colormunki from X-Rite & Pantone

colormunki is a color tool from X-Rite and Pantone which will profile your monitor, printer and projector and integrates with design applications to capture and create color palettes. You can capture colors from photos and anything that you can scan over with the device. Price is $499.

Check it out it looks cool.

Free Canon Digital Color Management PDF

From Cancon

Digital Color Management Guidebook

Proper color management aligns an entire system of cameras, displays and printers to maintain consistent color across different color spaces. For consistent color throughout the photographic process, from capturing an image, to processing it, to final output as a print, a color managed system is essential. This guidebook provides users of Canon cameras and printers with an explanation of what color management is and how to set up a system easily and effectively.

This looks like a good little reference guide.

New Color Management Training from Lynda.com

There’s a new Color Management ESSENTIAL TRAINING title from Lynda.com. It looks pretty thorough. There’s just too much to list (19 chapters with 7.25 hrs of training) so you will have to look for yourself.

Auto Font Activation/Deactivation in Leopard

This could be a great feature for graphic designers.
Right now I use Linotype FontExplorer X which is a good application, especially because it’s free.
Support for font auto activation and deactivation in the OS will be big for designers if it work’s well.

from Apple’s site

Font Auto-Activation
Automatically activate fonts as you need them. When an application requests an installed font that’s currently disabled, Leopard activates that font and keeps it active until the requesting application quits.

I can’t wait for this and other feature’s in Leopard.
I have pre-ordered Leopard and it will be here on the 26th.

Pantone Goe System Unveiled

Pantone’s new Goe System adds 2,058 solid colors.
That’s 2,058 solid colors in addition to the current books.

More info from creativepro.com

- More info from Pantones site – (click image above to go to the Pantone site)

PANTONE® Goe^TM System

A new vision of color from inspiration to application, the PANTONE Goe System provides an extended range of 2,058 chromatically-arranged solid colors. Colors are easy to locate and specify using the GoeGuide^TM, adhesive-backed GoeSticks^TM or myPANTONE^TM palettes software. Create, archive and share color palettes using professional printed or digital palette cards.

Features:

Wide gamut of 2,058 solid colors

Ink mixing formulas and RGB values

Chromatically arranged color families

Ten Mixing Bases used to create Goe Colors

Colors printed with uniform ink film thicknesses using inks receptive to coatings

Intuitive naming system

Printed publications, digital and Web components

Color selection and palette building tools

Compatible with the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM®

Benefits:

Expanded range of solid colors choices

Easy to locate desired colors by chromatic arrangement or number

Inks are easily controlled onpress for improved color matching

Color data provided enables recreation onpress, onscreen or the Web

Provides professional tools for color presentation

Guide, chips or software formats offer flexible color selection options

Saves time when using auto-generated or Web-posted color palettes

Expanded color choices when selecting from both the Goe and PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM

InDesign CS3 Prepress Essentials Training from Lynda.com

Lynda .com released a new video training tutorial title covering InDesign prepress issues today. It’s a very good resource for graphic design students or those interested in learning more in this area. It covers prepress fundamentals and specific InDesign information. They also have a title covering Photoshop CS3 Prepress.

I think that all graphic design students will benefit from viewing this tutorial. I HIGHLY recommend this tutorial for students. I had requested that Lynda.com offer this training and I would assume many others did also and I am very happy it’s now available. I have learned some of it on my own but why not get a head start as a student and learn it the easier way? My attitude, and I think it should be the the attitude of any serious graphic design student or working designer, is that I want to learn as much as possible about what I do. Even if you think you already know a lot about a certain subject you should always be open to possibly learning more. You never know when you might get that little piece of information that will make life that much easier or help you to produce something that comes out the way you want it.

I can assure you that printers really appreciate designers who want to learn about prepress and how to prepare files that are easy for them to print and in the short run and long run it could help you to get cheaper printing. In the short run because less problems to solve and time used on a job means less possible charges from the printer. In the long run because if you build a working relationship with a printer and they know that they most likely won’t have problems with your files they may give you a lower quote on your jobs.

A monthly membership to Lynda.com is $25 and you get access to many hours of great training on many different subjects. It is a really great resource for graphic designers and would be very helpful to graphic design students. You can also pay by the year and they have a Premium level that cost a little more where you can download exercise files if that helps you to learn. I just watch the videos and learn fine but it may help some of you to follow along with the files? If you are a graphic design student you may want to ask your parents to get you a subscription?

A Suggestion for Design Teachers

Thinking back to my time in school and what I have learned since I had a thought about a good way for teachers to cover some issues a designer might have when going to press with a print piece.

The Idea: Have the students prepare their files as they would to go to press and simply have a class critique where the teacher could pick pieces that may present issues when going to press and explain what issues might arise and how the designer might go about correcting them. The teacher could take questions and help clear up some of the prepress mystery. As simple as this sounds I can’t remember my teachers doing it. Students pieces should be critiqued on their asthetics but going over some possible prepress issues would help all of the students a great deal. For the teacher it would require a little work maybe but it would be of value to the students.

Also it is unrealistic for students to expect teachers to be able to cover every possible topic or question in graphic design but the more questions they ask the more they will get out of their education. If you don’t understand something ASK! There is no stupid question but you will FEEL a lot less stupid asking your teacher in school than a printer or co-worker. Having said that, I did say FEEL a lot less stupid, all of the printers I have worked with were more than happy to help explain anything and they REALLY appreciated the fact that I wanted to give them a file that didn’t cause them problems! I told them that I was a new designer and that I wanted to learn whatever I could to make both of our jobs easier and they said “no problem, it’s so nice to have a designer that even cares about learning about prepress and getting it right”. I don’t have experience working with other designers because I work with a web design studio that added graphic design when I started but I would hope that coworkers with more experience would have attitude’s as good as the printers I have worked with.

Comments?

graphic design