Photoshop question....please help.

[design1]

I work for a company doing the design work for advertisements and signage.

I have taught myself how to use photoshop and indesign but when sending a Flag design through to a company to be printed and made into a flag they have said whats written in blue below... i have no idea where to find this information...if someone could help that'd be graet!! i can send the design to someone if it helps!

thanks



"Pantone references for the artwork. If I have these references I can match the colour of the flag to the customer’s logo so they will look identical.
I need references for the green and grey, also if you have the percentage for the graduation that would be fantastic"

[yugyug]

Either the flag manufacturer only prints in spot colors or a unique flag printing system similar to spot color printing. This is not surprising considering the nature of most flags, but he maybe able to print CMYK or equivalents, but is attempting to get the best result by matching the spot colors he uses to the spot colors the logo he thinks the logo was designed in.

A spot color is printed 'as is' without being mixed like the CMYK inks. Pantone is the mostly widely used reference system, colors start with a PMS prefix. You need to research the source logo and find out what those colors are. Good designers should produce a style guide for the logos they design that spell out this information, but this doesn't happen in smaller companies. There maybe a spot color version floating around the company or maybe it was designed only in CMYK/RGB. If so you need to inform the flag producer and have him print it CMYK or match it up yourself using a Pantone swatch book or the Pantone website.

btw I haven't actually heard the term 'graduation' but it sounds like he means the gradient range e.g. 100% green > 25% green. A green color at 25% or other percentage is known as screen and he may be refering to that also.

[design1]

thanks for your reply,

We are a very small company and i am the only person who does any design work, so iv'e got no one to ask about it, I designed the flag in Photoshop, using RGB colour, I assumed the pantones were numbers that determine the exact colour, I have now found the pantone numbers they are listed on photoshop.

You refered to the source logo, what does that mean?

I am not that great with the technical side of things! I ussually do the design in photoshop, the text in indesign and then save as a PDF and send, this is the first time i have been asked to supply all these things!

and also i assumed graduation means because i have used a graident to fade the colour but where/how do i find out what the graduation is?

here is the flag design incase it helps...

http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/1589/flagtemplate0nc.jpg

[design1]

at the bottom of the flag when opened in photoshop it says 16.67%...could this be the graduation?? or something else?

[morea]

maybe the printer will be generous and allow you to borrow their swatch book to choose your colors. Otherwise, you will probably need to buy one.

RGB values do not have pantone equivalents, and the color will display differently on screen than it would in print.

You need to actually choose the pantone colors from the swatch book to ensure color accuracy.

From looking at the flag, it looks like you're going for a neon sort of green - at least from the way it looks on my monitor. You could have them show you Pantone #802 (or even double bump it, so pantone 802 x 2), that might be what you're looking for in the background. The gray could be cool gray 3, and the darker green could be pantone 354. I am NOT saying that these are accurate, just that they could prove a good starting point.

If color is not terribly critical, you could ask the printer if they have "standard" pms colors - if they do, and if your design can be adapted accordingly, it may cost you less money to have the flag printed.

For the gradient, it looks like they want you to supply percentages.

[morea]

at the bottom of the flag when opened in photoshop it says 16.67%...could this be the graduation?? or something else?

no, that's probably the percentage of the total size you are viewing the document at. How far zoomed in you are.

[jimking]

No. It think you are viewing at 16.67%. In my opinion you shouldn't have to worry about the gradient % because they have the file to check it themselves. To view the gradient %, find and open your "info pallet" and select your "eyedropper" tool and run the tool across your image and watch the numbers change in your info pallet.

[design1]

Thanks for all replys.

I have sorted the pantone's now i found them on photoshop and have sent them off,

but this graduation thing still cant find that!

[PrintDriver]

If this is a printed banner they are asking for PMS numbers for the green and the gray. They are printing CMYK YugYug. They need to know the PMS number to match to because either they are color managed or they are charting. Color managed uses lookup charts in the rip based on PMS number and charting requires tearing a chip out of your PMS chip book and manually matching it to a pre-printed color chart printed on the material and the printer being used for the project.

They are also asking what percentage the green starts at, what percentage the green ends at (or what your second gradient color was and at what percentage) and where the center slider on the gradient was. They can get it with the first two percentages and guess where the middle is.

Is it a grade from green to white?
I'm guessing the neon quality of that green is an RGB thing. On my monitor, what I see is probably out of gamut for a banner printer...

You doing this in Photoshop means the flag company is doing you a huge favor asking these questions because they will try to get it right for you. My guess is they are rebuilding the file because if you sent them a pdf with a flattened image in Photoshop, they really can't do much with it.

PDF is the bane of large format printing. Always native, always layered. Always PMS.
No process colors, no solid to process matches, and call to see if they want images in RGB or CMYK. It matters.

[design1]

Yeh i know what they are asking with the graduation thing, i just dont kow where to find this out to!

The gradient is just green and fades to clear but with the white background it looks like green to white and if they did green to white that's fine, but thats not how i did it.

Hmm... not sure why it seems neon, its not a neon green on my screen and the patone of the green is 362C which doesnt look that neon to me. maybe its just the screen.

The company gave me a list of programs it coud be done in and formats it could be sent in, photoshop was one and so was Jpeg and PDF i went for PDF becasue JPEG makes the text unclear!

They re-create the entire design they just wanted to see the kind of thing i wanted.

[design1]

No. It think you are viewing at 16.67%. In my opinion you shouldn't have to worry about the gradient % because they have the file to check it themselves. To view the gradient %, find and open your "info pallet" and select your "eyedropper" tool and run the tool across your image and watch the numbers change in your info pallet.

yeh i realised that striaght after i posted but thats the only percentage i can find anywhere

[PrintDriver]

So tell them your grade goes from 100% PMS 362C and goes to 0% PMS 362C on a white background. And tell them a PMS number for the gray. A percentage of black doesn't always cut it but will do in a pinch.

Like I said, on my Monitor the green looks out of gamut. PMS 362 isn't.

[design1]

ok, thanks very much for your help! :)

[yugyug]

I think its great you've been able to get this far on your own, but I think you should consider taking some graphics or general design courses. Learn about basic technical stuff like the RGB, CMYK, resolution, formats, and maybe more importantly some design theory and conceptual training. It will make you a much better designer in the long run. If you are already employed, then consider asking your company to pay for them, they probably can use it as a tax write off (depending where you are that is). :)

[design1]

I am employed, have been for over a year but not exactly as a designer i am a trainee marketing manager, i did a degree, design is only a small part of my job, i have to design adverts which i have done every week for over a year with no problems, using photoshop & indesign, i am just teaching myself illustrater at the mo too, I know quite a bit i know about RGB, CMYK, resolution etc.... im not doubting that theres things i dont know but i know what i need to and the more adverst i do the more i learn,....i had just never encounterd pantones before thats all, and i know what they meant by graduation, i just dont know how to find that out. I find it easier to just look up things (like the pantones) as and when i encounter them.

I may do a course in a design program in the future but at the moment i dont need to it's only about 10% of what i do and i think at present i am doing ok,i am quite pleased with the adverts i am producing considering it's completely self taught!

[urstwile]

If you're planning on sending things to different vendors, not just ads to publications, you will have to gain more knowledge about what their requirements and processes are.

Perhaps you are only doing this 10% of the time (and good for you for getting this far!), but the fact is, most printers will try to pin you down to specifics where things are unclear. It saves them the trouble of having to reprint things until you're satisfied, and it also saves you money as well, when you can be specific about what you're looking for, since if you do things incorrectly, the printer can legitimately charge you for your ignorance, essentially.

Printers can't read your mind, nor are RGB colors a sufficient platform for many situations, unless the type of output you're looking for requires it. Some large format printers prefer RGB over CMYK, because of different gamut limitations. Monitor colors of course look different in different calibrations and lighting settings. Swatches don't tend to lie.

Most printers (including the one you're using for this flag, obviously) have no interest in charging you up the wazoo until it comes out the way you want it, they want to be able to move on to the next job. So it's best if you find out up front, before designing something, what they need from you, not only in terms of file formats, but also in terms of color spaces. It saves you the ouch of surprise that comes when something that looked great on your monitor comes out looking completely different on your final output. Work with predictable things, like swatches. Or even a CMYK tint book, if that's an acceptable color space for the vendor you're using. Then you know what to expect, because you've already seen it. ;)

My two cents.

[Broacher]

I work for a college. So far, I've yet to see any colours, Pantone or otherwise, receive a diploma at convocation.

Gradation.