Setting this to 'Composite CMYK' is often what causes the spot colors to lose 'vibrancy' as the Adobe application is converting the spot color to CMYK.įor Illustrator - the default color setup is SWOP for CMYK color space and 'Let Illustrator determine colors.' Try chaging this to Gracol and 'Let Postscript printer determine colors' and your output color should improve. In Adobe InDesign this is accomplished by selecting 'CompositeLeave Unchanged' for the Color mode in the 'Output' section of the Adobe print dialog. We often find it best to send the colors 'as is' to the printer and allow the DFE to handle all color conversions instead. Often, in applications like the Adobe CS suite, one the contributors to 'washed out' colors is allowing the application to convert all colors to CMYK, usually using a profile designed for offset printing and not digital.
