Using spot and process colors together, Comparing colors in indesign and illustrator, Selecting colors – Adobe Illustrator CS4 User Manual

Page 106: About selecting colors

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USING ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CS4

Color

Don’t specify a process color based on how it looks on your monitor, unless you are sure you have set up a color-
management system properly, and you understand its limitations for previewing color.

Avoid using process colors in documents intended for online viewing only, because CMYK has a smaller color
gamut than that of a typical monitor.

Illustrator and InDesign let you specify a process color as either global or non-global. In Illustrator, global process
colors remain linked to a swatch in the Swatches panel, so that if you modify the swatch of a global process color,
all objects using that color are updated. Non-global process colors do not automatically update throughout the
document when the color is edited. Process colors are non-global by default. In InDesign, when you apply a swatch
to objects, the swatch is automatically applied as a global process color. Non-global swatches are unnamed colors,
which you can edit in the Color panel.

Note: Global and non-global process colors only affect how a particular color is applied to objects, never how colors
separate or behave when you move them between applications.

Using spot and process colors together

Sometimes it’s practical to use process and spot inks in the same job. For example, you might use one spot ink to print
the exact color of a company logo on the same pages of an annual report where photographs are reproduced using
process color. You can also use a spot color printing plate to apply a varnish over areas of a process color job. In both
cases, your print job would use a total of five inks—four process inks and one spot ink or varnish.

In InDesign, you can mix process and spot colors together to create mixed ink colors.

Comparing colors in InDesign and Illustrator

Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator use slightly different methods for applying named colors. Illustrator lets you
specify a named color as either global or nonglobal, and InDesign treats all unnamed colors as nonglobal, process
colors
.

The InDesign equivalents to global colors are swatches. Swatches make it easier to modify color schemes without
having to locate and adjust each individual object. This is especially useful in standardized, production-driven
documents like magazines. Because InDesign colors are linked to swatches in the Swatches panel, any change to a
swatch affects all objects to which a color is applied.

The InDesign equivalents to nonglobal swatches are unnamed colors. Unnamed colors do not appear in the Swatches
panel, and they do not automatically update throughout the document when the color is edited in the Color panel. You
can, however, add an unnamed color to the Swatches panel later.

Named and unnamed colors only affect how a particular color updates in your document, never how colors separate
or behave when you move them between applications.

Selecting colors

About selecting colors

You can select colors for your artwork from a variety of tools, panels, and dialog boxes in Illustrator. How you select
color depends on the needs of your artwork. For example, if you want to use specific company-approved colors, you’ll
want to select colors from the company-approved swatch library. If you want to match your colors with colors in other
artwork, you can use the eyedropper or the Color Picker and enter exact color values.

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