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The News & Observer recently
created new standard guidelines for photo quality. The following
procedures will help you obtain optimum quality on The News &
Observer's flexo presses. Note that these are guidelines
for good picture quality - there are other factors that The News
& Observer cannot control, such as original image quality.
If you would like help with your images, feel free to contact
us.
COLOR PHOTOS OVERVIEW
Remember these 3 keys
to a good photo: Brighten Midtones, Add Contrast and Sharpen,
Sharpen, Sharpen! The designers at The News & Observer
use adjustment layers so they can store an original of the work
and a record of what adjustments were made to a photo. This is
good for making further adjustments after a photo has printed.
You can achieve good results without using adjustment layers
as well using the Levels, Curves and Hue/Saturation settings
from the Image / Adjustments menu.
MAKE YOUR PHOTOS "JUMP"
OFF THE PAGE
1. Crop and size image to desired specs and set resolution to
170dpi.
2. Tone image in RGB but use the CMYK preview mode (View menu
/ Proof colors) to view photo as you make changes.
3. Evaluate image and determine what corrections are necessary.
Use "memory" colors such as green grass, blue sky,
red/white/blue flag as a starting point, if possible.
4. Create adjustment layer for Levels in Layer Palette. With
Preview on, Option-click on Highlight and Shadow triangles. Pull
in slightly until area appears on screen. We can hold a 4% highlight
dot. Pull midtones over to "open" them.
BEFORE
AFTER
5. Create adjustment layer for curves and further adjust areas
as needed. Create slight "S" curve for contrast.
6. Create adjustment layer for Hue/Saturation to do any color
adjustments, if needed. On fleshtones, magenta and yellow should
not vary by for than 5%. This is the perfect place to make the
sky blue (more cyan) and the grass green (more green), for example.
7. If you want to save a copy of your photo for later adjusting,
save a copy to your hard drive now. After you Flatten the file
in step 8, the adjustment layers are gone.
8. Flatten your image
9. Convert to LAB mode
10. Under Channels palette, go to Lightness channel
11. Go to Filter / Unsharp Mask. Set Radius is .5 and Threshold
is 0. Don't be afraid to sharpen your image 200%, 300% or more.
Dot gain will eliminate a lot of the noise that appears during
sharpening, especially in the Shadow areas. Note that ad designers
at The News & Observer routinely sharpen images in Unsharp
Mask 300 - 500%.
12. Convert to CMYK mode
13. Save As EPS, Mac 8-bit, Binary
 
NOTES:
- For accuracy, it is best to
view the photo at 50% or 100% on your screen, not 33% or 66.7%
- We use adjustment layers so
an original of the file can be saved with the adjustments. If
your file runs too dark in the paper, simply open the adjustment
layer and make the correction without having to start over
- Sharpening the photo using Unsharp
Mask is the single best way to make your photo "jump"
off the page
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COLOR
IMAGES