Working with Color in InDesign

Name: Working with Color in InDesign
Author: Patti Scully-Lane

Learn to work with color swatches and understand the different between color types

Preview the first lesson free — get full access to all 9 lessons.

Course: On-Demand

In this lesson, you are going to learn about the difference between the RGB and CMYK color models and why this information is important when you work in Adobe InDesign. RGB stands for red, green, and blue. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. RGB is the color model that we use when working on web and mobile documents. CMYK is the color model that we use when we work in print documents. CMYK is known as a subtractive color model. And what that means is when you subtract your colors, you get white. RGB is an additive color model. And that means when you add the colors together, you get white. As you can see in this page down at the bottom here, we have three circles: a red one, a green one, and a blue one. And when they overlap, we have a blending mode put on them. But when they overlap, you can see magenta, yellow, and cyan. And where all three colors overlap together, it turns to white unlike the CMYK model up at the top here where when our magenta and yellow overlap, we see red, when our yellow and cyan overlap, we see green, and when our cyan and magenta overlap, we have blue. When all three overlap, we kind of get a muddy purple, which is why we do need that K. K stands for key, but more commonly known as black. And that's why we need the K so that we get that deep black, true black, as opposed to that muddy purple when we add the three colors together. But as you can see, they are related in that when we overlap our CMYK, we get our RGB and vice versa. When we view documents on a screen or a device, the devices that we use use the RGB color model. So it's extremely important when you work in Adobe InDesign to know how you are going to be using the document that you create. If you're gonna be creating something for the web, then you use the RGB colors. If you're creating something for print, you use the CMYK colors. If we look over in our swatches panel over here on the right, if you don't see your swatches panel, you can go to the Window menu, to color, and then to swatches or you can change your workspace to the advanced workspace. And that will show your colors over in your panel doc. In our swatches panel, I have six colors besides our normal black paper and registration and none. I have cyan, magenta, yellow, red, green, and blue. And over here in this far right column, you can see how easy it is to tell the difference between CMYK colors and RGB colors. When you have a CMYK color, it has the CMYK icon over here on the right. Also you'll notice the name of the color is defined using the color values. So we have a hundred percent cyan, a hundred percent magenta, a hundred percent yellow. And then here with our RGB, we have an RGB icon over here. And again, our colors are named with the color model. What's confusing in InDesign is that you can have both RGB and CMYK colors in your document. That's why it's important when you create your document under the file menu to new document, it's very important to make sure that up at the top here, you choose the correct output for your document. So that when you create a document for print, I'm just gonna choose the letter document. By default, all of your colors are CMYK colors. If I go back up to that file menu to new document and create a new web size document, I'll just do this 800 by 600, you can see that in the swatches panel, all of the colors by default are RGB colors. So it's extremely important when you work in InDesign to know what the final output is going to be for your document and to create your colors using the correct color model. So in this lesson, you learned the difference between the RGB and CMYK model, and you learned when you will need them in your documents and how to choose the correct document for the output that you need.

Intermediate Provider : Patti Scully-Lane 9 Lessons · 56m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese

Course Description

In this course, you will work with swatches and the different functions they have in InDesign. You will learn how to create, apply, and edit CMYK, RGB, and Pantone color swatches as well as save them in the Creative Cloud libraries, for use in other documents.

What You'll Learn

Create, apply, and edit CMYK, RGB, and Pantone color swatches in InDesign
Distinguish between RGB and CMYK color and understand when to use each color type
Apply color to text and frames using swatches
Save color swatch presets to Creative Cloud libraries for use in other documents
Import color swatches and work with Pantone and spot colors
Create gradients in InDesign

Key Takeaways

Swatches in InDesign serve different functions and can be created, applied, and edited as CMYK, RGB, and Pantone colors.
Color swatches can be saved to Creative Cloud libraries so they can be reused across other documents.
Choosing the correct color type depends on understanding the difference between RGB and CMYK.
The course covers applying color to both text and frames, as well as importing swatches and creating gradients.
Pantone and spot colors are addressed alongside standard RGB and CMYK swatch work.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does this course teach about working with color in InDesign?

It teaches you to work with swatches and their functions in InDesign, including how to create, apply, and edit CMYK, RGB, and Pantone color swatches and save them in Creative Cloud libraries for use in other documents.

Will I learn the difference between RGB and CMYK?

Yes. The course covers RGB vs CMYK color and helps you understand when to use a given color type.

Which color tasks are covered in the lessons?

Lessons cover RGB vs CMYK color, creating color swatches, applying color to text and frames, editing swatches, saving swatches to Creative Cloud, importing swatches, Pantone and spot colors, and creating gradients.

What skills does this course help build?

It builds skills in Adobe InDesign, color grading, color management, color mixing, the color tool, and supports Adobe InDesign certification.

Can I reuse the color swatches I create in other documents?

Yes. You will learn to save color swatch presets to Creative Cloud libraries so they can be used in other documents.