Re: Photoshop USM and CMYK conversion

[zxiong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Sorry I inadvently sent out the email before I finished it.

Thanks very much indeed for all the advice. Internet has been my primary source
of knowledge on photography.  I was forced to pick up prepress because the
images were each stitched with over 10 originals.  The beauty of doing things
yourself is that every time you go out, you know which camera to pick up.

I also will output those images to trannies for Ilfochrome prints.  I wasn't 
quite sure at what point I should separate the path and start working on one 
file in RGB and one file in CMYK, for I wish to minimize work load.  Following
advice from the list I'm thinking of save the master file and do USM using
different amounts for RGB and CMYK output.  I felt very uncomfortable with
USM of >200% but that seems to be what press machines need. I did talk to the
printer and got the parameters for CMYK conversion. I'm bringing the files to 
the printer myself next week to make sure I'm doing the right thing.  Glenn's
techiques sound very interesting and I certainly would be interested in hearing
more. The disadvantages of using layers are the large file sizes, particularly
the scratch files which often filled up my 4GB scratch disk and I had to start
all over again.

Zonghou Xiong