tints vs. transparency; printing indesign file - so confused now

Hello again!

@ Peter, these are the colors I am using:

The assignment says colors + tints only. However, I showed my professor my compositions and she didn't say anything with regards to that (i'm not sure if she noticed...). I was told to leave them as they are.

I know feel extremely silly; instead of transparency I meant opasity. Sorry guys; today is just not my day. Is opasity similar to transparency? For some reason i was thinking transparency is opasity. In a couple of compositions I am using both a tint and opasity in a color. In others just opasity or tints of a color.

Thanks for the pdf printing advice. I think I will just leave it with its presets. My only concern though is that i've printed the exact same file on two different cmyk printers and the colors have come out differently. Also, the colors are a bit more richer/pale in some aspects of the pdf file as oppose to the indesign file, is that normal? Is it also okay for the colors to get darker when I proof colors the file in indesign?

Thanks for the jpeg export answer as well! I was doing something else completely- saving the pdf as jpeg images and then changing their settings under convertion>colorspace to rgb... plus other options, big confusion/mess :S

Also please note that in general, overprinting tints to achieve a poor man's transparency effect is most strongly NOT RECOMMENDED for reliable workflows. Not all PDF viewers (especially for mobile devices) support overprint display at all. And even with Adobe Reader and Acrobat, you need to be in certains modes or output preview to see the effects of overprint.

If you want or need transparency, use the appropriate transparency blend mode. Most all PDF viewers support at least the standard and multiply blend modes of transparency. Adobe Reader and Acrobat support all 16 blend modes.

          - Dov

Transparency and Tints are VERY diferent. Imagine, you have a white Background it looks very the same. But you can place an object with 50% Opacity on a different color, let's say black and do the same with a 50% tint. The 50% Opacity object (transparent object) will mix with that background color and will show up darker, the tint will not change at all.

Which preset you use for PDF export depends on the purpose you will it use for. For offset printing you should use a PDF X-standard, depending on the requirement of the printer. 72ppi would be to low for offset printing.

High Quality Print is only useful for small laser printer, I would not recommend to use it at all.

If you want to supply your PDF in the Internet you can choose an PDF interactive Export or Smallest File Size.

What color space you get upon PDF export depends on the settings in the Output Sections of the PDF Print Export dialog. This should be as the printer requires it. There is no common valid setting, depends on the paper and the process the printer is using.

I would recommend to change standard setting only if you know what they are meaning or when the printer tells you to do so.

Tints and transparency can yeild the same result, or something completely different, depending on how you use them.

Tints are a halftone screen, or partial coverage of an area with your color, but if you put them in front of something else, they knock it out and there is no interaction unless you specify that one color should "overprint" the other and mix. When you use transparency you are also using only partial coverage, but when placed in front of something else, they interact and blend with what is behind them.

Tints are created inthe Swatches panel, transparency inthe Effects panel. As far as whether you should be using transparency, that depends on the assignment, and also how you use the colors. If there is nothing behind that need to interact, a tint is less complex to process and less likely to cause other problems.

What are the colors you are using. You said the file is CMYK, so are you using process colors (CMYK mixes, which is not truly a two color file) or Spot colors, whcih are solid inks,  more like paint (and intended only for output on a printing press where you would make a plate for each spot color used in the file).

The High Quality Print preset will preserve the colors you use unchanged, so the instructor can see them in the output preview. Don't change a thing in the preset unless the instructor tells you to do so.

JPEG export is a separate operation. File > Export... and choose JPEG, then set the parameters in the next dialog.