Duotone blues

[pjredman@adobeforums.com]

I'm creating duotones of one Pantone ink and process black in Photoshop CS, saving as .psd and placing in InDesign CS. When I print the duotones to my Epson 5000 (Fiery RIP) from Photoshop the duotones look good. When I print the pages that contain these images to the same printer from InDesign the colors are shifted quite bit. Color management is turned off in InDesign. I've tried turning color management on and all that does is throw my monitor display out of whack. The colors on the printer are unchanged.

Advice?

Thanks,
Phil Redman

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

First question: Why are you using duotones with desktop printer?

You should definitely have color management turned on and set
identically in ID and Photoshop.

Bob

[pjredman@adobeforums.com]

Bob,

I'm using the desktop printer as a quick print proof. I know that this printer is not going to give me an exact rendering of my Pantone color but I would have hoped that it would get me in the ballpark. As I mentioned the same image in Photoshop prints quite well on this same printer.

When I switch InDesign to the same color settings as Photoshop:
RGB = Adobe RGB (1998)
CMYK = U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2

I get no change in print quality. My monitor does show the color a bit differently though.

Phil

[Robert_Levine@adobeforums.com]

Are the printer setup choices the same? Are you outputting RGB or CMYK
in the print menu?

Bob

[pjredman@adobeforums.com]

Bob,

In InDesign I've set the output to Composite CMYK and in Photoshop the print dialog is set to "Color Management" with the source space set up as Document (Duotone) and the Print space set to "Print Color Management" with an intent of "Perceptual". So it seems like InDesign is separating the PMS in my duotones while in Photoshop that's being done by the desktop printer? Hard to tell without spending about a week with the manuals for InDesign, Photoshop, and the printer.

Working from the "Info" dialog numbers in Photoshop and the "Separations Preview" in InDesign it looks like the ink percentages are not being altered in the InDesign image. A PDFx1a produced from Indesign checks out as well so I think my little foray into color management has ended and I'll go "by the numbers" as I have for the last 20 years.

Thanks,
Phil