InDesign® CS4 Bible

Chapter 7. Defining Colors, Tints, and Gradients

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Getting acquainted with color terminology

• Making sense of process and spot colors

• Working with color models in InDesign

• Defining colors and tints

• Mixing colors

• Importing colors from files

• Sampling colors from images

• Understanding color issues in imported graphics

• Working with gradients

• Editing, copying, and deleting swatches

• Applying colors, tints, and gradients

Although color is most widely used by high-end publishers — people producing magazines and catalogs — color is becoming more accessible to all publishers thanks to the recent emergence of inexpensive color printers, color copiers, and leading-edge desktop-publishing programs. Whether you want to produce limited-run documents on a color printer, create newsletters using spot colors, or publish magazines and catalogs using process colors and special inks, InDesign offers the tools that you need to do the job well.

But color is a complex issue in printing, which involves both physics and chemistry. The inks that produce color are designed chemically to retain those colors and to produce them evenly so that your images don't look mottled or faded. How light reflects off of ink and paper to your eye determines the color you see, and many factors (particularly different textures of paper) can affect the physics of how the light carries the color.

You also have implementation issues to consider: How many colors can your printing press produce, and how much will it cost? When do ...