Crop marks, color management, .psd files

Hi.
Working in AI 10. Have XP. PS7

I have my color settings set at the North America Prepress 2 for every adobe program except AI 10 because it is not listed. I have it on the North America Prepress without the "2"

I have been told that if I create a PS document that needs crop marks, to simply place it into AI & create the crop marks there for the printer if I need to show bleeds.

When I print the AI file with crop marks, the color does not match the PS file printed.

Is there anything I can do?

You should be able to make all the necessary color settings match even if you don't have the exact same preset.

Make sure you are working with the proper document color mode in Illustrator (e.g., don't place an RGB image from Photoshop into a CMYK Illustrator document).

Okay I tried testing it again.

The color mode is in CMYK in both PS & AI. The PS file is CMYK.

I am noticing the color is a little more darker in AI. The text is a little jagged too in AI.

If they are both in CMYK, then what do I do? What can I check?

And you've double-checked your color settings (not just the overall preset but the individual options)?

I have PS 7-10 and AI 8/10/12 on a machine here, so I just did a quick test with the same versions as you to make sure. I show no color shift whatsoever between the PSD in Photoshop and placed in Illustrator.

As to the jagged text, realize that you're not looking at editable text one you've placed the PSD in AI. It's just part of the raster image at that point. Therefore, it does not benefit from any AI text anti-aliasing. What you're seeing is the difference in on-screen raster anti-aliasing between PS 7 and AI 10. This does not affect the printout.

I'm sorry, but without seeing your settings, I have little else to suggest.

Hi Harron, thank you for replying.

Yes, I have my color settings already saved under a special name so they are all consistent within the Adobe programs of PS, AI & INDD.

Yes, we have a Postscript printer here. I'd like to post the color settings screen shots, but how would I do that here? I only know how to post things on photobucket or something. I'll check the help section.

I did another test for myself & I am still seeing color differences. I put a gradient in a background (dark blue/purple/light blue/blue/light blue/blue/dark blue) & the light blue is coming up brighter in the AI printout. I guess the colors blend better in PS than AI.

Thanks.
Jules

Hi, Jules.

I put a gradient in a background (dark blue/purple/light blue/blue/light
blue/blue/dark blue) & the light blue is coming up brighter in the AI
printout. I guess the colors blend better in PS than AI.




If you are creating the gradient in Photoshop, placing the raster image (containing the gradient) you created in Photoshop into an Illustrator document, and your color settings are identical in both apps, and both the Photoshop image and the Illustrator document are CMYK (created in and tagged with identical color spaces)... then the only way for the two printouts to come out differently via the same PostScript printer is for you to use different print-time settings in the two apps.

Now, as I recall, print-time dialogs were not as uniform back at AI 10 and PS 7, so, depending on the printer, arriving at the exact settings that produced identical results from both programs was a bit tricky. But it could be done. I did it regularly using Adobe's now-defunct PressReady PostScript RIP.

Again, however, without seeing exactly what your print-time settings are, I can only take wild guesses. Posting screen shots require that you host the image files somewhere and point to them here via a standard HTML image tag. If you'd rather, you can verbally describe the print dialog settings you use (in both applications) and hope one of us will be able to make sense of it.