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CarrieMarklandStudio
Participating Frequently
February 7, 2019
Question

Colour management making my head spin - need brand asset AI help!

  • February 7, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2503 views

Hi there

I'm a graphic designer for a very small company and I'm the only one - so have had to learn everything as I go find out stuff for myself rather than learn from someone else higher up as it were. I'm qualified and three years into the job, but what's blowing my mind lately is colour management. I've done three colour management courses on Lynda and read a whole book so the theory is going in, but I find in practise, it's a bit bewildering knowing what to do!

So my issue is - I would like to ensure I've got a brand identity and a set of brand assets (namely logos) for our company and get rid of the cr*p, but colour at the moment is driving me a bit nuts. I've inherited some logos as a starting point, and over the years I've exported the files or used them within different programmes like ID and AI, but as I've learned more and more, I'm realising there's a big discrepancy with how the colours display. I understand a lot more now about different colour profiles, gamuts, CMYK and RGB and that each display shows colours differently and all that jazz - what I need now is in real, practical terms - what do I do to get the best colour out of what we have in order to get a decent set of values etc?

The brand features a very strong red. The earliest version of a logo I have from the previous designer is an EPS from 2013 so I guess this is the basis from which to gather the info of what this red should look like. But what should I do to get this? I've got it open in AI and not sure whether to use the Digital Colour Meter, if so which mode? Or the eyedropper tool in AI? If I click on the shape with red fill, the values I get are: R: 188 G: 34 B: 47 and  C:18.36 M: 96.88 Y: 80.08 K: 8.59. The colour profile of the file is untagged CMYK. Should I keep the file in CMYK as it's vector? If so, are those CMYK values right? I use a Macbook pro 15-inch retina

Sorry if any of these seem silly questions - it's what happens when you have to muddle your way through I guess

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2 replies

NB, colourmanagement
Community Expert
NB, colourmanagementCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 7, 2019

Hi

I presume you are making these colours out of CMYK, no special colours on press - I mean "spot colour inks" like Pantone inks?

It’s a valiant effort to learn colourmanagement from online courses, well done - I hope you've already learned enough about colourmanagement to know that what I write below makes good sense.

One important tip to get started - never work with "untagged CMYK".

I once saw a sample book made by Flint ink of a single ink colour (red) printed on various papers on various printing presses, the difference was amazing. AND that was as single ink. You must know what CMYK ICC profile to use because that provides actual unequivocal meaning to the colour numbers in your file and gets around the issue of unpredictable print

as long as your printer does it right).

So - your CMYK working colourspace must be the right one for the print job.

As you are in charge of colourmanagement you'll have to find out about this, there's no alternative.

There are generics such as GRACoL and ISO but you can't guess which to use.

Now you need something to match.

If your existing red sample is untagged CMYK its, basically, presuming a colour appearance (on screen) based on whatever Illustrator is set to. If the Illustrator setting was different the appearance would change on screen . That means you don't know what the originatrr intended - as it's untagged CMYK.

SO, I suppose you can't trust that appearance?

Do you have a well calibrated display screen?

If so, you could make up a CMYK colour in Photoshop or Illustrator to match a physical sample object that’s  known to be correct [something printed maybe - or a physical product]

- you CAN do this matching visually, using the screen appearance, it might be time consuming. You could perhaps start out by entering those CMYK values from Illustrator into the colour pallete.

OR

You could get someone with a spectrophotometer to measure the item in Lab colour - only a simple instrument like i1 Pro is needed for this. That Lab value can be added in Photoshop or Illustrator  and it will be converted to the press CMYK that you set (another reason why that press CMYK is important).

OR

You may be able to get a Pantone book which includes "ink recipes" (i.e. CMYK values), but those values would absolutely have to be the right ones for your CMYK press colourspace, i.e using the right CMYK ICC Profile.) That Pantone book might be hard to find.

Theres something like that here: PANTONE CMYK Coated & Uncoated Guide Set | Colour Inspiration | store.pantone.com but no visible info about the CMYK ICC colourspace.

you're right, its complicated - especially to pick up the pieces on an existing situation, once you get started with a method, though, you'll be OK.

I hope this helps

if so, please do mark my reply as "helpful" and if you're OK now, please mark it as "correct" below, so others who have similar issues can see the solution

thanks

neil barstow, colourmanagement

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CarrieMarklandStudioAuthor
Participating Frequently
February 7, 2019

Thanks Neil, this is all really helpful, appreciate your thoughts I've got some more questions though and I'm going to list them out to help my melting brain ha!

  • I should think we'll only be working with process colours as we're a small business and I can't see them forking out for Pantone printing, yes! Is it still going to be possible to establish our 'brand colours' though?
  • Yeah I assumed 'untagged' was a bad thing, but what do I do if the logo EPS file I inherited was set to this? I have other JPEGs in varying colour spaces and one PDF, so is it better to work from any of those? I've got one JPEG that is US web coated SWOP v2 if that is any good (assuming not!)
  • We work with various printers and also send files onto third parties where how they print the document is entirely unknown - so in this instance, which colour space would work if I were to start again? One training vid I did on Lynda suggested 'Coated GRACol 2006’ is a great standard CMYK.' but I don't know what to believe!
  • I'm not sure we actually have anything printed where the MD would love how the red appears. Is it worth me perhaps getting some different versions of our logo with various red values printed properly so he can see, pick one and start from there? Maybe printing all of the various logo files I've inherited perhaps
  • All the training I've done so far has made mention of calibrating your monitor (which I've admittedly never done!) Is it worth me investing in a colour calibrating device that won't break the bank do you think?

Thanks and sorry for more questions! It's bewildering (but fascinating!)

Abambo
Community Expert
AbamboCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 7, 2019

carriel94375729  wrote

  • I should think we'll only be working with process colours as we're a small business and I can't see them forking out for Pantone printing, yes! Is it still going to be possible to establish our 'brand colours' though?

We are more of a "big business" (well not as big as Adobe... ) but we are working with process colours (CMYK). But there is a Pantone reference. We rarely print Pantone, but it's great as a reference. But your main problem will be to set that reference and it's all depending on your management and their colour perception and their trust in you to do it right.

And after setting the reference that fits, you should use that reference in all your workflow (as said by nb: in a tagged workflow).

carriel94375729  wrote

  • Yeah I assumed 'untagged' was a bad thing, but what do I do if the logo EPS file I inherited was set to this? I have other JPEGs in varying colour spaces and one PDF, so is it better to work from any of those? I've got one JPEG that is US web coated SWOP v2 if that is any good (assuming not!)

I doubt that the JPEG file is more correct then the EPS file, even that it is tagged. If it's incorrect at the beginning, then you tag it, it will stay incorrect, but wont change any more...

carriel94375729  wrote

  • We work with various printers and also send files onto third parties where how they print the document is entirely unknown - so in this instance, which colour space would work if I were to start again?

If the third party uses a calibrated environment it won't matter (much). If they don't use a calibrated environment the results will be unpredictable. Most prints from uncalibrated printers are more or less OK, meaning that a deep red will look deep red. However, if you compare prints from one printer to the other, side by side, you will see differences. Human colour sight is not an absolute but a comparative sight. Without a reference, no one can say that this or that is the correct colour.

carriel94375729  wrote

  • I'm not sure we actually have anything printed where the MD would love how the red appears. Is it worth me perhaps getting some different versions of our logo with various red values printed properly so he can see, pick one and start from there? Maybe printing all of the various logo files I've inherited perhaps

No one can say here what you should do. I took the example of printed letter pager, because it is that what the people use on a day to day basis. Business cards are also great to get a "correct" colour impression. If you do not have the logo colour book, you should use what management feels is correct (at my company, the executive's secretary is good in spotting wrong colours... ).

carriel94375729  wrote

  • All the training I've done so far has made mention of calibrating your monitor (which I've admittedly never done!) Is it worth me investing in a colour calibrating device that won't break the bank do you think?

Privately, I have invested in calibrated screens for my work. At work I'm using of the shelf screens. The funny part of those is, when having 2 screens of the same make and approximately the same production, you get different colour showings. So yes, if colour perception is important, you need to calibrate your screens.

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
Abambo
Community Expert
AbamboCommunity Expert
Community Expert
February 7, 2019

Normally colours of a logo are defined by a colour sheet coming with the logo. Colour picking from inside the files (especially old EPS files) is probably the least good solution.

In general colour colours are defined in some reproducible colour model like Pantone or HKS or similar. Those are colour systems that guaranty when using a specific colour it looks the same on any media. Professional printers can even buy Pantone colours for spot printing.

If however that part of the logo definition is missing, you need to build it. Your advantage will be that you can't be wrong as you are the expert (experts are always right, aren't they?).

Here are some hints to get the correct colour:

  • Take some correctly printed letter paper for reference. You can look into the print order specifications for colour references.
  • Pantone sells some incredibly expensive colour fans you can use to determine the correct colours, given that the letter paper is using the correct colours. You can also visit your preferred print shop and ask the printer for advice. They my have the correct tools to check the colour.
  • Get the CMYK values from your EPS file and find out what Pantone colours could match the CMYK values. This is a kind of quick and dirty value finding, absolutely not colour proof but in our amateurish world of today it may be quite enough.

The problem shouldn't be about finding the exactly correct colour that has been defined somewhere but to make correct assumptions for consistent colour management in the future.

Discussion successfully moved from Adobe Creative Cloud to Color management

ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
C
CarrieMarklandStudioAuthor
Participating Frequently
February 7, 2019

Thanks Abambo for taking the time to answer my question. I've asked our MD if the designer who made our logo gave any colour guidance at the time. In any case it would be fine to deviate from whatever she set anyway - as you say it's more important getting a colour that the MD is happy with for future use, rather than trying to achieve a specific set of values

But just to go back to what I have currently as I know he's happy with the look of some of these assets...  I have an EPS file of the logo, some JPEG files of the logo, and one PDF of the front of the business card. All in different colour spaces - so just to clarify, it's not really any use using any of these to determine the correct colour? From what you are saying, is it more a case of sitting down with our MD and sussing out how he wants the colours to look printed on a colour card, rather than showing him on a screen using RGB/CMYK values? Only thing I'm thinking is that being a small business, I'm not sure they will fund me buying a Pantone card! I want to get this right though is the thing!

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