Ink limit

[caled]

One handy feature in Indesign CS2 is the ink limit feature that allows you to preview areas in a graphic that can cause oversaturation and set off in the press. One question though, how do you decrease the ink limit so that all those red marks disappear?! Also I take it that 300% is Indy's default so how can I get the correct settings for my AB Dick 9995A press. I have asked around and got a lot of blank stares from so called knowledgable people. Advice will be most helpful.

Thanks
Caled

[jimking]

Was the blank stare sort of like this, 8O. I think if you want to control dot gain it should be through your imagesetter, whether it be to film or plates. The feature in Indesign may be for printing to a laser printer.

[caled]

Yep that was the blank stare! LOL

The Indy help file passes the buck by telling you to ask your press man for the correct ink limit settings. Well I did and he gave out a reply that sounded like Homer Simson.... duhh! And what pantone shade is Madge Simson's blue rinse? ...

Caled

[jimking]

Pantone 300.

[caled]

Coated?

[seetomtype]

Originally Posted by caled

One handy feature in Indesign CS2 is the ink limit feature that allows you to preview areas in a graphic that can cause oversaturation and set off in the press. One question though, how do you decrease the ink limit so that all those red marks disappear?!

I'm not sure if this is what you are asking or not, but in the Window tab of your tool bar
there is a selection for Output, and from there select the Seperation Preview. In the
seperation palete in the drop down menu, select Ink Limit. If you raise the limit by
typing in a high number (400 for example) it'll decrease the amount of warnings you
get from heavy ink builds. I don't use this feature, and I can't seem to find any other
place to turn the warnings off. I think that they only show up when that palete is
open though...

If the press operators don't know how saturated is over saturated then I wouldn't worry
too much about ink limits. We run small presses, so it may be more important in an
environment that run larger presses. 300 is the default setting.

FWIW...

[David]

Originally Posted by caled

One handy feature in Indesign CS2 is the ink limit feature that allows you to preview areas in a graphic that can cause oversaturation and set off in the press. One question though, how do you decrease the ink limit so that all those red marks disappear?! Also I take it that 300% is Indy's default so how can I get the correct settings for my AB Dick 9995A press. I have asked around and got a lot of blank stares from so called knowledgable people. Advice will be most helpful.

Thanks
Caled

Whoever is running the press should know how much ink they can carry before they have ink trapping issues. Here we run 320 to 340 max on our webs and sheetfed presses (these are not AB Dicks).
I would think that you would be better off at the 300 limit (depending on the stock, coated or uncoated).

[cari]

Hmmm... <<thinking>>

Haven't actually tried this out myself, but my guess would be you could assign a CMYK profile to your InDesign file that has correct total ink limit reference and on output convert your colours to this profile.

However, this would affect all objects as far as I understand it, not just those with incorrect ink-limit.

Other than that it would be manual labour: reopening images and fixing things, and changing colour swatch specs in InDesign.

:-)

[bobbyc]

That's a pretty cool feature in InDesign. Does anyone know if this exists in Photoshop? I've got CS and haven't been able to find anything similar. Has anyone seen any other apps out there that do the same thing? I assume some preflight applications may...

To answer your question, though: You can run some tests on your press to determine your ink limits. Just step some CMYK swatches up from maybe 260 to 400, and check to see where the problems begin to occur. There are probably some targets for download out there somewhere, I know I've seen them before.

If you ever look at your Color Settings in Photoshop, you can set ink limits there under the Custom CMYK area, or you can let your press profile take care of this. In order to apply these settings, you'll need reseparate. I usually convert to Lab, then back to CMYK with my new settings.

[caled]

Bobby

Thanks for your reply. I've set the ink limit at 360% to see how things go. This setting appears to eradicate the red ink limit marks in most of our files. I'll jack back when I see the results from the press room.

Caled