• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Printing for Less

Printing for Less

Satisfaction Guarantee

At Printing for Less, we've offered high quality online printing services since 1996. Shop business cards, booklets, stickers, and more!

800-930-2423
Get A Quote
  • Products
    • Announcements
    • Banners
    • Booklets
    • Booklet Envelopes
    • Bookmarks
    • Branded Box Printing
    • Brochure Holders
    • Brochures
    • Buck Slips
    • Business Cards
    • Calendar Printing
    • Campaign Printing
    • Carbonless Forms
    • Catalogs
    • CD Covers
    • Club Cards
    • Coil Bound Booklets
    • Custom Printing
    • Digital Printing
    • Door Hangers
    • EDDM Postcards
    • Envelopes
    • File Folders
    • Flyers
    • Folded Business Cards
    • Folders
    • Forms
    • Greeting Cards
    • Hang Tags
    • Holiday Cards
    • Invitations
    • Labels
    • Large Envelopes
    • Large Format
    • Large Posters
    • Letterhead/Envelope
    • Magnets
    • Mailer Printing
    • Mailing Envelopes
    • Mailing Services
    • Memo Pads
    • Menus
    • NCR Forms
    • Newsletters
    • Note Cards
    • Notepads
    • Offering Envelopes
    • Packaging
    • Plastic Cards
    • Pocket Folders
    • Postcards
    • Posters
    • Post-it® Notes
    • Presentation Folders
    • Rack Cards
    • Recieipt Books
    • Remittance Envelopes
    • Sell Sheets
    • Signs
    • Statement Stuffers
    • Stationery
    • Stickers
    • Table Tents
    • Tickets
    • Variable Data Printing
    • Vinyl Banners
    • Yard Signs
  • Industries
    • Advertising & Design
    • Real Estate
    • Medical
    • Food & Beverage
    • Non-Profit
    • University
    • Technology
    • Enterprise
  • Services
    • Reseller Program
    • Fulfillment
    • Digital Printing
    • Mailing Services
    • Custom Solutions
    • Design Services
    • Hybrid Experience Platform
  • Resources
    • Marketing & Design Tips
    • Templates
    • Blog
    • Help & FAQs
    • Printing Terms & Glossary
    • Video Library
  • Get Samples
  • My Login
  • Contact
  • About
    • Why Printing for Less?
    • Our Team

Check Out Your Color Files with Separation Preview

Color is a big topic. And there’s a difference between on-screen color and in-print color, which is most important to remember (and troubleshoot) if you’re going to print.

As graphic designers working between multiple platforms and applications, we can sometimes forget which mode we’re working in, or which colors have been applied where. The outcome? We can get results we’re not expecting when we send our files to the printer.

We don’t want that to happen to you. And one way to prevent any unexpected color results is to preview the print output before we send our files out the door (or email box). It’s wise to check the settings for the actual inks and make sure they’re going to interact in a predictable and satisfying way, for both you and your client.

The Separations Preview tool provides you with a visual display of how the various color inks in your document will interact with each other on the printed page. You’ll only need this panel if you’re going to be doing any commercial printing; if you’re sticking to your home printer (laserjet, inkjet, and the like), you won’t need to bother with separations. The Color Separations Preview will help you prep your files when you’re sending your job to a professional print house.

Since both Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe InDesign CC are popular print layout powerhouses, we’ll focus on the Separations Preview in these applications. This way, you’ll be prepared for how the various process colors will interact with each other when you commercially reproduce an Adobe document.

Launch Separations Preview in Illustrator

Here’s how to launch Separations Preview in Illustrator. Go to Window → Separations Preview to launch the Separations Preview Panel.

 

illustrator separations preview

 

If the panel seems to be empty, check to make sure your document is in CMYK color mode. While you don’t have to work in CMYK just because you’re printing a document commercially (especially when using spot colors, which exist independently of the CMYK plates), you won’t be able to use the Separations Preview unless you are.

You can check your color mode by going to File → Document Color Mode. Make sure there’s a check next to “CMYK Color.” If “RGB Color” is checked instead, then change it to CMYK.

 

document color mode

 

Be aware that the saturation of the colors on your screen will become more muted if you make the change to CMYK, since RGB is considered a more “lively” color space than the printed page allows. In fact, if you have a document that only uses spot colors and no process color plates, some designers believe they can see the spot colors better if they leave the document in RGB. It’s your choice; just be aware of the pros and cons of each!

What you should see, once your document is in CMYK color mode, is a list of the four process color inks (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) along with any spot colors which exist in your swatches panel. Spot colors are premixed inks which don’t  separate into the process components.

 

illustrator separation colors

 

To activate the actual separations preview, you’ll need to check the box next to “Overprint Preview.” Overprinting relates to how the inks interact; because they’re translucent, when each ink is printed on top of the others, you’ll a deeper visual range.

After that, you can decide whether you still want to see all the spot colors that have been defined, or only the spot colors actively in use. If the latter, check the “Show Used Spot Colors Only” box at the bottom of the Separations Preview Panel.

 

overprint preview

 

Note that nothing that you change in the panel will affect the actual print job; turning any of these checkboxes on or off simply allows you to see what will visually happen as the various colors interact.

In order to preview any one ink by itself, use the keyboard shortcut Alt + click (PC) or Option + click (Mac) while clicking the eye on the left side of the color indicator. You’ll then see a preview of all of the places in your document where that ink will be printed (where that color plate will be used). Here, we’re previewing the black plate only:

 

separation preview black

 

To restore the visibility of all the inks, simply Alt-  or Option-click again next to any ink swatch.

You can also toggle inks one by one to see different combinations of interaction. In this image, for example, the interaction of just the cyan and yellow inks are being previewed.

 

separations preview cyan yellow

Using the Color Separations Preview in Adobe InDesign

Now that we’ve covered separation previews in Adobe Illustrator, do you want to know how to preview color separations in InDesign, too? We’re not covering how to actually print color separations in InDesign, but the Separations Preview panel will give you good information so that you can make sure your separations are set up correctly before actually going to print.  

Assuming you’ve already got an InDesign document open, you’re ready to make sure the right inks will end up in the right places when you print your InDesign file commercially. To launch the Color Separations Preview, go to Window → Output → Separations Preview.

 

output separations preview


When you first launch the Separations Preview panel, you won’t see much, but if you click the “View” panel menu, you’ll get to choose your display options.

 

separations preview off

 

When you choose “Separations” from the dropdown, InDesign will activate “High Quality” display for the entire document (which you could also manually activate by going to View → Display Performance → High Quality Display).

 

display performance high quality

 

It will also show you a list of all the inks (not color swatches, but the actual inks) used in your file.

Would you like to see how much of each ink is being used in various places throughout your document? Simply move your cursor around your document, and notice that the percentages change in real-time to the right of each ink/plate in the Separations Preview panel.

 

separations preview percentages

 

You get to see exactly how much ink is set to be applied at any and every point in the document.

With this level of feedback from InDesign, you’re really able to make sure your files are set up perfectly before sending them along to the printer. The visual nature of this kind of troubleshooting makes it easy to catch color assignment errors, and your printer will be grateful! Your clients will be grateful, too, when perfectly printed pieces arrive on their doorsteps.

Now, let’s actually look at color separations. We’ll be able to see exactly which colors are applied to exactly which objects on your page, and in which densities.

Click on any color (magenta, in this example) to see what exists on that particular color plate — literally, what that color plate will look like

 

separations preview magenta

 

By turning on and off the various colors (by clicking on the eyeballs on the left), we get what’s called a “color build” — we can see various plates combined, and add more plates gradually to build up the cumulative ink density.

At first glance, this may not seem particularly useful, but a cyan-magenta-yellow color build can help you identify text, for example, that should be black but isn’t. If you have cyan, magenta, and yellow all turned on (but black turned off) in the Separations Preview panel and then go through your document page by page, you’ll immediately see items that should be black but aren’t.

If you have the black plate turned off but still see “black” text, that’s your a red flag! To remedy any non-black text or objects that should be black (and not a combination of the other process colors), first, select them. Then, open the Swatches palette, and click the black process swatch to assign that text or those objects to that plate.

Printing for Less (Printing for Less) has been an industry leader and provider of high-quality, unique printing services since 1996. Though we are a large company with customers across the globe, we treat our customers with the attention and care you’d expect from a luxury printing boutique. From business cards and banners to letterhead, flyers, and beyond — Printing for Less knows printing like no other. Let’s talk about your project! Our print consultants are available 7am-7pm MT Monday through Friday at (800) 930-7978.

Primary Sidebar

RELATED ARTICLES

How To Save Images in Photoshop EPS Format

This is the third posting about formats for saving images. We started a couple weeks ago with the Photoshop PSD format. EPS stands for Encapsulated PostScript because it was designed as a way of saving graphics to be used with PostScript printers. However, today the format is showing its age because … Read More >

Warning: Boring Business Cards Can Kill your Image

 There are so many boring business cards floating around the universe it makes me cringe. Several months ago I was on a business trip and boarded a plane from Kansas City to Denver. I usually like to zone out while in the sky, but was in a boisterous mood, so I struck up a conversation with a fellow … Read More >

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – Who’s got the Coolest Card of All?

Print never fails to inspire talented designs, just check out the business card Printing for Less printed for interior designers Home Decorable!               Foil stamping is a sharp way to add some zest to your business cards, and always catches the eye of … Read More >

Idea Pack Downloads, Where Function Meets Design

Have you seen our free idea pack download? In case you haven’t, follow this link to download some refreshing ideas for your next custom print project: Print Marketing Design Ideas This idea pack showcases some of the best custom designs we’ve created for some of our more imaginative customers here … Read More >

How to Fix White Lines in a PDF File

Have you ever seen fine white lines appear when you print out a PDF proof of a page, and are afraid that they will appear in your final product when your commercial printer prints it? In the example below, notice the fine white lines on the right side of the man on the purple … Read More >

Drink Advertising and How Printable Media Makes It Happen

Great advertising happens in the most subtle ways. It’s not the giant billboard ordering us to buy a product that has the biggest impact on our purchasing decisions, it’s the quiet tactics that seamlessly integrate into our daily routines. Take a drink bottle for example. How many times in the … Read More >

Plastics and Printing

We’ve added some real innovations to the printing industry in our 20 year history, and one that we’re really proud of is SmartFlex® paper. This is a synthetic paper that is made from plastic but has the same look, feel, and properties (well, the good properties) of regular wood-pulp. We developed … Read More >

10 Commandments for a Better Business Card

When it comes to creating effective business cards, it’s all about standing out against your competition. After all, a business card is usually something you give a customer when they’re just getting to know you. You haven’t had a chance to win them over yet, and they may never give you a call if … Read More >

Footer

Printing for Less

info@printingforless.com
100 P F L Way, Livingston, MT 59047

800-924-2041

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Home
  • Products
  • Industries
  • Services
  • Get Samples
  • Resources
  • Guides
  • Templates
  • Blog
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Contact
  • About
  • Why Printing for Less?
  • Our Team
  • Careers
  • Login

Copyright © 1998-2023 PrintingforLess.com. All Rights Reserved.

logo
  • 866-501-7488
  • Products
  • Industries
  • Services
  • Resources
  • Get Samples
  • Get a Quote
  • About
  • Contact Us
  • My Login