Illustrator vs Quark/InDesign separations.

[motormount]

I've heard a couple of times that ID and Quark produces ''better'' separations than Illustrator.
(Not defining in which way better...)
Personally i have never ever noticed any difference,and cannot really understand how could it be!

Any theoretical or experience-based suggestions on the subject would be much appreciated!

Thanx in advance!

 

[toronar]

I can't imagine how separations can be "better" among different programs, *if* the programs have to separate the same data. And by "same data" I mean unprofiled CMYK.

There is only one unprofiled separation for unprofiled CMYK input data such as 50/50/50/50, and that is 50/50/50/50. No program should make a difference there.

If you separate any colorspace other than unprofiled CMYK, then I would say there may be differences in the output depending on the program. But if that is the case, the differences should be between Quark and Adobe applications, not between Illustrator and InDesign.

 

[rich apollo]

motormount,
You're gonna' have to come up with some criteria. This is a bit like saying that the Atlantic ocean is better than the Pacific.

Someone might be alluding to color controls - you have very few in Illustrator. You wouldn't be able to control a color conversion as completely in Illustrator as you could somewhere else.

 

[motormount]

Thanx for yours answers.

Thing is,that i was not given any specific reason why should this happens-if it does-
It just came as:''Didn't you know that ID produces better separations than illustrator''
-and i didn't-

The way i understand it,profiled or not,CMYK data will(or should) come out the same way from either software-unless you apply different profiles when exporting but that's a totally different story i suppose!

I'll ask again the guy who told me,just in case!

Thanx again!

 

[pcmodem]

If you are dealing with older versions of Illustrator. There was not as good of control for the positioning on the media as there is in newer versions of Illustrator.

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

There can be a difference in how it works. It is much easier to seperate in InDesign that Illustrator, and it is much easier to colour manage. InDesign has more settings if you check the assign profile dialog.
Solid Color intent, Default Image intent and AfterBlending Intent. You also have the option of viewing maximum ink. On the 50/50/50/50 discussion I would say it is pointles as even if you printed correct your workflow will give different colours for the same value. So what are you after a specific value tat will vary from output device to output device (unprofiled) or managed colour, where the values are to adjust as necessary to maintain visual integrity of the artwork?
Illustrator is much trickier to keep colour managed, it is possible, but often the person doing the illustrations is not aware of the output intents, and will colour manage this way and that till all colurs have impurities and thin black strokes are some 350% coverage CMYK mix.

My advice is to keep illustrator (if we are talking tech illustrations) as unmanaged and do separations in InDesign (or Quark) using a managed workflow. If you must include images in illustrator, don't mix spots and transparency. In Illustrator files use embedded CMYK photos, when you must use photos, and check the resultting PDF so that you do not exceed total ink for the paper/process.

 

[motormount]

Thanx for the info!

I'll keep these in mind!

 

[4stateprint]

Indesign & Quark vs. Illustrator or other Vector

Indesign & Quark vs. Illustrator or other Vector

The only reason I have ever used Illustrator was to get a very specific bleed and knockout that try as I may I could not get it to work in Indesign. (It was a tricky customer file and they paid for it.) So sometimes it does have a knack but as most everyone else has stated unless you have problems you are MUCH better off to use Indesign or for that matter Quark. Good luck and I hope that the above comments help you out.

 

[thomaus]

If you are dealing with older versions of Illustrator. There was not as good of control for the positioning on the media as there is in newer versions of Illustrator.

Actually Adobe Separator gave one quite precise control over positioning. Probably too precise. It holds the honour of having one of the most un-intuitive interfaces in the history of the Mac. I've never met anyone else who actually tried to use it. But it could be made to work.

This was before the days when colour management solved all the separation issues.

 

[motormount]

To be honest,untill recently i was on the color/image editing side,never had to deal with ps/pdf's missing fonts pictures etc,so i have a long way to catch things up!

Problem is that the tools are so powerful that a great part of the job can be done without in depth knowledge(trapping,color conversions,overprints control)and it's harder-for me at least- to get to know some things that in earlier days you just couldn't do the job without them.

I mean on the imaging side,you couldn't produce a good image without-at least- some basic knowledge of color theory,how your scanner behaved,where your image was going to be printed(web/sheetfeed/flexo)
Now anyone with a good calibrated monitor and correctly color set up suite can produce more than acceptable images,without bothering about ucr-gcr,dot gains etc,so i'm guessing if someone is new on the job(imaging,prepress,pessman) now,it's easier to work but harder to understand it!

 

[David Ingram]

Going back to the old film days, and this is from an operator point of view, making seps from Illustrator was ALWAYS a bigger hassle, because the default registration targets and crops always printed further away than they did out of quark or Pagemaker or indesign. One nice thing was, for my silkscreen and prototyping customers, in illustrator they could make an 18" x 60" page and throw whatever on it, and with a lil custom tweaking of a .ppd, i could print really large images to one continuous piece of film on the capstan imagesetter. this made the silkscreen and the snowboard ppl happy. But on the issue raised, the quality of the dot is going to come from the laser marking the device. The better calibrated the setup the better the image. You would have to run 3 (negs) /plates on the same paper, or substrate to comapre... I've never Seen the same image print differently from 2 different software programs. using the same setup. its all postscript at the rip, 2400x2400 dpi or higher output with the same settings has NEVER imaged better or worse, from this or that software in my experience. (16 years digital prepress, 50,000+ jobs imaged)