Postscript files from Fprint lose color resolution or simply look
bad when printed on a CMYK printer. For example, the default rainbow palette
we are used to seeing (on the left) might look like the right-hand panel below,
with the blues and greens most affected.
If you are only concerned with the output of your local printer, then as a starting point, you should try to set up your printer to use RGB translation. This tells the printer to do the best that it can with an RGB specification.
You may still need to make postscript plots with palettes that work when translated to CMYK. We have made a number of palettes which, when printed on a CMYK printer, give a reasonable range of colors. If you use these palettes they will look odd on the screen but will work when printed on a printer that uses CMYK. These palettes will be included with the palettes distributed with Ferret, starting with version 5.41, or you can download them in this tar file. Put them in a directory that is pointed to by the environment variable FER_PALETTE.These palettes, created by Gabe Vecchi, should give you what you need
to highlight the characteristics of your data. Note you can easily combine
two or more of them to make your own new palette files.
exciting_cmyk.spk | Good for showing variances/standard deviations, etc. Shows high values as bright red/orange/yellow colors, and low values as pastel blue/purples. |
dynamic_cmyk.spk | Like exciting_cmyk.spk, except drops to a lower level of pastel purple at the bottom |
rainbow_cmyk.spk | Like the Ferret default rainbow palette, but attempts to fix the blues/greens. |
rainbow2_cmyk.spk | Like rainbow_cmyk.spk. More purple less green. |
rain_cmyk.spk | Good for showing rainyness. A palette with brown/yellows at negative, blues at positive to show rainyness anomaly. |
rain_hole_cmyk.spk | Similar to rain_cmyk, but with a ~30% of the center missing as white, to show large rainyness anomaly. |
norm_cent_cmyk.spk | Centered for currents, winds, anomalies and such. This one is light centered with reds on the positive |
rev_cent_cmyk.spk | Another centered palette, this time with blues on the positive. |
blues_cmyk.spk reds_cmyk.spk greens_cmyk.spk |
Monochromatic palettes; these work best with few levels (8 or less). You can make new palettes by combining these, for example combine blues with inverted reds in a new .spk file. |
sunny_cmyk.spk | yellows/oranges |
warm_cmyk.spk | oranges/reds |
If you have a specialized palette that you wish to convert to a "cmyk" palette, you will need to use a graphics program such as Adobe Illustrator. Here are the steps:
Your input and suggestions are welcome, as well as contributions of any palettes you develop, or tools you find to make this process simpler!
Last modified: May 08, 2002
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