Questions from a new member and PL user

[Petar_MK]

Hello,

I'm interested in some features that are (not) part of PL:

1. Is it possible to make duotone, tritone... photos in PL?
2. Is it possible to unlock the background layer to be moved across the layers?

A suggestion: make blending modes (multiply, lighten, darken...) to work on selection, also. I think it would be rather interesting option.

[Hoogo]

1) Yes, if you only need the popular color-effect, but not the technical separation into 2 or 3 channels of special color, as some special printing processes demand. Try "Tool > Color > False colors", maybe turn it into an adjustment layer and set it into the layer mode "color".
2) There's a little symbol in the layer list shown at the background layer, something like a tiny compass. It shows that movement is locked. Click it, and you can move. Or hold ALT while moving.

[Petar_MK]

Hi Hoogo,

thank you for the answer. Yes, I need that effect for color separation and I would like to use PANTONE spot colors.
(1) Is it possible to open (create) a new channel and (2) to assign to it a spot collor to it?

[mwenz]

No Pantone color that I know of. But starting out with a gray CMYK TIFF, one can do this.

Duotones and tritones, can be faked using CMYK images where one of the values represents the spot color + black. So for instance, I just created a sample image that uses only Magenta representing the spot color along with black. This would be acceptable for a two-color sep--I just need to communicate to the printer that the magenta plate is spot color XXX. Same with a tritone image, I would just use one of the other values (C or Y) for the second spot color.

I used the Channel mixer for this operation. So for my two-color sep, I set the magenta to +20%, black at +60% and the other two (C and Y) at 0%. One can save this mix as a preset so it is easy to apply to the various images in the publication. It helps to get each gray image to about the same intensity. But with the preset as a starting point.

Then in my layout application (unless the whole document was composed in PL), I just need to use tints of magenta and black to achieve the proper separation. Now, it may look gaudy on-screen using those two colors, but that doesn't matter as the magenta plate would be substituted for the spot color. Same with using say Cyan for a second spot color.

One does need a certain amount of faith that this works. And as always, you need to request a proof.

Take care, Mike

[Petar_MK]

Thank you very much Mike,

When I started this topic I forgot to explain that I am in DTP for almost 20 years. I work with QuarkXPress, InDesign, CorelDRAW, Xara, Photoshop... I also do some programing in PoweBasic. So, you didn't have to explain so much because I knew everything you said and I did it so many times.
But, the main point is, when the customer is watching what are you doing over your shoulder. (S)He want to see exactly how it would look like. It doesn't help to explain to him that magenta would be replaced with PANTONE ... So, the (duo, tri...)tone mode is must in this kind of software.

[mwenz]

Apologies for being pedantic, Petar. Hard to tell one's experience level on a forum--or what other software another has at their disposal.

Yes, I agree that supporting p-tones and duo-tritones is pretty much a must-have. That is one of the main reasons I leave Photoshop installed on an XP machine.

You mention Xara. I usually compose small brochures or fliers in XDP. Using it one is limited to duotones, but using the light and dark conotone settings, you can make nice duotones using p-tone colors. Anything longer than brochures or fliers gets done in a layout application and so when I need a two or three color such images have to be done in Photoshop.

Hopefully Pantone color will be added in a future version.

Take care, Mike

[bkh]

But, the main point is, when the customer is watching what are you doing over your shoulder. (S)He want to see exactly how it would look like. It doesn't help to explain to him that magenta would be replaced with PANTONE ... So, the (duo, tri...)tone mode is must in this kind of software.

You could add a channel mixer adjustment panel at the top and use it to convert the fake CMYK colours into the corresponding Pantone colours. So if the C channel represents red, you could just set the C slider to 0, 100, 100 for the C, M and Y channels (top row). Of course, this only works if your Pantone colour can be represented (approximately) in CMYK. You'd have to deactivate the adjustment layer before you export your tiff, though.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[mwenz]

But the on-screen representation is important *if* a client is looking over the shoulder *or* desires to view proofs in the form of PDFs or print before being sent to the service bureau for printing.

As well, flying by the seat of the pants when doing any of the above methods can have unpredictable results where one needs to have two or more proofs in order to get the two (or more) colors in the right ratios for the intended output. Add several images processed as above and it will be a lot of work.

Having the ability inside PL to do Pantone-based duo or tritone (or quad for that matter) images is a desired/needed function. As well, if one is composing inside PL for an entire publication, being able to use a Pantone color space on vectors would be needed too.

Take care, Mike

[greenmorpher]

Hiya Mike

This is something I hadn't noticed about PhotoLine since, apart from a few tentative experiments, I haven't tried to do any DTP in it. I use it exclusively for photo editing work. I do my DTP in Canvas, a totally integrated app where you work on the virtual page and pasteboard surround all the time whether you are working in raster or vector (including type), on a singhle pge or a 248 page book. It's in v.12 on Windows and sadly, development stopped at v.X on Mac (which I'm on). Hence my acquisition of PhotoLine to complement it with some more advanced photo editing tools than are available in Canvas X -- although it has very competent photo editing tools and some nice stuff that[as all its own.

It also offers Pantone colors and duotone, tritone, and quadritone modes with color and black levels which you could adjust. Nice tool.

Back in the day before I began to use Canvas, I used to fake duotones and tritones using one or more of the CMY colors, and clients used to be goggle-eyed in wonder that they could see anything at all! But times have changed and as you say, clients these days expect to see the "real" thing.

The problem with Pantone colors is that Pantone demands outrageous fees. Or at least, they used to do; I can't imagine that they still don't. Working in the field, you know what a Pantone swatch costs, so you can imagine what they charge a software developer. I'm sure we wouldn't want to have PL's price bloated by that cost. I'll suggest a way around that in a minute.

But first …

Q&D SOLUTION TO GIVE YOU REALISTIC PROOFS?

Maybe there is a solution -- a half-way house -- that the Hubers can think about. I've used this going the other way -- from chosen color to CMYK -- in Canvas because its translation of some colors in the red/pink zone into CMYK is poor. Canvas has a palette for colors and other stuff called "Presets". This is just the same as the pop-out palette you get for colors, patterns, etc., at the bottom of the Toolbox in PhotoLine. BUT there is also another palette which goes a step further -- the Attributes Palette, in which you can edit all the stuff in the Presets palette -- including the colors. I use that from time to time to create a custom color with the desired CMYK construction to overcome Canvas's poor translation of some colors into 4 color. (Being involved in advertising a bit, I'm a bit fond of reds which are the problem colors!)

It would be really, really nice to have an equivalent to the Attributes panel in PhotoLine. (The moment I say this, of course, someone will point out something in PL that will provide similar facilities. Well, I haven't seen it! BUT you can edit colors.)

Now -- to assist with your current problem. On the Internet there are sites that give CMYK and RGB breakdowns for Pantone colors. Google and you'll find them. Find the 4 colors for the color you want to use in your duotone. Open a document (I'm working through the example in a "Document" not a photo window in PL) make your shape, fill it with black, go Menu Bar > Layer > Convert Layer Type and set it to CMYK. Now draw another shape on top of that (that will be a new layer) and fill it with a color that approximates the Pantone color you want, again making sure it is CMYK. Now with your color selected, right click on the color tile in the Toolbox -- you'll get a little menu with "Edit" as the bottom entry. Click on that and you'll get the CMYK breakdown of the color. Adjust that to be the percentages you've obtained for your chosen Pantone color. You can also adjust the opacity. You'll want to adjust the percentage of black in the black layer too.

I did this for ease of experiment in a couple of vector layers. I'm sure you'll have no trouble translating this to working with photographs. The final product will print realistically, I think on any laser or inkjet printer so you can show your clients a useful proof.

PERMANENT SOLUTION

This would involve adding something like the Attributes Palette in Canvas to PL so you could edit colors then save them to a custom colors palette which you could then dip into when you wanted to replicate something you had done before. If this is already available, then it needs to be made more obvious because I've missed it. Then we could set up a whole custom palette of Pantone equivalents from the published CMYK or RGB tables (which the Hubers could not do without a license, I think, but what we do in our own homes and offices is our business!). Of course, we could do other colors too.

In addition, PL could use a duotone/tritone/quadritone tool like Canvas has.

And what about output separations? We don't want just 4 color, we would want to output custom separations. I haven't looked at that because I never print from PhotoLine.

I hope this helps.

Cheers, geoff

Geoffrey Heard
The Ad-Doctor-Online
http://www.ad-doctor-online.com

[bkh]

Maybe there is a solution -- a half-way house -- that the Hubers can think about. I've used this going the other way -- from chosen color to CMYK -- in Canvas because its translation of some colors in the red/pink zone into CMYK is poor. Canvas has a palette for colors and other stuff called "Presets". This is just the same as the pop-out palette you get for colors, patterns, etc., at the bottom of the Toolbox in PhotoLine. BUT there is also another palette which goes a step further -- the Attributes Palette, in which you can edit all the stuff in the Presets palette -- including the colors. I use that from time to time to create a custom color with the desired CMYK construction to overcome Canvas's poor translation of some colors into 4 color. (Being involved in advertising a bit, I'm a bit fond of reds which are the problem colors!)

In PL, use the Colour List palette. Looks exactly like the pop-up palette which you get from the toolbox, but:
- you can drag and drop or paste colour swatches into it
- you can edit colour entries
- you can save and load custom palettes
[/quote]
Frankly, I don't know why the "normal" colour palette doesn't have these features.

Btw, there is a similar palette (Brush list) for brushes.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[mwenz]

Hello Geoff,

Licensing the various Pantone pallets...without someone contacting Pantone, who knows what it costs? Is the cost worth it? Only if PL desires to extend itself into the professional design community.

I began the responses above with a work-around for going from designer direct to printers. But as mentioned, if the client is involved in any way in the process (aren't they all?) then the process breaks down.

I am one who will not create more work for themselves in order to use a piece of software through the design process. Sorry. So that leaves out using PL in anything but CMYK for print, or rgb for web, work. Now, most of my work is in CMYK these days. But I do often enough do two and three color work often enough that it is done in PS, Illy, or XD, InDesignP and even PagePlus--all of which support Pantone.

Using Pantone for two and three color work is cost effective, which is why it still exists. I have plenty of Pantone color books beside me as I type this. I know what the CMYK values are. This works for changing solid design elements, not so much for continuous tone images.

I would encourage PL to adopt, or at least investigate, adding Pantone pallets.

Take care, Mike

[lutz]

I believe you might want to have a look at the "Color Filter" for the creation of duotones, quadtones, etc..
I do not fully understand if there are any special requirements for a "correct toning", perhaps this tool provides the basis for quick, intuitive, and flexible toning.

[Hoogo]

Hi Lutz,

I think that the color filter won't help. This all isn't about a pretty effect for pictures, but about the technical demand of creating special channels for special print colors. And about a reliable preview for it.

[Koyaanis]

Photoline is capable of importing quite a few support file formats from other programs. I have a Pantone palette in mine that I use as the default, just because I like how they are sorted. (If you drag the size of the color selection panel to just the right size (number of rows), they all line up in nice neat blocks of hues. I included the Pantone palette as appended onto a default web-hues color-palette. (And beyond the Pantone section I also appended a 256 gray-level palette, and another flesh-tones palette that I built from several images with lots of flesh-tones in them, using the menu Tool > Color > Reduce Colors > Palette > File > Save feature. Importing/appending the saved palette to the color-selection panel.) Then saved that all that as default. Another nice aspect is that if you right-click on the color-palette drop-down (in the left toobar area) after it is open, you can select a small or large-text display mode so it even shows the Pantone number/code designation.

Trouble is ... I did this so very long ago I don't remember if I imported the Pantone palette from the support files of Corel, PhotoSlop, PaintShopPro, Canvas, or (insert editor of your choice). You can also import brush files from other programs. Even the "stamp" files from PaintShopPro. Play around, you'd be surprised what Photoline can do. It's very migration-friendly.

[Safara]

I too had been wondering whether there was some way by which I could create tritone and duotone pictures in Photoline. I guess all I had to do was work with the false colors. Anyway, regarding unlocking the background layer for moving it across the layers, you can click the symbol as mentioned here.