This is a five color project, I have four colors, CMYK for my color image, and then
I have a fifth color which is PANTONE 202.
And I have a nice gradient here and I set up a little interaction between that
gradient and the color image underneath, by going into the Effects Panel and
choosing Color Dodge. But I want to be sure of course, that
this is how it's going to print. You might notice that things look a
little ragged. Well, I'm going to go up to View, go to
Display Performance and choose High Quality Display.
Now things look a little bit sharper. And here's a warning, that isn't enough
to tell you the true story about how this is going to print.
Big caution, and remember this, any time you're using spot color components in
your project, and you start playing with any of those blending modes, worry that
it's not going to image the way it initially looks on screen.
Is InDesign lying to you on purpose? Well, no.
It's not taking the time, or the computational effort to show you
everything on screen. So, it's enough to keep you going but,
it's not enough to tell you the whole story.
So make this a habit. Any time you're using Spot Color
components and you're using any kind of Blending Modes, use this forensic tool.
Go up to View and choose Overprint Preview.
It's the first thing on the list so it's sort of easy to overlook.
Watch the bottom of the screen when I choose that.
Oh, it looks totally different. I don't have that nice interaction
between my gradient and that image underneath, and I have these ugly yellow splotches.
And this is how it's going to print, too. Not at all what we want.
So, let me select this shape and consider maybe using a different Blending Mode.
As long as I'm still in Overprint Preview, I'm going to see how it's really
going to image. So, I can go through the list.
Now, Multiply's going to be a little bit heavy.
Screen gets rid of the image entirely. Now Overlay looks sort of like what I
originally had in mind, so I think I'll settle on that.
But remember, if you go back and you turn off Overprint Preview, you can be misled.
This is not how it's going to image. It's not how it's going to print.
This is the true story when you use Overprint Preview.
Now you might find in a graphic heavy document that having Overprint Preview on
all the time, may slow your performance a little bit.
An that's why InDesign doesn't turn it on by default.
But remember any time you use spot color components and you start experimenting
with blending modes. It's probably a good idea to work with
Overprint Preview on, but if you don't want to do that, at least remember,
before you finish the job, go up to View, turn on Overprint Preview, take a good
look at everything and make sure that things are really going to image the way
you expect.