Publisher 2010

[cats_five]

Back to the greetings cards.  It looks like the best software I have for templates is Publisher 2010, but when I drop the image in the colour is awful - far too warm - nothing like it looks in CS4.

I imagine the same is true throughout Office as a whole.

Of course maybe it will all turn out OK when I print - but maybe not.

[smilem]

Well, office is not colormanaged, so you can't trust what you see even if your monitor is calibrated. I think you should save your work (export) then in photoshop or other app with color managed workflow you have to softproof and then adjust the image.

[Farmer]

Make sure the output from PS is sRGB.  When printing from Publisher, in the driver, choose ICM as the colour management/colour correction mode.

This should give reliable results and should reasonably match what you're seeing on screen assuming an appropriately calibrated monitor.

[cats_five]

Thanks.  So in other words ignore what it looks like in Publisher and use the right printer settings and all should be well.  Dunno how Publisher expects to be taken seriously with no colour management though.

[Doyle Yoder]

I don't think anyone takes Publisher seriously. It can also be quite expensive to use when printers down the line have to fix or redo almost everything to be able to print properly. I don't think I ever encountered a Publisher doc that I didn't have to rework in some way or another and it resulted in at least $50.00 charge for the trouble, many times much more.

[cats_five]

I'm doing my own printing which saves cost in that I don't have a printer sending me bills, but I've gone back to using Photoshop to do it all rather than just to prepare the images.  Publisher made getting the layout easy but stopped there. 

A friend with a lot of knowledge about this sort of thing has suggested that I splash some cash and get Adobe Design Standard, and once CS6 is around I will - a student licence at about 80% discount.

[JonathanRimmel]

There are a number of issues with using Publisher. As a graphic designer (and photographer) I stay away from Publisher like the plague. I use Adobe InDesign for layout work, or in some instances Adobe Illustrator.

The best way to avoid issues is to use a calibrated wide gamut monitor (don't just go out and get one if you don't have one, I am not trying to spend your money for you) and a program like InDesign which is better integrated with Photoshop.

Like others have mentioned you can get an Adobe suite which includes InDesign, Photoshop, and other programs. Be careful of the licensing though, if you get a student edition. There are two versions, one lets you use it on more than one computer, the other limits it to one "personal" machine.

Change your images to 8-bit if they are not already, and use convert to profile to change them to sRGB. (Remember to softproof) Also make sure your color settings are correct in your layout program. I've experimented with using a variety of workspaces but I found that sRGB works best in layout programs (while I use ProPhoto in Photoshop). Most of the time you won't be printing to a wide gamut printer with a layout program. Now of course all this does depend on what printer/paper/ink you are using as well.

I hope that helps.

[Farmer]

If you understand the restrictions of Publisher, and if you're printing yourself, it's quite functional.  As I said, used ICM in the driver and stick to sRGB tagged images to begin with, and you get predicatable results.

Clearly there is better software available, but if you have Publisher and want to use it, you can - it's just a matter of understanding it.  You can do the same from Word, for that matter (i.e. use ICM in the driver) to get a lot more control in your colour output.  Is it on par with Adobe products for colour?  Nope.  Can you work with it?  Yep.