But sure, if you just want to start out with as limiting of a colorspace as possible, then sRGB is your winner. But then again, if that's the goal, why not just start in CMYK?

Just thought I'd add some input, seeing as I have about 20 years of print experience.

I only quickly skimmed your article, but the thing I saw that immediately struck my attention was the section on color correction.

Color correction is an art in and of itself, so CYMK newbies should tread cautiously around that one. And definitely not something that can be explained well enough on one web page. Although I laud your efforts.

So here's my tip: spend more than $50 on a good color printer. Get the best your wallet can afford. Color should and can be fairly accurate from your screen to your in-house color proofs (not the ones you'll get from the pirnter, but what you want to produce before turning your precious files over to the hairy slob who doesn't like to look you in the eye in the prepress department at the printer... enjoy... )

But I digress. Get an Epson if you can afford. They are the kings of color and yeah, well the supplies are expensive (you can find good knock-off cartridges at carrotink.com)... but damn the color is good. I put my Epson proofs against digital proofs (and when they were still making them, matchprints) and it was amazingly close.

So, calibrate your monitors, boys and girls, buy an Epson and save yourself a HELL of lot of time and trouble trying to master color correction when all you want to do is get the @(*&$&# file to the printer so you can get PAID.

Over and out,
Onward and sideways —

R

Illustrator has several palletes of Pantone swatches already built in.

They can be accessed under:

Window > Swatch Libraries (Illustrator 10 for Windows)
Spot colors are referred to as Pantone Solids in this menu, and are available for coated, matt and uncoated finishes. Which Pantone solid swatch set you use is not as relavant as making sure all of your spot colors come from the same set (otherwise, Pantone 186 from the coated set will print as a different plate as 186 from the uncoated set).

In any case this should save you from having to set up "approximations" of Pantone colors as custom swatches.

:)

To be fair though, I never had an interest in print, just bored me to much.

Great article though!

http://www.capstrat.com/cs/insight/lunchandlearn/Graphics_handout.pdf

The amount of headaches you'll avoid by not having to do color correction at the end of the job: numerous.

Also, as noted above, with a properly color-calibrated computer and monitor, there really won't be any difference at all between what you see on your screen and what you end up with.

This may be truer of more recent software (Photoshop CS), and having a very crisp and colour accurate monitor helps IMMENSELY. I use a LaCie Electron Blue - the colour matching is almost spot on.

Basically, you translate an RGB photo through LAB to a greyscale one, or start with a B&W photo in the first place. Converting to greyscale with LAB and the selection of the lightness channel usually gives better results (contrast and lightness) than 'image>mode>greyscale'. Having the greyscale image, you select 'image>mode>duotone'. In the resulting menu, you can choose the correct spot colors (PMS or other), and tinker with the translation curves.

What happens is that a given density in the greyscale image gets translated to another density for any spot color you specify. For instance, 30% gray (input) can end up as 80% PMS361 and 20% PMS432 (output for a duotone in these PMS inks).

Trapping�— if you have a good printer, they should take care of trapping for you. For those who don't know, trapping is the process of making two colors overlap (very) slightly so if they do not line up exactly when printed (remember, each color is on a separate plate), there is no gap visible. Photos do not need to be trapped�— but two flat colors right next to each other do.

Duotone (and tritone, etc.) vs. multichannel�— which one you choose depends on what you need to do.

When you use duotone, you can not edit each channel individually except for controlling the curve associated with it. Duotone is almost exclusively for photographs, generally for adding a color cast to a black and white photo or to extend the range of tone of a black and white photograph. For instance, high-end black and white photography books are often printed as quadtones��— black and three shades of gray. You must save your duotone as a photoshop eps file for it to separate properly, especially if you are placing it in Indesign or Quark Xpress.

With multichannel, you can draw, paste, and otherwise edit each channel individually. You have to use multichannel if you need to use CMYK and you want to add a spot color. For a multichannel file to separate properly, you must save it as a DCS file, and I highly recommend that you contact your printer before creating a multichannel file.

In general I recommend finding a printer and talking to their production people early in the project. Show them your proofs (or email them a pdf file) and ask if they see anything that might be a problem. Ask them what settings they use in Photoshop to convert from RGB to CMYK.

Many printers only provide digital proofs nowadays because they've gotten very accurate and because of changes in printing technology. They used to have to output film, then use the film to burn the plates for the press. "Matchprints" were made from the film, and film is expensive. Now there is "direct-to-plate", meaning there is no film, hence no way to make a matchprint. Even if your printer does still use film, they might still only offer digital proofs.

Regarding what's on the screen not matching what you print��— I've always done a rudimentary monitor calibration that gets it close enough. In Mac OS 9, I used to use the Adobe Gamma control panel that came with Photoshop. In OS X, you can just go to System Preferences -> Displays -> Color and click Calibrate. It will take you through some steps to roughly calibrate your monitor. If you are particularly ambitious, you can set up two monitor profiles, one for print work and one for web work, and switch between the two.

Although I used to work in print production, about 80% of my job now is web design. But I still think in CMYK. I hope this helps!