Expert: Glen Demers - 6/27/2011

Question
QUESTION: When working on layouts in InDesign, my document specifications are correct but they look wrong on screen. For instance, 81/2 x 11 looks almost square. I checked the scaling and it is the same horizontal/vertical. It also makes my guides look wrong. Help!

ANSWER: Hi Susan,

The only thing I can suggest is to try different monitor resolutions until you get one that works correctly. Having a standard size monitor set to wide screen dimensions will give you a distorted image.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more InDesign tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/indesign.htm

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Question number two--same project. Newsletter layout is in InDesign. I extracted the logo from its background in Photoshop. I placed it in InDesign and all the colors changed. OK I figured out how to fake turning off the CMS in InDesign and the color's fine on the newsletter layout. But the logo from Photoshop still turns another color when placed in InDesign. I changed the Photoshop color setting to turn off CMS but this didn't solve the problem.

Answer
Hi Susan,

Make sure Photoshop and InDesign have the same color management policies, for print you should set the policy by going to Edit>Color Settings... and set it to North American General Purpose 2 or North American Prepress 2. These follow the same CMYK policy.

Also make sure your images are set to CMYK mode in Photoshop and in InDesign go to View>Display Performance>High Quality Display to accurately view images in your layout.

Hope this helps,
Glen Demers
Prepress Technician, Best Printing Online
www.bestprintingonline.com

For more InDesign tips please visit our help pages here: http://www.bestprintingonline.com/indesign.htm