Printing design

11 Dec

Design in RGB for better print results

Designing in RGB for printing is possible.

One of the first decisions we will have to face in the design process for printing will be the color method we want to use: CMYK or RGB. There is a general belief that we should work in RGB for designs that are going to be seen on a screen, while the CMYK method is for physical prints. Today in Inèdit’s blog we are going to dismantle this myth:

A bit of theory: CMYK vs RGB

The CMYK color model focuses on four colors: Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y) and Black (K). With CMYK we use the Subtractive method, by which colors are superimposed on the print to create the desired result. The absence of color will be white while 100% of the color black, but in addition, there is the “K” option that will allow us to create this black, with less ink consumption and a more intense color.
RGB is based on the colors Red (R), Green (G) and Blue (B) and works with additive synthesis, which consists of varying the intensity of light in the three main colors to create one again. This means that the more light we add, the brighter the results. So, 100% of light in each color will result in white and, conversely, 0% will result in black. In RGB, by playing with lightness we increase the variety of colors we can create compared to CMYK.

It is true that the vast majority of digital printers and plotters used to work in four-color printing, in other words, with the four colors that make up CMYK, limiting color results, but today this no longer happens.

Continue designing in CMYK?

In the digital printing sector things are changing a lot and color management and reproducibility are becoming more and more important.

Currently, printer manufacturers are focused on offering a greater number of inks, going beyond CMYK, in order to expand the color range of printing and be more competitive in the market.

We can find orange, blue, violet, turquoise, and even fluorescents in the ink options. In addition, the machines are constantly increasing their capacity, reaching to hold 8, 10 or even 12 different inks.
So we ask ourselves, does it make sense to keep working from the design only in CMYK, limiting the colors, when maybe the production printer has a wider color range?

Design in RGB to get the desired color results.
From our point of view, no. By using printers with a wider range of colors and working with all the necessary tools, it will be possible for you to end up printing the colors you see on screen, without having to juggle to imagine how the four CMYK inks will mix at the time of design.

One of the great allies for this color reproduction is the Rip Software you are using. For example, neoStampa is one of the rips that creates your print profiles in RGB. This allows you to have a standard color range, regardless of the number of inks in the printer, and that works in the same language as the designer’s screen or monitor. This way, you keep the color from the design until the final printing and the designer can focus on what really matters, creating with the colors that they like.

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02 Dec

Why is Adobe Photoshop the best tool on the market for textile design and color management?

Adobe Photoshop: The leading tool in the design

In the last decades, Adobe Photoshop has positioned itself as one of the most important tools in the management of pixel-based images. With Photoshop, not only do we have at our disposal a wide range of tools for editing, transforming, and enhancing images, but you can also access a wide range of customized tools that provide the best results regardless of which industry you work in.

For instance, our sector: is textile design and printing. With the power of Photoshop and the external add-ons, we have in our hands the perfect tool to make our work faster and more efficient.

But do not forget that the job of a textile designer is not over when the design is finished, there are different processes that are necessary and we must ensure their success. One of the most important processes is Color Management.

Color management in textile design and printing

Color management is one of the most popular terms in our industry. Broadly speaking, color management is the process of converting the representation of colors in different devices (for example, converting the color we see on a screen to the one we will see on fabric) to reproduce colors as accurately as possible. When we start a creative process, we imagine shapes accompanied by a color palette. This same palette is the one we reproduce when we design and the one we expect to be printed at the time of production. Furthermore, one of the particularities of the textile sector and in particular digital printing is the repetition of the productions: We launch a collection, produce a print run and if it has succeeded, we produce it again. With good color management, not only will it be possible to print what we have sold but also we will be able to repeat the production as many times as necessary without changing the result.

So why do you need to know about color management if you are a textile designer? Because it is the only way that the colors we imagine in our head, which we later capture in Photoshop, will be the same ones we will see printed in the collection.

Why choose Photoshop for color reproduction?

To the initial question of the post Why is Photoshop the best tool in the market for textile designers? The answer is: Because it is the tool that will best suit your color management needs.

And, how do we do it? Photoshop has four key processes that will help us maintain color accuracy throughout the design and printing process:

  • Allows you to work with embedded profiles: This makes it much easier to work with color management. If we work with an image with an embedded profile, we will see the colors that your output device will be able to reproduce, and we will also be capable of maintaining this information for the production department.
  • Allows you to assign color profiles to your designs (Edit > Assign profile): With this tool, you can change the profile you will work with. We will change the initial profile of the image for the one we select. In this process, the RGB coding is maintained but the colors will be changed since the color profiles are responsible for giving the values to the RGB. If these are different, the colors will change to fit the selected profile.

  • It has the functions to convert (Edit>Convert to profile) and test a profile (View>Test Fit): The difference between assigning and converting a profile, is that the latter, when we select a profile for change, will not maintain the RGB coding, trying to preserve the color results as much as possible within the profile. The function of testing a profile is very similar to that of converting the profile, but it simply shows it in Photoshop, without modifying the image. This way, we can simulate the output colors of the job. The function of testing a profile is very similar to that of converting the profile, but it does not modify the image, it simply displays a preview of the results in Photoshop. This way, we can simulate the output colors of the work. If we use both tools at the same time, we will have our design prepared with the profile we want to use and, in addition, we will be able to see the simulation once printed on paper or fabric

  • You will be able to send a file to be printed preserving the color management previously done: Finally, the same tool, as we have mentioned before, will allow you to send all the information about the image and the profile to the production department, so as not to lose any information of our work.

If you want to know a little more about it, you can watch this webinar where Gerard explains in detail the steps to follow for color management with Adobe Photoshop®. If you have any comments or questions, you can write to sales@inedit.com

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23 Nov

Introduction to color management with Adobe® Photoshop

Adobe® Photoshop® is one of the main tools used for textile printing designers. But how should we manage color so that our textile design can be reproduced accurately?

In this Webinar, you will discover the answer to questions such as:

Why do we need Adobe® Photoshop® to print colors precisely?
How to use color modes?
What is a color profile and how to use it?
How to work in RGB mode?
…

Click on the video and enter the world of color management for textile design:

 

 

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31 Mar

8 workshops for printing designers for less than 15€

One of the secrets of creativity is to be permanently in training. And taking advantage of this quarantine to improve, is one of the best ideas we can have. For this reason, today we bring you a list of 8 excellent courses for print designers for less than 15€ that will help you to improve your skills!

In this list you will find the courses you may need to learn new illustration techniques, to improve the print design process and also to keep growing as a fashion designer. All of them, have been found in Domestika, where they are working hard to offer us their best content at a lower price during the quarantine.

So here you are, the list:

We start with this free proposal that Domestika makes available to us only during the quarantine. In this course, estimated at 39.99 euros, Violeta will teach us illustration techniques inspired by nature and femininity. There are 20 lessons that become 5 hours of training, unmissable for any designer who is looking for innovation and focus their patterns on nature or women’s figure.

 

With this course, Ana Blooms will give you the basis to start creating your own brand, with its history and its line, through the design of prints. You will learn some basics about illustration and the process of printing design.

 

The next proposal we bring you, even if it is not directly related to printing, is very interesting for all those who want to introduce themselves to floral design and then turn it into textile design. Maya introduces us to the world of acrylic with floral design, on the surface you prefer. She will give us tricks of composition, color, techniques, and much more!

 

Here is a specialized course in the whole process of designing textile prints. You will learn from Inés Aguilar how to get inspired by design, how to create different reports, finishes and see how colors behave in digital printing.

 

And if we continue with Inés Aguilar, we find this course, more focused on the creation of fashion garments and inspiration. In this one, the designer will transmit to us more than two decades of experience in the sector, from the complete process of creation of fashionable clothes.

 

With this workshop, take a step further with your illustrations and patterns. Learn to draw different patterns by hand, based on characters living together in colorful spaces. Be inspired by the ideas and techniques in this course to add a different twist to your next collection.

 

Another of the courses that will help you to complement your designs. If you would like to give a floral and botanical look to your new collection, in this workshop, Paulina Maciel teaches us the processes to make botanical composition illustrations in a precise way, taking the flowers and plants as a model.

 

BONUS: 

Find the color palette that best defines you at any given time with this course by Ana Victoria Calderon. You will learn color theory, mixing knowledge and theory to develop two color palettes applied to illustrations.

 

We hope you liked our post and we will be happy to hear from you if you finally do one of these courses and your feedback!

 

Thank you,

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18 Dec

neoCatalog: Gestiona tus diseños y aprovéchalos al máximo

Inèdit Software presents neoCatalog, an interactive catalog especially designed to organize and manage textile designs. With neoCatalog, professionals of textile design and digital printing can take the total control of their jobs, storing them easily, tagging them by keywords and organizing them with personalized galleries.

Furthermore, with neoCatalog they can have their design ready to show to costumers, creating different colorways and allows you to view your designs in any environment, model or object by producing photorealistic simulations.

“neoCatalog is the first tool specially developed for the management of textile designs.” Says Oriol Martínez, Product Owner at Inèdit Software. “We started by creating neoCatalog Server, a version that we customized exclusively for large companies, adapting to their processes. After years of understanding the needs of these clients, we have decided to create a neoCatalog within reach of everyone, for small design studios, freelancers or medium and large companies, who have a considerable volume of designs and want to organize and manage them. At the same time, we continue to develop neoCatalog Server for large companies.”

neoCatalog is also created to facilitate the communication between  the agents involved in the workflow. Designs and galleries could be easily shared with an invitation system. In addition, the neoCatalog administrator will be able to decide users privilegies, which can give different benefits to the departments involved in the work process.

“With neoCatalog you could improved the communication between departments. The designers have a space where to organize their work, they store them in galleries separated by seasons so if they need an old design or to see a complete collection it is very comfortable for them. And once finished, they send to the commercial department what they want to sell” continue Oriol Martínez “On the other hand, the commercials can access the catalog, create different colorways, make photorealistic assemblies with different models and show how the design would look in a real environment to the clients, without the need to depend on the designers”.

neoCatalog can be used as a sales tool. It’s possible to create personalized layouts where showing the design on a virtual simulation, the colors that has been used and the data of your company or clients one.

neoCatalog is a tool of Inèdit Software, a company with more than 25 years working in the development of software for the textile industry. Together with neoStampa, Rip Software for the digital textile printing and neoTextil, textile design plugins for photoshop, neoCatalog complete a set of solutions designed to generate a 100% integrated workflow, providing agile and effective communication between the departments involved.

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