Question: AI Color Settings?

Now, I'm european but I guess americans will have some similar standards.

L-Star RGB, one awesome colourspace:
http://www.colormanagement.org/en/workingspaces.html

ECI offset profiles (2007):
http://www.eci.org/eci/en/041_offset.php

If you're serious you might want to get something like this:
http://www.basiccolor.de/english/Datenblaetter_E/squid_E/squid_E.htm

The ACE Modul is fine, I also would use dither and reduce the displaycolours by 3%. Set everything in Photoshop and then import your settings into Bridge. This way you can syncronize the colourspaces of your CS Apps. That's of course if you own the suite.

There are no perfect settings, it all depends on the machine it's printed on and the paper. Ask your printer of choice, some of them have their own colourspaces and settings, they might provide you with everything you need.

Today for example I edit pictures and vectors that will be printed in a 10 micron frequency modulated screen. These are totally different settings from regular offset. Same if it's a newspaper print. It's not that complicated, but you want someone with knowledge to show you in person.

Also, do you must export it as TIFF? Use EPS if you can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management

but when I save my file as a TIF it looks awful

Um, yeah. :)

When you convert a vector file to raster you lose resolution and you entirely lose the benefit of your vector file being infinitely resizeable. If you have to convert the file to something, convert it to a pdf. Otherwise, leave it alone and let your printer handle it.

Have you called your printer yet to get their specs? That will direct how you send them your file. Make SURE you include all images and fonts with your illustrator file as it doesn't natively collect those for you. You can get an app called Art Files to help you collect your illustrator files.

It's obvious you are new at this, but you'll learn through experience. :)

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Powerpoint is not a design application

I agree - contact your printer as they MAY have special color settings available for you to use that will emulate their press qualities. If anything, they can tell you verbally - but if you're lucky, they may even have "csf" files they can send to you that you load into your Adobe programs.

I think this should be more of a concern if you're doing your work in CMYK, though, versus spot colors. With spot colors, so long as you have a reliable pantone swatch book, you should be certain that when your work goes to press, the spot colors are going to match what's depicted in the swatch book.

I also agree with going the PDF route. It'll be the most reliable. I hate using TIFFs unless they're black and white bitmap images - that's the only time I ever purposely use them.

Thanks for your feedback everyone. I picked Overnightprints.com to do my business cards and they sent me their print requirements for the AI files. The color settings I used (above post) appear to work just fine for this. The only other thing I had to change was my artboard size and the black color (C 70%, M 40%, Y 40%, K 100%).

Now to wait for my cards to arrive :)

Ah, too late - already sent the designs off to be printed. They required me to set the black on the design to those settings anyway.

The black is set to what Overnight prints recommends, as I said in my previous post: The only other thing I had to change was my artboard size and the black color (C 70%, M 40%, Y 40%, K 100%).

Those are their specifications.

Now, to get back to what I originally started this thread for..........

I listed the color settings I am using in Illustrator above in my first post. I wanted to know if this is a good setting to use, what other people use, etc.

That's what I am interested in knowing. Thank you.