Process Color Values
Purpose: Loading the colors of your inks into the Photoshop program ensures a more accurate representation of what
you will see on press. Otherwise the colors used in Photoshop, SWOP (standard web offset printing standards), may
vary from those values displayed with your inks. The film output will not be correct to your ink mixes and the
secondary and tertiary colors won’t match to your inks; but instead, they will match the SWOP mixes. For Example:
An Orange according to SWOP may be correct at 75% magenta and 25% yellow (film dot percentages), however the
same orange might read as 60% magenta and 40% yellow according to your inks on press. The orange, therefore, will
not appear the same and you will have to adjust the film percentages - which means back to the art room. If the
primary colors are entered correctly, you save a tremendous amount of time by avoiding unnecessary film (dot %’s)
adjustments.
Light Source: Cool White Fluorescent (light where garments are viewed at point of purchase).
Print: 305 and 355 mesh count. 100% Saturation.
Method of entering information:
1. Open Photoshop.
2. Click on File > Color Settings > CMYK Setup
3. Check the L*a*b* coordinates box.
4. Open Ink Colors and choose Custom (at the very top of the list).
5. A custom box appears, like the one you see below. Click each box and enter
the color values below in the appropriate box.
6. Click Save and create a new file called “Color Values.” Label this file as
“IC CMYK Values.”
7. Each time you enter Photoshop, you need to check to see that you are working with the correct values by
going into File > Color Settings > CMYK Setup. IC CMYK Values should be displayed. If not, simply click
Other > Load > Look under Color Values file and open IC CMYK Values and click ok; and this
automatically resets the values when you need them.
Product
L
a
b
764LF Cyan
40.10
-8.40
-60.19
743LF Magenta
54.49
57.65
-5.55
724LF Yellow
93.89
-8.05
106.10
MY
58.62
49.59
48.74
CY
44.80
-44.13
17.14
CM
35.36
16.48
-50.20
CMY
36.04
-3.06
1.49
W
96.13
-0.18
2.21
K
20.88
0.09
-0.71
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