Colour consistency across Illy and Photoshop

[dhdesignz]

Greetings all

Hope you can clarify something that has been baffling me for a while. When I layout brochures in Indesign (CS3) and place links created in Illustrator (saved out as CMYK tiff) and Photoshop (saved out as CMYK tiff) the pantone colours (PMS2955) do not match up. What am I doing wrong?

I always create the links in the other applications as CMYK and once done, I save these out as tiffs.

Even pantones in InDesign do not match up with photoshop pantones. Most times I need to fill the back page of a brochure with this colour (colour then created in Indesign), but when I place any images/colours on the front page - created in Indesign or Illustrator, the colours don't match.

See attached example.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Deon

[budafist]

Are you talking about on screen or in print?

[Craig B]

Unless you're saving files out of Photoshop with spot channels, a CMYK build of a Pantone will never match a Pantone color. Same thing with Illustrator, but I'm not sure hwy you would save an Illustrator file out as a CMYK tiff. If it's all vector, save it as an .eps and your spot colors will match fine.

[dhdesignz]

Urgh, just typed a response and hit the wrong button...had to retype this reply....urgh urgh

Hi Budafist...its for print.

Thanks Craig. When I have a pure vector file in Illy I would save as EPS. But as you said, even then the Pantones don't match.

Re the photoshop, should I create another spot channel and fill with the correct Pantone (PMS2955)? I only just use CMYK (with these four channels). Never used spot channels before....gulp....

[semioticantics]

Is it just the screen representation that looks off or is it actually printing different colors between each? If it's just on the screen, you may want to manage your color profiles with Bridge.

[Craig B]

I assume in Illustrator you're using PMS colors from the "Pantone Solid Coated" swatch book (or uncoated, or whatever). When placing the .eps in Illustrator does it add the same swatch to your InDesign swatches? Are you using the same version of the Pantone color (not number) in InDesign?

As far as spot channels in Photoshop. Here are a few sites that help better explain using them: here (http://www.planetphotoshop.com/working-with-spot-color-channels.html) and here (http://www.tutorialelf.com/photoshop/5/spot-color-channels.html).

[garricks]

dh, have you been to Adobe Bridge to sync up? In Bridge, off the FILE menu

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/garricks/GDF/Picture6.jpg

and you get

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/garricks/GDF/Picture7.jpg

There's more info HERE (http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Bridge/2.0/help.html?content=WS0D78142E-6028-4ec1-9BBF-6837F1DE3CD5.html). Hope this helps! :)

[dhdesignz]

Hi all, thanks for the awesome feedback.

Craig, I'll check out the tutorials on spot channels a little later (during another lunch break....ha ha).

Garricks, I've changed the colour settings in Bridge and check that these were carried forward into Photo & Illy.

Yup, same swatches are selected from Pantone Solid Coated. Yup, the colour on the brochure actually print differently too (note, I was the only one who spotted this...surprisingly).

Will check again with the printer next time this type of job comes up.

Still unchanged....very curious.

Thanks again
Deon

[hewligan]

That ain't PMS2955 in the PSD or Tiff. That's the nearest equivalent CMYK value according to photoshop (which is often a debatable choice). When it gets converted to CMYK, it will almost never actually match the pantone.

One option is, as Craig said, to use spot channels. But files with spot channels can be difficult to work with, and difficult to print. Only do that if you need to.

If it's going to be printed CMYK in the end, it's probably easiest to convert the pantone to its nearest CMYK in one application, and then set up swatches with the same CMYK values in all of the other apps.

[dhdesignz]

Thanks hewligan. That might just be the easiest option at this stage.

A round-a-about workflow that I've been following was to create a coloured shape in Illy, and then copying it into Photoshop. I would then colour picker and the select the Illy colour. Which is more or less the what you are suggesting. But your way sounds heaps quicker.

Really weird that Photoshop's colour books differ, even though it is a raster-based application.

Thanks again

[hewligan]

It's not so much that photoshop's colour books differ as that illy and indy can leave it as a PMS until it reaches your printer, while photoshop has to convert to CMYK on the spot. They've probably got a slightly different build for the PMS which matches better on their gear.

It occurs to me that a slightly better solution is, if this is a colour you use a lot to ask the printer what build they recommend and then create your swatch using that.

[urstwile]

There is, however, an irksome thing in that Illy, Indy and Pdiddy (sorry, I was going with a thing there) do, which is that they convert from spot to process differently. Extremely annoying, and so far, there's only the solution of having a Pantone book to see what the legitimate CMYK breakdown should be, or picking the app that's going to define that breakdown across the board, and sticking with that, if you're going to start with a spot color and then break it down into process.

For example, when I am in Photoshop, and pick Pantone 316C from the custom color library, and then click back into the default picker, that color breaks down as C100 M56 Y54 K39. In Illustrator, I can pick that same spot color, and then click it as CMYK and that color breaks down into C100 M0 Y27 K68. Indy at least breaks down the CMYK equivalent the same way as Illustrator, but differently than Photoshop.

So you're going to have to choose your dial in method between one of the three.