Predictability of Spot Color Overprints Robert Chung, Michael Riordan, and Sri Prakhya Rochester Institute of Technology School of Print Media 69 Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623, USA emails:
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[email protected] Keywords spot color, overprint, color management, portability, predictability Abstract Pre-media software packages, e.g., Adobe Illustrator, do amazing things. They give designers endless choices of how line, area, color, and transparency can interact with one another while providing the display that simulates printed results. Most prepress practitioners are thrilled with pre-media software when working with process colors. This research encountered a color management gap in pre-media software’s ability to predict spot color overprint accurately between display and print. In order to understand the problem, this paper (1) describes the concepts of color portability and color predictability in the context of color management, (2) describes an experimental set-up whereby display and print are viewed under bright viewing surround, (3) conducts display-to-print comparison of process color patches, (4) conducts display-to-print comparison of spot color solids, and, finally, (5) conducts display-to-print comparison of spot color overprints. In doing so, this research points out why the display-to-print match works for process colors, and fails for spot color overprints. Like Genie out of the bottle, there is no turning back nor quick fix to reconcile the problem with predictability of spot color overprints in pre-media software for some time to come. 1. Introduction Color portability is a key concept in ICC color management.