Several Freehand/Photoshop colour questions

[mpjx]

Hi,
This post is really asking several questions.

I am trying to design a postcard in Freehand for 4 colour offset print output.
I have a photo that I want to incorporate in the postcard but I want to create
rounded corners on the photo.

I can use Photoshop to create a rectangular mask with rounded corners and
place it over the photo, with a transparent background and then saveas a cmyk
tiff file. When importing the photo to Freehand however, the transparent
corners show white. Is this white just a feature of Freehands live preview and
the corners will acutally print with the underlying colour or will the corners
actually print white?

On seeing this problem I tried the same procedure but matching the CMYK
background colour values for the corners of the image in Photoshop to the
underlying colour in the Freehand document. Unfortunately the corner colours
(created in Photoshop) appear lighter than the surrounding colour in Freehand
even though the CMYK values are the same. I'm guessing that there is some sort
of colour profile issue going on here but I don't know how to solve it.

Third and final question. I was planning to do this job entirely in Freehand,
it has the multipage facility that I need (for double sided printing on the
postcard) and other professional print/layout features. I've read several posts
on other forums from people saying that Freehand should just be used for vector
work, and to leave the page layout to Quark Xpress or InDesign. Are these views
founded on any valid reason or just personal preference/predudice?

[Judy Arndt]

My advice would be to import a plain flattened CMYK TIFF (without clipping
path or alpha channels). Draw the round-cornered rectangle and paste the
TIFF inside. See Help files on the subject, "Working with clipping paths".

Color management is a big subject. See the Help files. If the CMYK values in
your TIFF image and your vector elements are equivalent, they may not match
exactly on screen, but the colors will match on press.

Page layout in FreeHand works well for short documents such as brochures and
booklets. For longer documents that require auto page numbering, long
stories spanning many pages, tables of contents and indexes, you'll need a
full-featured page layout application.

Judy Arndt



mpjx wrote:

> I am trying to design a postcard in Freehand for 4 colour offset print output.
> I have a photo that I want to incorporate in the postcard but I want to create
> rounded corners on the photo.
>
> I can use Photoshop to create a rectangular mask with rounded corners and
> place it over the photo, with a transparent background and then saveas a cmyk
> tiff file. When importing the photo to Freehand however, the transparent
> corners show white. Is this white just a feature of Freehands live preview and
> the corners will acutally print with the underlying colour or will the
> corners actually print white?
>
> On seeing this problem I tried the same procedure but matching the CMYK
> background colour values for the corners of the image in Photoshop to the
> underlying colour in the Freehand document. Unfortunately the corner colours
> (created in Photoshop) appear lighter than the surrounding colour in Freehand
> even though the CMYK values are the same. I'm guessing that there is some sort
> of colour profile issue going on here but I don't know how to solve it.
>
> Third and final question. I was planning to do this job entirely in Freehand,
> it has the multipage facility that I need (for double sided printing on the
> postcard) and other professional print/layout features. I've read several
> posts on other forums from people saying that Freehand should just be used for
> vector work, and to leave the page layout to Quark Xpress or InDesign. Are
> these views founded on any valid reason or just personal preference/predudice?
>
>

[mpjx]

Thanks for your help Judy,

I've never pasted an image inside a box but I'll check the help file as you
suggest. I'm sure I'll work it out.

Interesting about the on screen colour differences. Out of interest, do you
know why these colours are displayed differently on screen?

Thanks again

[mpjx]

Judy

The "Paste Inside" function works great - much easier than messing around in Photoshop!

Thanks!

[nunman]

yes, the reason for the color shifts are due to a number of reasons. It could
either be you are using 2 different color profiles in the programs, or you
choose a slightly off color between the two for example when choosing the
colors you may have thought that the blue in photoshop was the blue in freehand
but in fact it was a tint or shade off. when choosing colors make sure that you
use pantone or use the color picker and write down the hex compatible color
number. that way you get consistant colors, or just chool the correct and same
color profiles in both programs.