Working with Separations Preview

When a document is printed with more than one color, each color is called a plate. Printing the different colors onto separate plates is called making separations. You use the Separations Preview palette to view the different color plates onscreen. This makes it possible to gauge how a document will look on press.

To turn on separations preview:

1.

Choose Window > Output > Separations. The Separations Preview palette appears.

2.

Choose Separations from the View menu . This displays the controls for the colors in the document .

Use the View menu in the Separations Preview palette to turn on the separations preview.

The colors in the document are displayed in the Separations Preview palette.

3.

Click each Show/Hide icon next to the color name to change the display of the colors on the page . (See the chart on the following page for examples of the previews .)

Click the Show/Hide icons in the Separations Preview palette to change the display of the colors on the page.

Plate	Palette setting	Onscreen preview
All
Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
Black
My spot green
As you change the colors shown in the Separations Preview palette, the display of the colors on the page changes.

Tip

Click the Show/Hide icon next to the CMYK listing to show or hide all those plates together.

My Favorite Childhood Book

One of my favorite books I had as a kid was a World Book Encyclopedia that had acetate pages that you could flip to see how colors built up to a full-color image. (It's true! At the age of 13 I was into page production and color separations.)

When I worked in advertising we called these color breakdowns prog proofs (for progressive proofs). But during many years of working with computer graphics, we had no way to see how colors combine on the page. The best we could do was print color on individual laser prints and then hold them up to the window to see how the colors would separate.

Finally, I am thrilled to see the Separations Preview an electronic version of my World Book acetate pages. Instead of flipping pages, I click ink colors on and off. I can spend hours doing it. It makes me feel like a kid again!