo C=100 M=100 Y=20 K=25 so that you have a reminder of this swatch’s designated usage

InDesign names colors based on their values automatically if you select the Name with Color Value option and choose Process as the Color Type when you define the color For example, if you create a

color in the CMYK model, you might give it a name based on its mix, such as 55C 0M 91Y 0K for that

grass-green color — composed of 55 percent cyan, 0 percent magenta, 91 percent yellow, and 0 cent black (Believe it or not, this naming convention is how professionals have long specified colors, starting back in the days of paste-up boards.) InDesign’s Name with Color Value option would name

per-this color C=55 M=0 Y=91 K=0 The same system applies to the RGB and Lab models.

How to Decide on a Color-Naming System

4 For the CMYK, RGB, and Lab models, use the sliders to create your new color A

preview appears in the box at left For the swatch-based models, scroll through the lists

of colors and select one

5 If you want to create multiple colors, click Add after each color definition and then

click Done when done To create just one color, click OK instead of Add (The OK

but-ton becomes Done once you click Add.) You can also click Cancel to abort the current color definition

Using Kuler to add to your color swatches

There’s a Web site out there that lets users share palettes of colors they’ve created The idea is to give people with little fashion sense sets of colors that work well together InDesign lets you tap into these colors and add them to your Swatches panel, using the Kuler panel (choose Window ➪ Extensions ➪ Kuler) Note that you must have an active Internet connection to be able to use the Kuler panel

You go to the Browse pane in the Kuler panel and choose from the color swatch palettes — called themes — already there You can use the unlabeled pop-up menus at top and the search field to narrow down your choices Click one you want and then click the Add Selected Theme to Swatches iconic button at the bottom right of the panel Repeat for each theme you want to copy

You can create your own themes in the Create pane (as well as edit an existing theme; click the Edit Theme in Create Pane iconic button in the Browse pane to do so) First, be sure a document is open — you cannot add Kuler colors to the Swatches panel if no document is open, even though you can create swatches in the Swatches panel when no document is open so that they become default colors for all new documents

You start the Kuler theme creation with the Base Color, the one that determines the starting point for the theme and any constraints applied to it Use the color wheel and sliders to select a new value, or drag its current color (the circles) to a new location on the wheel There are also two iconic buttons that let you take the color of a selected object and make that the base color: Add Current Fill Color as Base Color and Add Current Stroke Color as Base Color

To add colors, click the Add a New Color to the Theme iconic button Kuler has a maximum of five colors per theme You can delete a color by selecting it and then clicking the Remove This Color from the Theme iconic button

You can have Kuler constrain your color choices using the Select Rule pop-up menu, which has seven options: Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, Shades, and Custom As you choose each one, you see its effect on your color choices (Custom lets you choose any colors.) You can also constrain color options using the Affect the Other Colors in the Theme Based on a Harmony iconic button; this has Kuler change the colors to what it considers “harmonious.”

You can apply a color at any time to a selected object in your layout by double-clicking the desired swatch in the Kuler panel Note that this does not add the color to the Swatches panel automati-cally, creating the risk of an unnamed color in your document (more about this later in this chap-ter) To add the five colors in the Kuler panel, click the Add Selected Theme to Swatches iconic button at the bottom right of the panel (Note that all Kuler colors are added as RGB colors; you can change these using the Swatch Options dialog box described earlier, as for any color swatch.)You can save the themes and upload them to the Kuler site for other users to enjoy using the Upload Theme to Kuler iconic button, if you have a Kuler account You can also save a theme for later access by clicking the Save Theme button This does not add the colors to the Swatches panel or upload them to Kuler; it does make the theme available in the Browse pane’s filter pop-up menu.

Figure 8.3 shows both the Browse and Create panes of the Kuler panel Not shown is the About pane, which just provides information about the Kuler site, nothing to actually use in InDesign

Creating tints

A tint is a shade of a color InDesign lets you create such tints as separate color swatches, so they’re

easy to use for multiple items The process is easy:

1 In the Swatches panel, just select a color from which you want to create a tint.

2 Using the flyout menu, select New Tint Swatch You get the New Tint Swatch dialog

box shown in Figure 8.4

3 Click and drag the slider to adjust the tint or type a value in the field at right.

4 Click Add to create another tint from the same base color and then click Done when

you’re finished (If you’re adding a single tint, there’s no need to click Add; just click OK

when done Note that the OK button becomes Done once you click Add.) Click Cancel to abort the current tint Any new tint has the same name as the original color with the per-

centage of shading appended to the end of the name, such as Leaf Green 66%.

Note

You can create a tint from a tint, which can be confusing Fortunately, InDesign goes back to the original color when letting you create the new tint Thus, if you select a tint swatch named Leaf Green 66% and move the slider to 33 percent, you get a 33 percent tint of the original Leaf Green swatch, not a 33 percent tint of the Leaf Green 66% swatch (which would be equivalent to a 22 percent tint of the original Leaf Green) n

Add Selected Theme

to Swatches

Add This Theme to SwatchesUpload Theme to Kuler

FIGURE 8.4

The New Tint Swatch dialog box lets you define colors; a nearly identical dialog box named Swatch Options lets you edit them The difference is that, when editing, you can change all the other color values, not just the degree of tint

Tip

You can also apply tints to objects without creating a separate swatch for each tint After applying the color (described later in this chapter), select the object and change the value in the Tint field of the Swatches panel,

or use its pop-up menu’s predefined tint values n

Mixing color swatches to create more colors

InDesign offers another type of color: mixed-ink color Essentially, a mixed-ink color combines a spot color with the default process colors (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) to create new color swatches For example, you can combine 38 percent black with 100 percent Pantone 130C to get a

darker version of Pantone 130C (called a duotone, though InDesign doesn’t limit you to mixing

spot colors with just black, as traditional duotones do)

To create a mixed-ink swatch, select the spot color you want to begin with and then choose New Mixed Ink Swatch from the Swatches panel’s flyout menu (If you have no spot colors defined, you won’t be able to choose this menu option.) You get the dialog box shown in Figure 8.5, in which you select the percentages of the spot color and any or all of the default process colors you want to mix You also give the new color a name Click Add to add another mixed-ink swatch based on the current spot color and then click Done when you’re finished If you’re creating just one color, click

OK instead of Add (if you do click Add, the OK button becomes Done) You can click Cancel to abort the current mixed-ink color definition

mixed-as you do in the New Mixed Ink Swatch dialog box This feature is handy to create a palette of ors within a color range by mixing several colors in different amounts, as well as to create color

col-combinations known as duotones (a spot color traditionally mixed with black) and tritones (two

spot colors traditionally mixed with black)

However, you do more than simply mix the colors In this dialog box, you specify an initial tint for each color you want to mix, then how many times you want to create a color using it, as well as the increment of color for each creation This can be confusing, so I walk you through the options in Figure 8.6

The spot color Fire Orange is chosen with an Initial value of 50 percent, a Repeat setting of 3, and

an Increment of 20 percent Also chosen is the Process Black swatch, with an Initial value of 0 cent, a Repeat setting of 3, and an Increment of 10 percent This combination creates 16 mixed-ink swatches, as shown in the Swatch Preview section (click Preview Swatches to display the preview colors in the Swatch Preview section of the dialog box)

per-InDesign uses the settings and first mixes 50 percent of Fire Orange with 0 percent Process Black

That’s one swatch Then it mixes 50 percent of Fire Orange with 10 percent of Process Black ing the increment of 10 percent) It does so two more times, for 20 and 30 percent of Process Black mixed with the 50 percent of Fire Orange because there was a Repeat setting of 3 (Note that InDesign stops at 100 percent saturation even if the Increment results in a higher number.)

(add-So that’s four mixed-ink swatches based on 50 percent of Fire Orange InDesign now repeats this

pro-value can’t exceed 100 percent, so even though the math would make Fire Orange be 110 percent for this final set of swatches, InDesign caps the value to 100 percent So that’s a total of 16 swatches.

Creating colors the risky way: Using the Color panel

Many people may try to use the Color panel (choose Window ➪ Color ➪ Color or press F6) to define colors, but that can be a mistake At first, you may not realize you can create colors from the Color panel It shows a gradation of the last color used and lets you change the tint for that color

on the current object, but if you go to the flyout menu and choose a color model (RGB, CMYK, or Lab), you get a set of mixing controls (see Figure 8.7)

So what’s the problem? Colors created through the Color panel don’t appear in your Swatches

First, you can’t modify them later in the Swatches panel if you want to adjust the color for all objects using them.

Tip

You can double-click the Stroke and Fill iconic buttons on the Tools panel or Control panel to create colors, using a Photoshop-style color picker, in the Color Picker dialog box In the Color Picker dialog box, you can add any colors created this way to the Swatches panel using the Add CMYK Swatch button (in Print-intent doc- uments) or Add RGB Swatch button (in Web-intent documents) Otherwise, you run the same risk as creating colors through the Color panel (You can also add all unnamed colors to the Swatches panel by choosing Add Unnamed Colors in the Swatches panel’s flyout menu.) n

FIGURE 8.7

The Color panel

Second, you can’t specify the color to print as a spot color, which you might later decide is how you want to print a particular color They print only as process colors and do not show up in the list of colors in the Color pane of the Print dialog box (see Chapter 31 for more details on this)

No matter how disciplined you are, chances are that you will get unnamed colors in your document

Fortunately, InDesign provides several ways to identify and convert those unnamed colors to swatches you can then edit, apply, and manage consistently:

l If you go to the Color panel and modify a color without thinking about it, choose Add to Swatches from the flyout menu to add the modified color to the Swatches panel

l Choose Add Unnamed Colors from the Swatches panel’s flyout menu, which adds all unnamed colors in one fell swoop

l Drag an unnamed color from the Fill iconic button or Stroke iconic button on the Tools panel

or Control panel onto the Swatches panel to create a swatch

l Use the Find/Change dialog box’s Object pane to find unnamed colors in the Fill and/or Stroke panes in the Find Object Format Options dialog box and replace them with actual swatches (See Chapter 11.) Note that this does not convert an unnamed color into a swatch

Managing Unnamed Colors

That’s why it’s best to think Swatches panel when you think about adding or editing colors instead

of the more obvious Color panel — and even better is to remove the Color panel from your user

interface by clicking its Close box so that you aren’t tempted to use it

Importing and sampling colors

InDesign lets you add colors to your document from other sources, such as importing swatch files, adding colors from imported graphics automatically, and letting you sample a color from an imported image

Importing swatches

You can import colors from other InDesign, Illustrator, and Illustrator EPS files by choosing Load Swatches from the Swatches panel’s flyout menu Plus, you can also import colors from Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) library files this way, which all Creative Suite applications that have color libraries can export From the resulting dialog box, navigate to the file that contains the colors you want to import, select that file, and click Open

You can also import an Illustrator color library, adding its set of swatches to InDesign To do so, create a new swatch as described earlier in this chapter In the New Color Swatch dialog box, choose Other Library from the Color Mode pop-up menu You get a dialog box from which you select the color, tint, or gradient swatch library file in the old Adobe Illustrator 8 format (.ai or

.eps) (You can’t use Illustrator’s patterned swatches, but don’t worry if the swatch file contains them: InDesign simply ignores them.)

Importing colors from graphics

When you import a graphic file in EPS format or in PDF, any named colors (swatches) in that file are automatically added to the Swatches panel, but sometimes the colors won’t print accurately from InDesign:

l Even though InDesign does not offer Hexachrome swatch libraries, it does retain any Hexachrome colors in an imported PDF file These Hexachrome colors print as CMYK if you print from InDesign; note that many Hexachrome colors do not print properly when converted to CMYK However, if you export your InDesign file to a PDF file, those

l Colors in imported EPS files may not print as expected (you can minimize this chance by using popular programs such as the latest versions of Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw)

One of three things can happen:

l Each color prints on its own plate (as if it were a spot color), even if you defined it as a process color

l A spot color is color-separated into CMYK even when you define it as a spot color in both the source program and in InDesign

l A color prints as black

Sampling colors

Many types of graphics, such as bitmap images, don’t use named colors or swatches, but InDesign

lets you sample colors in such graphics, determining the RGB values and then letting you create a

swatch from them Here’s how:

1 In the Tools panel, Swatches panel, or mini-Swatches panel, choose the Fill iconic

button or Stroke iconic button It doesn’t really matter which unless you will

immedi-ately create a shape or enter text after capturing the desired color; in that case choose whichever aspect you want the new object or text to have the color applied to

2 Select the Eyedropper tool and then click the graphic where the desired color is

used The Fill or Stroke iconic button now has that color (If the Eyedropper tool is not

visible in the Tools panel, look for the Measure tool, then click and hold down its icon to get the pop-up menu that lets you select the Eyedropper tool.)

3 The Eyedropper tool changes to the Marker tool Any object you select with the

Marker tool will have the color applied to its fill or stroke, depending on whether the Fill

or Stroke iconic button is active Note you can switch between the Eyedropper and Marker tool to select different colors and apply them by pressing and holding Option or Alt to get the Eyedropper tool back and then releasing it to switch to the Marker tool

Caution

If you apply a sampled color via the Marker tool, it will be an unnamed color It’s best to first create a swatch from your sampled color so you can ensure consistent color usage n

4 To add the new, unnamed color to the Swatches panel, Control+click or right-click

the Fill iconic button or Stroke iconic button (whichever has the captured color) and choose Add to Swatches from the contextual menu that appears (or just drag the color to the Swatches panel) Now you can edit and apply the captured color as

you can any other color swatch Note that you can also add all unnamed colors as swatches by choosing Add Unnamed Colors from the Swatches panel’s flyout menu

Figure 8.8 shows a composite image that highlights the Eyedropper tool at center left and the Marker tool at right

FIGURE 8.8

At left: Sampling a color (the color behind the horse) with the Eyedropper tool At right: Applying that pled color to an object (the framing line at right) using the Marker tool

sam-Working with Gradients

A technique that has been popular for a long time among designers is the gradient, which blends two or more colors in a sequence, going from, say, green to blue to yellow to orange InDesign has

a powerful gradient-creation feature that lets you define and apply gradients to pretty much any object you create in InDesign: text, lines, frames, shapes, and their outlines (strokes)

When you work with imported graphics, whether they are illustrations or scanned photographs, color is part of the graphic file, so the responsibility for color controls lies primarily with the creator of the graphic

It is best to use color files in CMYK EPS or DCS format (for illustrations and vector art) or CMYK TIFF mat (for scans and bitmaps) These standards are de facto for color publishing, so InDesign is particularly adept at working with them (See Chapter 14 for details on preparing graphics files for import.)

for-Although printing uses CMYK, computers use RGB as the color model because monitors use red, green, and blue electron guns to display images The dilemma most designers face is that an RGB image dis-plays properly on-screen but may appear with slightly adjusted hues in print, whereas a CMYK image may print correctly but appear incorrectly on-screen Most designers get good at mentally shifting the colors from one model to another as they see the results of their work in print over time Until that hap-pens, rely on color proofs from your printer to see what your images actually look like when printed

Do note that color files pasted via the Clipboard should print properly after they’re pasted into an InDesign graphics frame; but problems, such as dropped colors or altered colors, sometimes occur depending on the applications involved and the amount of memory available If you click and drag files from Photoshop or Illustrator directly into InDesign instead of using copy and paste, you should have

no such problems

Color Considerations for Imported Graphics

The first two options are straightforward:

l Type a name for the gradient in the Swatch Name field Picking a name is a bit more

diffi-cult than it is for a color, but use something like “Blue to Red” or “Bright Multihue” or “Logo Gradient” that has a meaning specific to the colors used or to its role in your document

FIGURE 8.9

The New Gradient Swatch dialog box (left) and the Gradient panel (right)

l In the Type pop-up menu, choose Linear or Radial A linear blend goes in one

direc-tion, whereas a radial blend radiates out in a circle from a central point (Later in this tion, Figure 8.10 shows some example gradients.)

sec-Now it gets a little tricky Follow these steps:

1 Select a stop point — one of the squares at the bottom of the dialog box, on either

side of the gradient ramp that shows the gradient as you define it The stop points

are essentially the from-and-to colors, with the “from” being the stop point at left and the “to” being the stop point at right With a stop point selected, you can now define its color

2 Choose what color model you want to define the color in — select from CMYK,

RGB, Lab, and Swatches in the Stop Color pop-up menu The area directly beneath