Using Help
|
Contents
|
Index
Back
176
Adobe Illustrator Help
Producing Consistent Color
Using Help
|
Contents
|
Index
Back
176
Creating a viewing environment for color management
Your work environment influences how you see color on your monitor and on printed
output. For best results, control the colors and light in your work environment by doing
the following:
•
View your documents in an environment that provides a consistent light level and color
temperature. For example, the color characteristics of sunlight change throughout the
day and alter the way colors appear on your screen, so keep shades closed or work in a
windowless room. To eliminate the blue-green cast from fluorescent lighting, consider
installing D50 (5000 degree Kelvin) lighting. Ideally, view printed documents using a
D50 lightbox.
•
View your document in a room with neutral-colored walls and ceiling. A room’s color
can affect the perception of both monitor color and printed color. The best color for a
viewing room is polychromatic gray. Also, the color of your clothing reflecting off the
glass of your monitor may affect the appearance of colors on-screen.
•
Match the light intensity in the room or lightbox to the light intensity of your monitor.
View continuous-tone art, printed output, and images on-screen under the same
intensity of light.
•
Remove colorful background patterns on your monitor desktop. Busy or bright patterns
surrounding a document interfere with accurate color perception. Set your desktop to
display neutral grays only.
•
View document proofs in the real-world conditions under which your audience will see
the final piece. For example, you might want to see how a housewares catalog looks
under the incandescent light bulbs used in homes, or view an office furniture catalog
under the fluorescent lighting used in offices. However, always make final color judge-
ments under the lighting conditions specified by the legal requirements for contract
proofs in your country.
Setting up color management
Illustrator simplifies the task of setting up a color-managed workflow by gathering most
color management controls in a single Color Settings dialog box. Rather than adjusting
each control manually, you can choose from a list of predefined color management
settings. Each predefined configuration includes a set of color management options
designed to produce consistent color for a common publishing workflow, such as prepa-
ration for Web or domestic prepress output. These predefined configurations can also
serve as starting points for customizing your own workflow-specific configurations.
Illustrator also uses color management policies, which determine how to handle color
data that does not immediately match your current color management workflow. Policies
are designed to clarify the color management decisions that you need to make when you
open a document or import color data into an active document.
Keep in mind that you must specify color management settings
before
opening or
creating files in order for the settings to take effect in those files.
Note:
Illustrator supports color management for files that use either the RGB or CMYK
color model. Illustrator does not support color management for the grayscale color model
or for spot colors. If a file containing a grayscale object (defined in tints of black) is opened
