How can I see how colours will look when printed?

Use soft proofing. In Vectornation by Zaweba, View > Colour proofing > Proof setup picks a CMYK print profile from the ICC profiles installed in Windows, and Proof colours then shows your artwork on screen as that press is likely to reproduce it, using Windows' own colour engine. Overprint preview and the Separations preview complete the picture.

Screens make colour from light and can show far brighter, purer colours than ink on paper. The gap is widest with vivid blues, greens and oranges. Soft proofing narrows the surprise by simulating the printing conditions on your monitor before you spend anything on paper.

A profile and a decent screen

The colour profile for the way the job will be printed. A commercial printer can usually give you theirs, and there are standard profiles for common paper types. Install the profile in Windows so it appears in Vectornation's list.

A reasonably good monitor helps. A calibrated screen gives the most trustworthy result, but even an uncalibrated one will show you which colours are going to shift and by roughly how much.

Turning on the proof

Open View > Colour proofing > Proof setup and pick the CMYK profile for the job. Then turn on Proof colours. The canvas now shows the simulation; switch it off and on to compare. Colours that change a lot are the ones to look at.

If a key colour goes muddy, adjust it in the Colour panel while proofing is on, so you are judging the result rather than the original. The Colour panel works in Grey, RGB, HSB, CMYK, Lab and web modes, so you can enter CMYK values directly when a brand guide gives them.

Turn on Overprint preview if any object is set to overprint. Without it, the screen shows the top colour knocking out what is underneath, which is not what will happen on press.

Open Window > Print and output > Separations preview to look at the inks. You can show any mix of inks, see coverage and see the highest total ink in the design. This is where you find a black that is really made of four inks, or a spot colour on an object you thought was CMYK.

Treating the proof as a guide

Set up proofing early, not at the end. It is much easier to choose colours that print well from the start than to rescue a palette that only works on screen.

Use Edit > Assign profile to assign the right profile to the document when the artwork arrives with the wrong one or none.

Remember that a soft proof is a guide. Paper colour, lighting and the press itself all play a part. For important work, ask for a printed proof as well, and use Vectornation's Proof sheet with a sign-off box to record that the client has approved it.

Spot colours and ink counts

If the job uses spot inks, load your spot colour books (Vectornation reads .ase, .acb, .aco and .gpl books you already have) and snap colours to the nearest entry. The Inks counter tells you how many colours the design uses, which matters when every extra ink is another plate.

What to do next

Once the proof looks right, run Preflight and export a PDF/X-4 in CMYK with the same profile embedded as the output intent, so the printer receives exactly the conditions you proofed against.

Vectornation by Zaweba is free software for Windows that works offline with no account, so all of this happens on your own PC.