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Old 06-07-2012, 09:52 AM   #3
frogfish
Taking the Monorail to EPCOT
 
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: MO
Software: Photoshop CS4
Camera: Lumix
Posts: 1,422
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5) Gamut

Our computer screens support so many more colors than printers (even professional ones) do. That means that some of the colors we see on the screen can't be produced by even the best printing methods. Those colors are said to be out-of-gamut. If you try to print a layout with out-of-gamut colors, you could be in for a big surprise as sometimes out-of-gamut colors print as a TOTALLY different color (for example, an out-of-gamut red may print as grey, brown, or even blue!). Making sure your items are in gamut will save the people using them from that headache.

PhotoShop Elements does NOT have a utility for checking or fixing gamut so these instructions will only work if you have PhotoShop CS. Refer to this post for more info on fixing gamut using a free online utility.

To check the colors to see if they are in gamut, access the VIEW menu in the top menu bar and select GAMUT WARNING. Colors that are out-of-gamut will appear gray.



You can either attempt to fix the colors manually or allow PhotoShop to map them to the closest in-gamut color. To let PhotoShop do the work for you, access the IMAGE menu in the top menu bar and select MODE and then CMYK COLOR. A warning box will appear informing you that your image is about to change; to proceed, click OK.



Be sure to change the image mode back to RGB color before doing anything else. To do that, access the IMAGE menu in the top menu bar and select MODE and then RGB COLOR.



Allowing PhotoShop to map the out-of-gamut colors to the closest match worked well for this image, but that is not always the case. Compare the original to the new image to decide if you like the way PhotoShop handled it.

The original image is on the left, the new one is on the right.


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6) Blurry elements/textures/edges

Blurry elements and papers are like blurry photographs; no one wants them. You should examine your elements (paying special attention to the edges) and papers (paying special attention to the textures) at 100%. There are several ways to sharpen a blurry element, but especially with blurriness, it is easier to prevent it than fix it. Depending on how bad it is, finding an element/texture that isn't blurry at 100% is easier than fixing a blurry one.
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