Duotones, soiund it out with me dooo-oh-ton-zzz. Think of Batman and Robin AKA the Dynamic Duo or duet and duotone is a color setting in Ps that keeps an image 2 colors. Duotones are cool and can have a great effect oon something you are designing. First you need to convert your image to greyscale, next under the same option as you find greyscale (image>mode) you find the option for duotone. I made this coolr 2 page flyer for a trip to Europe, I think it has more character and class than just doing a standard full color brochure. Keep in mind that a duotone will only work in PS and Indesign, the color settings do not cross over into Illustrator, so convert it to a CMYK file.
Here is a good tutorial to get your feet wet.
5 comments:
I agree. Duotones are a brilliant way to stretch a 2-color solution.
BTW... color settings are also honored by Quark. There is actually no reason to bring a duotone into Illustrator. Final production of any print project should be done exclusively in InDesign or Quark, anyway.
If you read some of my previous post I don't really talk about using Quark since it has really become second dog. Most of my post are about Adobe.
I must correct you in your incorrect "exclusive" statement. Today print projects are increasingly being accepted in PDF formate not just InDesign or Quark and the future points to this being the norm. Furthermore, several package and display printers that I deal with ask for Illustrator files exclusively. In Europe they too like .ai or .eps files for many things.
Hmmm... may be true about package and display printers using Adobe Illustrator. They don't use standard sheet-fed presses, so the processes could very well be different. Guess I should have been more specific to projects that use sheet-fed printers so, technically, my statement wasn't the only "exclusive" statement made.
I don't have much experience with those particular markets - packaging and display. All of my background is in projects printed on printing presses.
Sure, you would convert a duotone to 4c if it's printed on a large-format color printer (like display work), but the original use for a duotone was the printing of just two inks, hence "duo." Therefore, a true duo is printed only in two colors and on a press that prints matched PMS or Toyo inks. Once you convert a duotone to CMYK, it is no longer a duo... it's a fake (simulated) duo.
I love duotone. I must try this on my own someday....
PS I agree, this is more interesting in duotone than I imagine it would be in 4C. Nice decision.
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