Indesign - color pages and grayscale pages in same document?

[that mike guy]

its me again....

I started a previous topic about indesign and got a lot of excellent answers to my questions; you guys are so helpful.....but since that last topic thread was getting a little out of control, i figured id ask my next question here.....

so ya, as the subject line says, how do i have color and greyscale pages in the same document? its a newsprint magazine, mostly black and white except for the cover and a few color pages interspersed throughout....i'm kind of a noob here when it comes to indesign, so how do i go about setting up my document to do this? or is that all handled at the printers end?

any ideas?


<DT>Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
<DT>Cicero
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[defjoe]

you can do this... doesn't matter to ID. It's the printer end you have to worry about. but that is the printers issue. As long as you are printing CMYK and leave those images as such you shouldn't have an issue.

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[Patrick Shannon]

If it's not CMYK and that newspaper is being printed in spot colors (let's say black and a pantone shade of green), make sure all your graphics are converted over to grayscale. Then for the photos that you want done in shades of green (if any), just click on it and select your pantone and it will shade. Leave photos in black untouched, it will all seperate out fine.

Patrick Shannon

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[that mike guy]

ok....ya im not dealing with spot colors or anything like that....just straight cmyk for some pages and greyscale for others.....
but what im wondering how to do is how do i convert a few cmyk pages into greyscale in indesign? whats the happy little button to click lol?

im starting with everything in color and just want to greyscale about 40 pages in the document.....how do i do this?

(fyi- the pages im creating contain text, vector graphics, photos, and raster illustrations.)


<DT>Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
<DT>Cicero
Roman author, orator, &amp; politician (106 BC - 43 BC) </DT>


www.braingrenade.com (http://www.braingrenade.com)

[D-Zine]

I always design my color pages in color, and my grayscale pages in grayscale.

Your printer will be able to tell you what pages can have color and what ones can not.
Convert whatever you need as you are designing and it will save time instead of going back into it later.
So, if you are on page 9 and its BW, and the images you have are color that need to go on that pages, go ahead and change your pics to grayscale in PS (but save the color ones bc you never know!). For ads, well you will know if they are color or not before you design them, or you should.

Do you need to do the color swap in InDesign?

Power to the Oldschoolers

[defjoe]

no happy buttin..however you can print in black and white...but the results might be desired. best bet is to change the original pic to grayscale.

'I will become the most powerful Jedi ever!'
'I'm the damn designer, bitches!'

Check out my indie comic book!
www.assassinsguild.net/ (http://www.assassinsguild.net/)

[D-Zine]

I'm with Joe.
On occasion the press has converted things for me bc of last minute changes, but honestly that is not their job.

Do it as you do your layout is my vote.

Power to the Oldschoolers

[that mike guy]

well with the ads, some months will be color, some months will be black and white, so i have to have a color source file.........but im just trying to figure out the wasiest way about making greyscale pages....

isnt there a way to convert an entire indesign page to greyscale? or do i need to physically convert every single graphic, text, and vector shapes individually? theres got to be a way to select an entire indesign page and convert it to greyscale isnt there??


<DT>Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
<DT>Cicero
Roman author, orator, &amp; politician (106 BC - 43 BC) </DT>


www.braingrenade.com (http://www.braingrenade.com)

[D-Zine]

You could do it as a PDF...maybe.

I have to change between black and white and full color all the time. It's not really a big issue. Every image you get, you just go ahead and save a B&W version of that image so its on file. That way you have both.

You really need to design your grayscale pages...in grayscale. And design your CMYK pages...in CMYK. If for no other reason, than to ensure printing is accurate. In my experience I would say you should physically change everything over as you get to it and see it needs to be grayscale. Ads will constantly change, and for the most part they are easy to change from BW to color, as long as you have each on hand. You get use to it and I believe you will have less headache down the road if you don't try for what seems to be the easier route.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Power to the Oldschoolers

[that mike guy]

ok...that info helps.......but still was wondering about an answer to my original question: How? how do i design my pages in greyscale? im kindof a noob at indesign when it comes to color modes.... for color modes i can see i got cmyk, lab, rgb, pantone..etc.....but how do i create grayscale pages? do i just keep it in cmyk and only adjust the 'black' slider...?

im at a loss with this....


<DT>Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
<DT>Cicero
Roman author, orator, &amp; politician (106 BC - 43 BC) </DT>


www.braingrenade.com (http://www.braingrenade.com)

[defjoe]

stil lthe best way is to have the native file grayscale. how do you get your ads? in PDF form? Tiff? EPS?

really your sales person SHOULD give the specs you need to the client. so says if they buy a 2x2 b&w ad and send it in color... your not really responsible for the outcome (you wil be, but shouldn't be).

there is a composite gray drop down in the print mode use that but still be weary of how color images will come out.

'I will become the most powerful Jedi ever!'
'I'm the damn designer, bitches!'

Check out my indie comic book!
www.assassinsguild.net/ (http://www.assassinsguild.net/)

Post Edited (defjoe) : 2/8/2005 6:12:24 PM GMT

[that mike guy]

ya...with the ads its really really silly......i get about 1cm x 1cm newspaper cutouts of their logo, with a message says 'heres our logo for you to use.' errrr......

but i think i figured it out.... i build the ads in indesign and when i bring them into my main layout indesign document, i just save the ads as eps and choose greyscale from the export settings. did a test print and looks great.

I was worried; for a minute i thought i had to go back and make a greyscale version of every single image and piece of text (about 300 ads).


<DT>Natural ability without education has more often attained to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
<DT>Cicero
Roman author, orator, &amp; politician (106 BC - 43 BC) </DT>


www.braingrenade.com (http://www.braingrenade.com)