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Print Production Essentials: Spot Colors and Varnish

Print Production Essentials: Spot Colors and Varnish

with Claudia McCue

 


While most printing today is accomplished via a four-color process, there is a wide range of practical and creative options available when you add an additional color or varnish. This course teaches how these additional colors are made and shows some examples of finished projects that use these colors. Author Claudia McCue also dives directly into Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and other creative apps and shows how to build documents correctly for printing.
Topics include:
  • Why spot colors are necessary
  • Making a decision between spot and process colors
  • Choosing a spot color
  • Understanding the effects of stock on color
  • Printing spot colors digitally
  • Using varnishes
  • Creating a multi-tone image in Photoshop
  • Adding Pantone color swatches to Illustrator
  • Creating spot varnishes in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
  • Using preflight profiles in Acrobat

show more

author
Claudia McCue
subject
Design, Print Production, Design Skills
software
Acrobat XI, Illustrator CS6, InDesign CS6, Photoshop CS6
level
Intermediate
duration
1h 58m
released
May 09, 2013

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Introduction
Welcome
00:00 (MUSIC).
00:04 Hi, I'm Claudia McCue, and you are about to the enter the world of Spot Colors and Varnish.
00:10 Now you've probably already discovered there are limits to the range of colors
00:13 that you can print in combinations of cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
00:18 And in this course I'm going to show you how go beyond those limitations by using
00:21 the huge spectrum of spot colors available to you, and the enhancements
00:24 possible with specialty finishes such as spot gloss varnishes.
00:29 Now while spot colors and varnishes may add a bit to the cost for a printing job.
00:33 They really add visual impact. You're going to see how spot color inks
00:38 are created by skilled ink craftsmen. And they use not just extensive controls
00:42 but truly the instincts of artisans. In fact I don't think you'll ever look at
00:46 ink the same way again once you see what goes into creating it.
00:49 You're going to learn how the new Pantone Plus series adds hundreds of colors to
00:52 your design arsenal. And I even have a funny story about how
00:56 thats not enough for some people. I'm going to show you how you can
00:59 correctly prepare your designs for printing with spot colors, and I'll also
01:02 show you how to create artwork for spot varnishes.
01:05 You might be pleasantly surprised by how easy that is.
01:09 And I'm even going to show you how you can incorporate spot color into images.
01:12 And that will let you enhance the reproduction of important colors that
01:15 just can't be achieved with the old process inks.
01:18 And finally, I hope your imagination is fired by seeing what's possible.
01:22 When you start thinking just a little bit beyond, cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
01:27 So come on, and let's go start having some fun with ink.
01:29
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What you should know before watching this course
00:01 In this course, I'll be showing you some techniques for creating artwork and
00:04 images that use spot colors and I'll also show you how to create artwork for
00:08 varnishes using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
00:13 So, to make the most of those chapters, you should already be reasonably
00:16 comfortable in those programs. And of course, you'll find lots of great
00:20 essential training courses here on lynda.com, to help you learn more about
00:23 those applications. In addition, if you'd like to know more
00:26 about print production in general, you might enjoy my print production
00:30 fundamentals course.
00:32
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Using the exercise files
00:01 If you're a premium of lynda.com or watching this on a DVD, you have access
00:04 to the exercise files I'll be using. They can be found in the Exercise Files
00:10 tab on the main page of the course. You'll find exercise files for each
00:14 chapter within the Exercise Files folder, so you can follow along with the same
00:17 project I'm working on. Now, if you don't have access to the
00:21 Exercise Files you can still follow along by working from scratch using your own files.
00:27 So, let's get started exploring the ways, you can enhance your print projects using
00:30 spot colors and varnishes.
00:32
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1. Understanding Spot Colors
Why spot colors are necessary
00:01 So why do we need spot colors? Well, we as humans can see a wide range
00:05 of colors. Scientists claim we're capable of seeing
00:09 10 million shades. And if that sounds like a lot consider
00:12 that some animals, such as tropical fish and birds, can see colors we can't.
00:16 And in fact bees can even see into the ultraviolet.
00:19 Of course, we're not trying to print the ultraviolet, we just like to print the
00:22 colors that we want to see. But there's a limit to what we can print.
00:26 Now, this sort of odd shaped rainbow that you see is supposed to represent the
00:30 range of colors that we can see. Admittedly, you see a limit there that
00:35 defines what we can see on a monitor, so clearly we're not seeing everything that
00:38 we can see. But this is really just to give you an
00:41 idea of what the capabilities are. The monitor gamut is reasonably big, the
00:45 CMYK gamut is pretty much smaller, although you'll notice that there are
00:49 some parts of the CMYK gamut that actually fall outside the monitor gamut.
00:55 colors like cyan you really can't render faithfully on a monitor, you can come
00:58 close, but you can't quite hit it. And then of course, we have the PANTONE
01:02 gamut which is wider than what we can see in either other reality.
01:07 The CMYK or the monitor. And, I'm using PANTONE here but there are
01:11 other spot color systems. But the concept is the same.
01:14 These are specially mixed inks that let us accomplish stuff in print that we
01:17 couldn't with a combination of CMYK. Now CMYK is adequate for photographic
01:22 reproduction for the most part but there are a lot of colors that we really like
01:26 that we can't print within that gamut. Now there are some colors that you could
01:32 print equally well using spot colors or using CMYK.
01:35 For example, and I just pulled this at random.
01:38 PMS 235, you can approximate very closely with CMYK.
01:43 But then when you come across colors like bright oranges or navy blues, you're
01:47 going to find that you really can't print those satisfactorily with combinations of
01:50 the process inks. And we tend to like those bright colors,
01:54 and if you want to image those bright colors, you're going to have to use a
01:57 spot color. And navy blue, very common problem.
02:01 Think how many logos you know of that use navy blue.
02:04 That always goes kind of grey, a little bit purple.
02:07 You really can't do it with CMYK. If you want navy blue, you're going to
02:11 have to use a spot color. And then, of course, if you want to print
02:14 something like a metallic ink. Or fluorescents, or neons, you can't even
02:19 come close in CMYK. So, that's why we need spot colors.
02:23 We need to be able to create a special ink that accomplishes a color that we
02:27 have our heart set on, that we cannot approximate with CMYK.
02:32
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Examples of spot color impact
00:01 Here are some examples of projects using spot colors.
00:04 Now here's one that's using the synthetic reflex blue in order to not have problems
00:08 on press with drowning time or adhesion. Why would they use a spot blue instead of process?
00:14 They're using process for the photographic part, but they're using the
00:18 spot blue to ensure that they have uniform color across this large area, and
00:21 doing that with one single ink makes it much easier on press.
00:26 This is using a couple of the really beautiful Pantone metallic colors.
00:31 It's a green and then a darker green. It's also enhanced, it's given a little
00:35 dimensionality, because it's an embossed piece, as well.
00:38 But the first thing that catches your eye, is this beautiful metallic sheen,
00:41 and they carry that through to the heart of the book as well.
00:44 It's their color theme, but it's more than just greens.
00:47 The metallic nature of it really makes it a very fetching piece, it's something
00:50 that catches your eye, and it's something that people are likely to keep.
00:55 One of the reasons to use spot colors is to be able to have a metallic component
00:58 in a printed job. And for something like this piece, the
01:02 metallic color is something that underscores the high quality nature of
01:05 the product that they're advertising. And when you see this in real life of
01:10 course it's got a wonderful sheen to it and it looks like metal.
01:14 And again, it's something that speaks of high value, something of quality,
01:17 something worth having. This is a brochure for a luxury automobile.
01:23 And so they've taken advantage of what you you can do with metallic colors by
01:26 adding this beautiful silver accent to it, and they've also applied a coating to
01:30 make it even more high quality. So, for something like this, being able
01:36 to add that beautiful metallic accent Just adds to the message which is, that
01:39 this is something of luxury, this is something worth having.
01:44
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Spot or process: Making the decision
00:01 When you start working on a print project, there are a number of factors
00:04 that help you decide whether you're going to use spot colors.
00:08 Or whether the project is just going to run in process colors, CMYK.
00:12 Of course, one of the main reasons to use spot colors is that they allow you to
00:16 print colors that can only be approximated in CMYK.
00:20 For example, navy blue, which apparently we all love.
00:23 There are so many logos that use navy blue that tends to go sort of purplish
00:26 and a little grey. There's really no good way to render a
00:31 Navy blue in CMYK. So, if you really have your heart set on
00:34 that Navy blue, you really are going to need to run a spot color.
00:38 And a lot of vibrant colors like bright oranges and neon greens don't come out
00:42 very well if you try to approximate them in CMYK.
00:46 And of course metallic colours, silver will just look sort of grey.
00:50 gold will just looks like a shade of brown.
00:52 So, if you really want a particular color that you can print in CMYK, then the
00:56 decision is sort of made for you. You are really going to have to run a
01:00 spot color. But even if you don't have to run a spot
01:03 color because of a logo or some consideration like that, they can enhance
01:07 a printed piece. So for example, adding fluorescent colors
01:12 can make a document pop. It's something that people are going to
01:15 pick out of the mailbox and go oh, I wonder what this is.
01:19 And then, if you want to add to the perceived value of a printed piece.
01:22 For example, if you're working on a high profile project like a brochure for a
01:26 luxury item, an expensive car or jewelry or cosmetics or even annual reports.
01:32 Because that's an important piece it's an important publication for a company and
01:36 you want to sort of add to the visual weight of it.
01:39 Using components like metallic ink can make a project look like something more expensive.
01:44 Something more in keeping with the product that it's supposed to represent.
01:49 And something you might not even think about, using a spot color can sometimes
01:52 simplify printing. Now this is an exaggerated example, but
01:56 it's still something to keep in mind. On the top, the logo printed in just one color.
02:01 You don't have to worry about any kind of registration issues, there's only one ink.
02:05 The little lighter stripes that you see are just a tint, all of that's going to
02:08 be on one plate, it's all going to hit the paper at once.
02:12 But the bottom version that renders in CMYK, each color is applied separately.
02:16 So, if there's any mis-registration, you're going to see that offset between
02:20 the colors. Now admittedly, modern day presses aren't
02:23 played with registration issues that we saw many, many years ago.
02:27 So you're never going to see quite as far off.
02:30 But, if you want to make sure you don't have to even worry about registration
02:33 issues, if you print that logo in one color, it can't possibly have
02:36 registration issues. Sometimes using a spot color can actually
02:40 save you money. So here, for example, if I wanted to run
02:44 a 10,000 piece, 8 page folded brochure, saddle-stitched on 100-pound House Gloss
02:49 Text, if I run it 4 colors, that'a $2,100.
02:54 If I just run it in two colors, it's $1,695.
02:57 And at first you might think, well, that would be really dull, just two colors?
03:01 Can't I do something that looks really a lot better in four colors?
03:05 Well, if you have color images, that might make you decide that you're going
03:07 to go with the four color. But you're going to find that you can do
03:10 more interesting effects in two colors that you might think.
03:14 And later movie, I'm going to show you how you can use mixed ink swatches in end design.
03:18 To make it look like you really have a lot more colors to work with.
03:21 And of course, spot colors can increase the job cost.
03:24 And using the same job as an example, the four colors $2,100, if you add a fifth
03:28 plate, already you're adding another unit on the press.
03:32 You're using more ink, so I think you would expect that to increase the price.
03:36 2295, it's not bad, but it means I get that spot orange that I want, and you
03:40 know that would go a little dull if I tried to render it in CMYK.
03:44 But this is sort of interesting. Notice that if I want to use fluorescent
03:48 orange, Pantone 804 instead of 021, it increases the price even more.
03:53 Why is that? Well, you're going to find that the
03:55 prices of spot color inks vary, really, depending on the components.
03:59 The colorants that are used, the pigments that are used, may be more expensive.
04:03 When you start to get into the metallics like the 877 silver, that's even a little
04:07 more expensive. And, you might have noticed that Pantone
04:10 now has a premium line of metallics. And those are very fine colors, you'll
04:15 see that it almost has no texture to it at all.
04:18 They're very shiny, they're very smooth, and of course they cost a little bit more too.
04:23 But they are wonderful for high end jobs. And then, we start looking at two colors,
04:28 437 plus black. Again, we're back down to saving a little
04:31 money, if the two colors are black an silver.
04:34 See, because the silver's more expensive that adds a little bit more.
04:37 But it's still a little bit less than the four color price.
04:41 An then if I run three colors, the silver, the gray and the 437, then I'm a
04:45 little bit above that base price. So when you see those prices, getting
04:49 closer and closer, really your decisions going to be made by the nature of your design.
04:55 But if you have some flexibility, or you're still in the very early stages of
04:58 designing a project, take this pricing into consideration.
05:03 It's just sort of a general idea of what you'd be up against.
05:06 But I think one of the things you see here is that using spot colors, and the
05:10 extra life that they might give to the job Is not really prohibitively expensive.
05:15 It's a consideration, but you have to balance the advantages of the appearance
05:19 of spot colors against the price of using spot colors.
05:24 So, your decision is based on design and cost, and you have to take both of those
05:27 into consideration.
05:30
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Choosing a spot color
00:01 In Illustrator or InDesign, when you go to create a new swatch, you have a number
00:04 of reference guides to pick from. So, here I am in InDesign, when I start
00:09 making a new color swatch under Color Mode, when I click that pull down, I get
00:13 a really long list of possibilities. So, what are all of those for?
00:18 So, you might be curious about what they refer to.
00:22 ANPA is used in the newspaper environment.
00:25 DIC which is created by Dainippon Ink is used in Asia.
00:29 And it has some interesting components. It has what they called theme series
00:33 including Japanese Traditional Colors. So, those are colors that have been used
00:38 throughout history in Japan. And French Traditional Colors and Chinese
00:42 Traditional Colors. So, that's sort of an interesting
00:45 approach to create sort of a theme, a dedicated pallet for certain types of projects.
00:50 FOCOLTONE is actually not a spot reference guide, it's a process reference
00:54 guide, meaning it uses CMYK ink. And you'll see that used predominately in Britain.
01:00 HSK is a German reference system, and it has both spot and process components
01:05 available to you in Illustrator and InDesign.
01:09 And you'll notice that there's HKS E, K, N, and Z, and for each one of those there
01:13 are two components spot, and process. So, the E is for continuous stationery.
01:20 The K is for gloss art paper. The N is for natural paper, meaning sort
01:25 of standard stock, and then Z is for newsprint.
01:29 So, what this implies is that the recipes are a little bit different, in order to
01:32 get better rendition on these different kinds of paper.
01:35 And then of course Pantone, even though we see it used widely in the US, it's not
01:39 used just in the US, it's really used around the world.
01:44 And there is more then one Pantone book, so when you look at the pull down in
01:47 Illustrator or InDesign you have whole list of Pantone possibilities.
01:52 And it's important to know that, not all of them really refer to spot color.
01:56 At least some of this is obvious, the Pantone+CMYK Coated, and Uncoated,
02:00 clearly those are process guides. The Color Bridge is a really nice
02:04 reference, because it gives you sort of best of both worlds.
02:08 It doesn't have every single Pantone+ spot color in it, it has a huge subset of
02:12 them and it gives you something really valuable.
02:16 It gives you the spot color next to the closes CMYK equivalent.
02:21 So, as you're creating a job and you're trying to judge, do I want to print this
02:23 spot or maybe I can get away with printing it process, you can compare
02:26 right there. The metallic coated, of course those are
02:30 spots the metallic inks, and then the pastels and neon's coated and uncoated
02:33 those are spot inks. There's a new kind of metallic in the
02:38 Pantone+ series called the Premium Metallics.
02:41 And they're much finer ground pigments, so they're a smoother coating.
02:45 And they give a more uniformed appearance.
02:47 And then, good old fashioned Pantone Solid Coated.
02:50 When you're looking for a spot color, that's the one you're going to choose.
02:53 And then Solid Uncoated, and keep in mind that coated and uncoated just refer to
02:57 the paper substrates. And these different libraries within
03:02 InDesign and Illustrator are trying to mimic how that ink's going to look on a
03:05 coated stock, versus and uncoated stock. So, it's the same ink, it's just trying
03:10 to help you visualized on screen how it's going to print.
03:14 And finally TOYO those are used in Japan TOYO 94 uses CMYK values for onscreen rendering.
03:20 It's not a processed book, it's a spot book, but in trying to show you the ink
03:24 on screen it's looking at CMYK values. So, you'll find that that's sort of like
03:30 the old Pantone values in older Adobe applications, it's close but it's not exact.
03:35 And in the later releases, use Lab values to show on screen.
03:39 And finally TRUMATCH, is a purely process reference, so if you know you're always
03:43 going to print process jobs, TRUMATCH is a great resource.
03:48 Because then you have a printed component that you can compare, and then you can
03:51 invoke that from your pull downs, as your adding colors to your InDesign, or
03:55 Illustrator documents. So, you have a wide range to choose from,
04:00 in this course, I'm going to concentrate on Pantone, because that's the most
04:03 commonly used resource. But the same rules apply regardless of
04:08 which resource you're using.
04:10
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About the new Pantone Plus color system
00:01 In the graphic art, you hear the word Pantone a lot and it's often used
00:04 interchangeably with spot color. But Pantone, the company is not an ink
00:09 manufacturer, they're a manufacturer of color reference guide.
00:13 And in fact they're not limited to printing.
00:15 They market color guides for plastics and for textiles.
00:19 But you've probably seen the new Pantone Plus system.
00:22 And you might be curious between that, and maybe your old Pantone book right
00:25 there on your desk. Well for one thing, there are more colors.
00:29 The older PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM had 1,114 colors.
00:33 The new PANTONE PLUS started with 1,341, and then they added 336, so now there's a
00:38 total of 1,677. And you'll also notice that the new fan
00:43 books are arranged chromatically, so they go by the spectrum instead of numerically.
00:49 Which I think makes sense, but if you have the old habit of looking for
00:52 particular swatches by their numbers. Don't worry there's a numerical index in
00:56 the back, so you can find it either way. If you're looking for it by the number,
01:00 you can use the index, if you just want to look at the colors, that's the way the
01:03 book is arranged. And you might notice that it's on thinner
01:06 stock, and that's actually intentional. The idea is to be more like the majority
01:11 of real world print jobs, and text weight is the most commonly used stock.
01:16 And you might be glad to know also that it's FSC-certified paper.
01:20 There's a helpful PDF reference available about the Pantone Plus system, and it'll
01:23 tell you about the thinking in creating this new system, and it'll give you some
01:27 ideas for how you can correctly implement that new system.
01:31 Pantone guides include the Pantone Plus Formula Guide, which is what ink
01:35 technicians use to mix up the spot color inks.
01:39 And then, of course, there's the Pantone Plus Extra 336 colors Formula Guide.
01:45 There's also a new series of metallics called the Premium Metallics.
01:49 Now, you still have the traditional metallics, the difference is, that the
01:52 premium metallics are based on a very fine grained silver.
01:56 It's a very, very small pigment, very smooth coverage.
01:59 And supposedly you can even coat it and not lose luster, like you can with some
02:02 of the traditional metallics. So, you might want to look at that if
02:06 you're working on very high profile jobs. Then the Pantone Plus Pastels & Neons
02:10 very bright and colorful. And I always tell, especially new people
02:15 starting in the graphic arts, if you're only going to buy one Pantone book, they
02:18 are expensive. But let's consider it runs on a 28-color
02:22 press, the only one in the world, and there are incredibly tight tolerances.
02:26 But if you're just going to buy one, get the Pantone Plus Color Bridge.
02:30 And the reason is that it gives you sort of the best of both worlds.
02:34 It shows you spot colors, next to their closest CMYK equivalents.
02:38 That way you have a reference, whether you're printing spot or you're printing process.
02:43 So, again if you're just going to get one, that would be the one at least to
02:45 get you started. Now, one of the things that happened when
02:49 Pantone Plus was released is that the method of thinking about the color, or
02:52 the method of storing the matte of the color, changed a little bit.
02:57 For those of us that are using Adobe programs, this might become an issue if
03:01 you're trying to match old jobs. So, if you find that you're reprinting a
03:06 job that you had specked in spot, but then printed in process, you're going to
03:09 have a problem. And it's always best if you know that
03:13 you're going to print in process, always specify it in process.
03:17 Don't specify a spot color and then print in process and be surprised that it
03:20 doesn't match, after all that's why we have spot colors.
03:24 So, it's always best to start with CMYK values.
03:27 But here's what happened, previously Adobe applications used a set of CMYK
03:30 values that had been supplied to them by PANTONE.
03:34 And the PANTONE PLUS colors are described in Lab values, now I'm not going to go
03:38 deeply into what Lab is, but it's an enormous color space and it isn't
03:42 specific to any device. And it's not limited to the range of CMYK.
03:48 So, now if you pick a spot color in InDesign or Illustrator or even Photoshop
03:52 and then you convert it to CMYK that conversion is going to be based on those
03:56 new Lab values not on those old CMYK values.
04:01 The short story is that this means that CMYK values on an new job will not match
04:05 the CMYK values on an old job. And then if you look at your newer copy
04:10 of the Color Bridge. And you look at an old Pantone Color
04:12 Bridge, you're going to see that the CMYK recipes have changed even within the
04:15 Pantone books. Now why would that be?
04:19 Well for one thing it's modernization. There have been improvements in pigments,
04:23 and there had been substantial improvements over, oh gosh, the last 10
04:26 or 15 years, in the computerized press controls.
04:29 That control register, control ink coverage, and we can run to higher
04:33 standards then we could before. So, again in the interest in realism
04:37 you're going to find that those books give different values then they did in
04:39 the old days. Now, do you really need to buy a new
04:43 Pantone book every year? Well, far be it for me to argue with the
04:47 only 28-color press in the world, but I will tell you that if you take very good
04:51 care of them, they will last probably at least 366 days.
04:57 But, really, take good care of them, avoid heat, avoid sunlight, don't leave
05:00 them in your car, avoid humidity. And it's best if you keep the original
05:04 packaging and you keep them in there. You want to treat them right, they are
05:08 very valuable. They are something you can hang your hat
05:10 on when you're picking a color, so treat them well, they're your friends.
05:14
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2. Printing Spot Colors
How spot color inks are created
00:01 I don't know what you think of when I say ink.
00:03 But I can tell you that commercial printing ink are not at all like those
00:06 little ink jet cartridges that we keep putting in our desktop printers.
00:10 They start out as powdered pigments which are then combined with binders to make
00:14 the base inks that then are combined to make the spot colors.
00:18 It used to be 14 base inks, but now with the PANTONE PLUS series, we have 18 base inks.
00:24 So here are the base colors for the PANTONE PLUS series.
00:27 It's a lovely rainbow. And if you have a PANTONE formula guide,
00:30 you can see the recipes. You can see Which amount of each color is
00:34 needed in order to create, a spot color. If you're creating, a fluorescent color,
00:39 here are the base colors for that series. And then the metallics, an these are the
00:44 older metallics not the premiums, these are the base color, for those metallics.
00:49 And then, the pastels an neons, an they're a little bit fluorescent.
00:53 They're a little paler, but they're still fluorescent.
00:55 They still have a certain vibrancy to them.
00:57 Those are the base colors for those. And then, I mentioned earlier, the
01:00 premium metallic series. And those are all based off this very
01:04 fine green silver. And then that's combined with various
01:08 other colors to make color metallics. You would think with 1,677 colors, that
01:13 would be more than you would ever need, but there are still times when you need
01:17 to have an ink specially mixed for certain purposes.
01:21 For example, I live in the Atlanta area, an over the years I've worked on jobs for
01:24 Coca Cola, that required us to have a special red mixed up, to make sure that
01:28 it perfectly matches that Coke red. And often, we would use that to create
01:33 what's called a touch plate, some places call it bump plate, or kiss plate.
01:38 And that's to add color to an image, so that you perfectly match a product, and
01:41 in a later movie, I'm going to show you how to make a touch plate.
01:45 Sometimes, special inks are mixed up so that a company can have a unique identity.
01:50 They're not using a color that anybody else is using.
01:53 I think the funniest story I've heard, though, about mixed inks involves a
01:56 national fast food chain that wanted to create a chart for their kitchen wall so
01:59 that the cooks would know when chicken nuggets were perfectly done.
02:05 If they match the color on that chart, they knew the chicken nuggets were perfect.
02:09 So they brought in a batch of chicken nuggets for the ink technician, who mixed
02:12 up a batch of custom ink that matched those perfect chicken nuggets.
02:16 And when he ran the job on the press, what did they bring to check the job?
02:20 Chicken nuggets. Press room smelled wonderful, everybody
02:23 got lunch, the chart was perfect. Everybody went home happy.
02:28 Printing companies may keep a small stock of some common spot colors on hand, but
02:32 usually, spot colors have to be mixed in advance of a printing job.
02:37 Some printing companies have their own ink specialists on staff, but many rely
02:40 on dedicated ink companies to create the spot inks for them.
02:44 Ink technicians are specialists, they have an eye for precision and they
02:48 understand how ink interacts with paper. Using the ink mixing recipes in the
02:53 PANTONE formula guide, the inks specialist begins by combining those
02:56 specified inks according to weight. Now here, he's mixing a small test batch
03:01 of PANTONE 485. But the recipes from PANTONE are just the
03:06 starting point. The ink has to be tested for a number of
03:09 important characteristics. Here, he's loading a carrier with the
03:13 prescribed amount of ink so that this ink can be tested for tack.
03:17 Now, tack is the inks ability to adhere to paper and also to earlier inks.
03:23 For example, on most printing presses, they'll run the black first, so it has to
03:26 have the highest tack so that it can adhere to the paper.
03:31 Then the cyan is laid down next. It has to have sufficient tack to stick
03:35 to the paper and the black ink, but not so much tack that it pulls up the black
03:38 ink that's already been printed. And of course, as each subsequent ink is
03:43 printed it has to have sufficient tack to adhere, but not so much as to pull up
03:47 previously laid down ink. Now, while the color of the ink and its
03:52 tack level are correct, it may also be important to determine the opacity of the
03:56 ink, and that's its ability to carry that color on a white substrate as well as On
03:59 darker stock. So here, he's using a little tool to pull
04:05 down and apply just a specified thickness of ink onto paper.
04:09 And after it's dried, the color's going to be judged, but also its coverage as it
04:13 falls over both the empty white stock and that black stripe.
04:19 Body in an ink determines how it behaves on press, that's its viscosity.
04:25 And that determines how it transfers from rollers to plate to blanket, and then how
04:28 it transfers to the paper. So for example, a high speed press needs
04:33 ink with a heavier body to avoid misting. Now that the testing has been completed,
04:38 it's time to create the final batch of ink.
04:40 This ink specialist is mixing the appropriate amounts of the two required
04:44 basings in order to create a larger batch of Pantone 485.
04:49 And notice how heavy the ink is. It's not like the way you envision inkjet
04:53 inks being sort of watery. It's very heavy.
04:56 It's very thick. And he's measuring it out according to weight.
05:00 That bucket is sitting on a scale and so he knows exactly how much ink he's
05:03 transferring into the bucket where he's going to mix those two colors together in
05:07 order to make the final batch of PANTONE 485.
05:10 And you can see that he's clamping it down and he's going to mix it with this
05:17 industrial mixer. And now, that may look enormous to you,
05:22 this is actually a fairly small batch of ink.
05:26 They mix much larger batches of ink and they have absolutely enormous devices
05:30 that makes those ink. Very heavy duty that actually make these
05:34 look small by comparison. And here, you can see the enormous
05:44 containers of ink. It's finished an it's ready to be
05:47 shipped, to printing companies all over the United States.
05:50 It's hard to get an idea of how big they are, until you see people standing next
05:54 to them, an that gives you an idea of scale.
05:58 Now, after you've seen this process, I think you probably have a much better
06:02 idea of the combination of precision and artistry that goes into creating printing inks.
06:07
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Considerations when using certain spot colors
00:01 Not all inks behave the same. Why would some inks behave differently?
00:05 Well, really, it boils down to chemistry. The source pigments that are the basis
00:09 for inks can have unique behaviors. Some of them don't dry fast.
00:13 Some of them don't stick well to previous ink or paper underneath.
00:17 Some of them are prone to scuffing, and some of them don't give very heavy coverage.
00:22 So here are some examples of common problem inks.
00:26 Fluorescent inks, for example, use something called fugitive pigments.
00:29 And what fugitive means is those pigments are subject to fading when they're
00:33 exposed to sunlight or any UV light source.
00:37 And high heat can cause fading as well. So that might mean that if you're
00:41 creating an outdoor piece, maybe it's not a good idea to fluorescent inks.
00:46 And sometimes it can take two passes to get full coverage, to get the strength of
00:50 color that you want. So if that means that you have to use two
00:53 units on the press, it means you're using more ink.
00:56 That could add to the cost of the job, but that could mean that you get the
00:59 color that you have your heart set on. Some fluorescent inks actually have
01:03 coarser pigments, so that might mean that very fine detail and half tones may not
01:07 show up the way you want. So you might consider just using them
01:11 more for flat areas. If you wanted to mail the piece, and you
01:15 thought maybe you should varnish on top of it to prevent scuffing, some varnishes
01:18 don't adhere well to fluorescent inks, and varnishes can dull that bright look
01:22 that you're looking for in fluorescent inks too.
01:26 Although it's possible to add dryers to the ink, and that can speed up the drying
01:30 and that may prevent some scuffing too. Reflex Blue is sort of famous for being a
01:36 misbehaving ink and it's a dark blue. It's something we as human beings
01:40 apparently really love. Think how many logos are navy blue.
01:44 But its problems include very slow drying, it's prone to scuffing and after
01:48 the printed piece has been around for awhile, you'll see some oxidation.
01:53 There's a sort of bronze appearance. On top of the ink.
01:57 So, what do you do, not use it? As much as we want navy blue, there's
02:00 gotta be a way. Well, now we're starting to see synthetic
02:03 reflex blues. The color's a little bit different from
02:06 old fashioned reflex blue, but you should check and see if that's close enough,
02:10 it's acceptable to your client, it's probably the solution.
02:14 But with any of these inks, if you have a conversation with your printer, before
02:17 you get too far into the design. You can prevent these problems.
02:21 You don't want to discover these issues when you're about to go to press.
02:24 And then you have to compensate for them. So as with so many things plan ahead.
02:29 Talk to your printer, be aware of these issues and you can find ways to work
02:32 around them.
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Effects of stock on color
00:00 Planning your job, and designing for it, you have to take into consideration not
00:04 just your choice of ink, but how that ink's going to look on the final stock.
00:08 And here I'm showing you Pantone 1915 on coated stock and uncoated stock.
00:15 It's exactly the same ink. The difference in appearance is just the
00:18 way the ink behaves when it hits the paper.
00:20 So, you're going to find that colors are more vibrant on coated stock, usually
00:24 coated stock is going to be a little brighter.
00:27 You know, it's a little bit shiny, and so that light that's coming back up through
00:30 the ink makes for a brighter color. And then ink is going to be absorbed a
00:35 little bit into uncoated stock. So, that's going to mean that it's
00:39 duller, sometimes it's lighter. And you don't have the light reflecting
00:42 off it, the color is not as strong. Again that's exactly the same ink.
00:46 And I want to underscore that when I, I point out to you that when you start to
00:50 pick your colors in Illustrator or InDesign.
00:53 When you look down through the list you'll see Solid Coated and Solid
00:56 Uncoated, and you'll also see Color Bridge Coated, Color Bridge Uncoded and
01:00 so forth. The coded and uncoded of course are
01:03 referring ot the paper. But I've already pointed out that the ink
01:07 is exactly the same ink. So, why are there two libraries?
01:11 Well, it's because Illustrator and InDesign, are trying to mimic, onscreen,
01:15 how the ink is going to look different on coated versus uncoated stock.
01:19 So, you'll see that it looks a little duller if you pick an uncoated.
01:23 It looks a little brighter, a little stronger color if you pick the coated.
01:27 Again, it's trying to mimic onscreen what it's going to look like.
01:30 You don't really know what it's going to look like until you see an ink draw down,
01:33 or you see the job on press. Or after you've run a few jobs, you get
01:37 sort of a sense of how the ink's going to look on paper versus how it's displayed onscreen.
01:43 But if you have your heart set on a particular color, and you want something
01:46 that's really strong and vibrant, you should take into consideration that
01:49 you're probably going to have better results if you use coated stock.
01:53 It might cost a little bit more to run, but it means that you're going to get
01:55 that color that you had your heart set on.
01:58 So, remember it's sort of an equation, not just the ink you pick, but it's also
02:01 the stock that, that ink's going to print on.
02:04
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Proofing spot and special-mix colors before printing
00:01 After the ink has been mixed, it needs to be tested with something called a draw down.
00:06 Now a draw down just involves sort of a miniature version of printing the ink on press.
00:11 Now he's loading up that brayer, so that he gets a uniform coverage.
00:14 He applies it to the platten, makes sure that he has adequate ink coverage.
00:19 And after years of doing this, he knows when it's right, and now what he's going
00:24 to do is he's going to transfer that ink to the blanket, bring it over and apply
00:27 it to the paper. So, this means that the coverage of the
00:33 ink on the paper is at the same thickness, that would be achieved on press.
00:38 And if that's correct then he knows he's mixed that ink correctly.
00:43 (SOUND) Now he's comparing Pantone formula guide.
00:46 Which is used as the ink reference to that drawdown sample.
00:50 And if it matches under that control lighting, he knows that, that ink is correct.
00:55 And that means it's ready to send to the pressman and start running the job.
00:58
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Spot colors and digital printing
00:01 What if you're designing a job that's going to print on a digital press?
00:04 Can they even print spot colors? Well, you're going to find that a lot of
00:08 digital presses don't support spot colors.
00:10 They're based on CMYK toners or inks. Although some vendors do offer some
00:15 limited spot inks or toners. The Xerox iGen And HP Indigo presses are
00:19 capable of doing some spot colors, but they have a limited range of offerings.
00:25 So you should ask your printer before you get your heart set on a color.
00:28 But here's something kind of interesting, the inks and the toners that are used on
00:32 digital presses, even though they might be called cyan, magenta, yellow, and
00:35 black, use slightly different pigments, they use slightly different, extenders
00:38 and binders. And they may have a wider color gamut
00:43 than offset inks. You know, it depends on the color that
00:45 you're trying to print. An this is really good news.
00:48 Often they can come closer to matching PANTONE colors, than offset presses can.
00:53 So you should ask your printer. Rather than you losing some vibrancy by
00:57 converting to CMYK up front, see if you can't benefit by keeping your colors
01:00 specified as spot colors, and then let that device do the conversion, because
01:04 they have internal software that can. Look at the PANTONE color that you've
01:11 specified in your document, and then convert that to a value that prints
01:14 fairly closely on their press. So don't give up color, early, because
01:19 you may not have to. But of course talk to the printer, see
01:22 how close they can come, and you may find that this is actually good news.
01:27 You may actually get better rendering on a digital press, then you would on an
01:30 offset press. And I'll bet you that's sort of a surprise.
01:33
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3. Using Varnishes
How spot varnishes can enhance a project
00:01 On this piece, they used spot varnish, not just to add to the visual interest of
00:04 the piece, but also to echo the underlying message of the product that
00:08 they're advertising. This beautifully detailed illustration on
00:14 the cover of the book is interesting in itself.
00:16 But when you pick up the book and you start to read it, the instant you move it
00:19 the light catches that spot varnish in the lower right hand corner.
00:24 And that varnish actually becomes part of the artwork, it adds depth to it.
00:29 This is a beautiful piece and they've accentuated the shapes of the musical
00:32 instruments by adding a very high gloss spot varnish.
00:37 And it almost makes it seem like it's three dimensional.
00:39 The instruments seem to almost float off of the page.
00:43 On this piece, they took advantage of a chemical interaction between two
00:46 different coatings. One coating goes down first, and then the
00:50 second coating is an overall gloss coating.
00:53 And where those coatings overlap a chemical reaction takes place and that
00:57 results in this sort of pebbly textured finish that you see.
01:01 And it's something that you really couldn't accomplish with just a single coating.
01:05 It's something that happens only when you use both of those coatings at once.
01:09
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How varnishes, inks, and substrate interact
00:01 In addition to adding visual appeal to a printed piece, varnishes have other jobs
00:04 to do. For example, if you're using an ink
00:07 that's prone to scuffing, and it's a piece that's going to get handled a lot,
00:10 or it's going to be mailed, it's a good idea to apply a varnish to protect that ink.
00:16 And then if you're printing a color on an uncoated stock you're going to lose some
00:20 vibrancy, because it gets absorbed into the stock.
00:23 So sometimes, especially on important projects, you can come back in with a
00:27 tinted varnish that restores some of the color that you lose by the absorpbancy of
00:30 the stock. And then there are textured varnishes,
00:34 and they're really interesting. They're a really hard thing to show, it's
00:37 the sort of thing that you really have to pick up and feel.
00:40 And, of course, that's part of the appeal.
00:42 There are varnishes now that can add sort of a sand like texture, and it's sort of
00:46 an interesting story. Those really arose out of problems with
00:49 varnishes interacting with each other. And then somebody realize that you could
00:53 capitalized on that, and actually do it intentionally.
00:56 So, you'll feel some of those imprinted pieces you encounter.
01:00 There's also a very popular coding these days called soft-touch, and it feels like velvet.
01:05 And again, it's the sort of thing that if we photograph, it really just looks like
01:08 a matte finish, but when you pick it up it's really delicious.
01:11 And then there's some oddball things going on.
01:13 There are some finishes that add sort of a rubbery feel, or a sticky feel.
01:17 And you'll see those used sometimes, especially in children's book, or in
01:21 novelty pieces. And although they're helpful for
01:24 protection, sometimes varnishes can subdue a color, and maybe you don't want that.
01:29 Inks not just fluorescent inks that tend to scuff if you apply varnish you protect
01:32 it, but you're also going to lose some of that vibrancy, so you have to decide you
01:35 know which is more important. And in the past sometimes if you
01:41 varnished metallic inks you'd lose some luster with them.
01:44 But the Newer Pantone Premium metallics don't lose any luster when you varnish them.
01:49 So, you can protect them, and you're not going to lose any of that wonderful shine.
01:52 And then here's a little consideration. If you're printing a job on what we call
01:56 non-paper stocks, such as the Yupo stocks which are plastic, or Tyvek, and you'll
02:00 hear that called a non-woven stock. You can't really use a lot of the
02:05 conventional varnishes, so you're going to have to use UV coatings.
02:09 Is that a big deal? No, it might add a little bit to the cost
02:12 of the job, but it's something you just kind of have to deal with.
02:15 And the whole goal after all is to make sure that your printed piece comes out
02:19 the way you expect. So, while varnishes in these sense don't
02:23 really add to look of a piece, they can add to the feel of it or they can add to
02:26 the permanency of the job.
02:29
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Combining different types of varnish to add dimensions
00:01 Here you can compare the look of just ink on paper, and then the addition of gloss
00:04 varnish, and then matte varnish. There's a difference in reflectivity of
00:09 course, but notice that the color of the ink underneath doesn't really change.
00:14 So you might keep this in mind for a future project.
00:17 It sort of changes the texture, when the matte varnish is applied, or the gloss
00:20 varnish is applied. And you almost get three different looks,
00:24 just for using two different varnishes. So, remember this when you want to add
00:28 just a little visual interest, something a little bit subtle, but just something
00:31 to give a unique look to your job.
00:34
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Aqueous flood coatings
00:00 The aqueous coating has been applied just to half of the ink area.
00:04 And this is just to you can compare the look of just the ink by itself with this
00:07 aqueous coating. Even though it's just covering part of
00:11 it, this is not usually applied as a spot coating.
00:14 This is just to show what happens when you apply what's called a flood coating.
00:19 And the nice thing about that is that you can add shine, there are times when this
00:22 is helpful if you want to protect certain inks especially on pieces that are going
00:25 to be handled a lot, like pieces that are going to be mailed.
00:30 But also this is applied in line so, it's not something that takes a separate
00:33 process, it's something that happens on press.
00:37 So, you can have both gloss and matte aqueous coatings.
00:40 Most of the time people opt for the gloss, but it's very easy to apply.
00:44 It adds a little bit of shine to the job, and again, it can also offer some
00:47 protection, to the final printed piece.
00:49
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4. Photoshop
Creating a multitone image (duotone and tritone)
00:01 I'm working on a project that's going to print in two colors.
00:03 Pantone 185 which is a red and process black.
00:07 So, because I want my images to look a little bit more interesting, I'm going to
00:10 turn them into duotones. So, here's the finished product, and I
00:14 want to show you how you get from point A to point B.
00:18 An interesting thing to know about duotones is that under the hood, they are
00:21 really grayscale images. I'll show you why.
00:23 A duotone is really under the hood still the original grayscale image with some
00:27 instructions attached that tell the output device what to do.
00:32 So, my grayscale plus the duotone settings that I add to it, become a
00:35 duotone, the output device a plate setter, understands that it's going to
00:38 generate two inks, one for the black and one for the Pantone 185.
00:43 And you'll notice, this is kind of interesting, the file size really doesn't
00:48 change much. So, the original image is 1.7 megabytes.
00:53 The duotone is 1.8, and that little extra is because of those settings that are
00:56 attached to that file, and exercised by the output device.
01:01 So, since I need to start with a grayscale image, I guess I should convert
01:04 this to grayscale. Well let's see what happens.
01:07 If I go to Image > Mode, and Grayscale, for one thing Photoshop says, are you
01:11 sure you want to do it this way? Well I'll show you what happens when you do.
01:16 His shirt doesn't look very interesting. It's a little bit dull, because we've
01:20 taken it from that nice red of course, to grey.
01:23 There's a better way to do this, and that's what Photoshop was talking about.
01:28 If you want to control how individual hues in a color image are converted to
01:31 grayscale, you can use this wonderful adjustment called the Black and White Adjustment.
01:36 So, when I click on that, it gives me little sliders, and notice that it lets
01:40 me control each individual hue. Now, none of the rest of these are
01:44 pertinent in this image. All I really care about It's what's
01:47 going to happen to the red. So, I could make it much, much lighter,
01:50 that's a little bit weird, or I could make it much, much darker.
01:53 But notice, it's not really affecting remainders of the image.
01:57 Now his skin tone is going to have a little bit of red in it.
01:59 So, it's going to affect it to certain extent, but not as much as it affects the shirt.
02:03 So, I just want to lighten it a little bit, just so I show a little bit more
02:06 detail back in that shirt. And notice that because it's an
02:10 Adjustment layer, it's non destructive. So, let me close my properties here.
02:14 An you can see under the hood, this is still the color image.
02:18 So, it's not really a grayscale yet. I need to do one more step.
02:22 I need to exercise this Adjustment layer, and I need to turn this to a real
02:25 grayscale, so that I can start on my duotone.
02:29 If I go to Image Mode in Grayscale, Photshop's going to intercept me and
02:31 says, now if you really want to exercise that Adjustment layer, you're going to
02:34 have to flatten it first. So, be sure to flatten.
02:39 And then you get that little warning again.
02:41 But you've done what it asked you to do. And now you have this nice grayscale as a
02:44 starting point. So to make a duotone, I just go to Image
02:48 > Mode, and Duotone. And it starts out with Monotone, which is
02:52 just black, and that's just a black and white image.
02:55 But you can create Duotones, Tritones, Quadtones, and those are just what you
02:59 think they are. Three inks, four inks, of course, I want
03:02 a Duotone. When you start out, it doesn't have any
03:06 idea what color you want to use. Now if you had created a duotone
03:09 previously, this field's going to be populated with whatever spot color you
03:12 used in the past. So, I'm going to pick my 185, all I have
03:16 to do is click in that little square, and this is not the way to do it, you don't
03:19 just pick a red, that would be not what you want.
03:23 What you want to do is you want to shop through your color libraries.
03:27 And remember that in Photoshop CS6, and beyond, Pantone Plus is used.
03:32 So, that means that you can still use your old Pantone books to pick your
03:35 number, but it's just going to designate it as the Pantone Plus.
03:40 I know I want 185, it would take me all day to scroll down here and find that.
03:45 Here's an easier way to do it. When you know the number that you want,
03:47 just type it, you need to type it really fast.
03:50 If I just type 185, oh it just sees the 5.
03:54 So, you need to do it really fast, 185, up, almost.
03:58 There I got it. So, there's now 185, click OK, and there
04:02 we go. But this looks pretty heavy.
04:05 Notice it's everything in one place, 185 is as strong as it can be, and so is the
04:09 black, this is not the effect that I want.
04:13 If I want to control how the grayscale values are then mapped to the spot color
04:17 values, I'm going to use these little controls.
04:21 So, first of all, I have to decide which is going to be the predominant color.
04:24 Is it going to be mainly a black and white image with just a little touch of red?
04:28 Or is it going to be mainly a red image with just a little touch of black to
04:31 carry some shape? Well, let's see what we want to do.
04:35 So, I'm going to click on this little diagonal line, and all that really is, is
04:38 the diagonal of the curve. So, if I reduce the black greatly then
04:42 the red is the predominate color. So, we'll try that and see what we think.
04:48 Now when I come back into the Pantone control, I probably don't want it this
04:52 heavy, so I start pulling down on that little curve.
04:56 And you notice as I go to different parts of the curve, little tiny points, they
04:59 may be hard to see, but there are little anchor points on this curve.
05:04 So, you can see where it was 50, not it's going to image as 24.4.
05:08 You probably want to round that off, it doesn't really matter.
05:11 It's really go by what you think it's going to look like.
05:14 Don't worry too much about the numbers, unless somebody gave you a recipe for
05:17 making it duotone. So, now we have fairly equivalent values
05:21 between the black and the 185. So, I think I might go back into the
05:26 black and reduce that even farther. So, if I pull down on that, now you see
05:30 the red is leaving, the black is still holding the shape.
05:34 And I almost have what we often call a skeleton black, and that means that you
05:37 really don't have that much black until you start to get to the midtones and beyond.
05:43 And why would you do that? Because the black is holding the shape,
05:46 it's showing you the shadows, and the creases, and so fourth, but the red is
05:49 still winning. And then I might go back into the
05:52 Pantone, and reduce that a little bit more, when I get up to the three quarter point.
05:57 because I don't want it heavy black, and heavy red, all in the same spot.
06:02 So let's see what we think. There's before.
06:05 There's after. I think that's pretty good.
06:07 Now, what if I decide I want to use this again?
06:11 Well, if I click on the curve for the 185, I can choose Save, and then I can
06:15 save this wherever I want it. And I'm just going to call this 185.
06:22 And save it, click OK. So, what does that mean?
06:25 Well, I'll show you, if I want to start over, all I have to do is sort of pull
06:28 these little points off. You just sort of, yank on them, an they
06:32 go away. So, I'm almost there, one more little point.
06:36 Or the other way to do it, is to just come into one of these little fields, hit
06:39 your Delete key. So, there we go.
06:42 Now if I want to load that 185, all I have to do, is go to my Documents,
06:46 there's my 185. Click Open, an there's my curve.
06:52 So remember this, when you get a recipe that you really like, and you want to
06:55 invoke it again later, save that curve an then you can load it in, an give yourself
06:58 a little bit of a head start. So, there's my duotone, I think I like it.
07:03 Now what format am I going to use when I save this file.
07:07 Well since I plan to use it in InDesign, I'm just going to save it as a PSD.
07:11 In the olden days we had to save a duotone as EPS.
07:16 And you really don't have to do that anymore.
07:17 If you're in the habit of doing that, you know what it's time to break that habit.
07:21 There's really no harm in EPS, it's still going to image correctly.
07:25 But PSD's are going to be a little bit smaller on disc, and there's really no
07:28 reason to use EPS. We don't need it to make an image correctly.
07:33 Now what if I want to do something that looks like a black and white, but has a
07:36 little more shape to it. Has a little more definition to it, and
07:39 looks a little bit more high quality. To do that I think I might create a Tritone.
07:45 So, let me go back, go back to Image Mode, and then I'm going to go to
07:49 Duotone, and I'm going to make this a Monotone again, just as sort of a fresh start.
07:55 I'm going to click on my Black Plate controls here, I'm going to take it back
07:59 to my original. There we go.
08:03 And for my Tritone, which is going to be three colors.
08:06 This is a trick that you'll often see done.
08:09 It's going to look like a black and white when it's printed, but it's just going to
08:11 look smoother. It's going to look like it's a little bit
08:14 higher quality. You use some grains, so I'm going to
08:16 click here. Again go to my Color Libraries, and I
08:20 want Cool Gray 6, and Cool Gray 9. So, how am I ever going to find that,
08:25 type CO, that gets you in the neighborhood.
08:27 So, there's my Cool Grays, and I'm going to try to scroll down.
08:31 Trying to do that on the right will make you crazy, the easy way to do it, is to
08:34 just use your Arrow keys on your keyboard, here's my Cool Gray 6.
08:39 And now I'm going to add my Cool Gray 9, and again just go to the Color Libraries,
08:42 type CO to get yourself in the neighborhood, use your Down Arrow keys
08:46 and there's my Cool Gray 9. And of course this looks really, really
08:51 heavy now, because remember, it's taking the values in the original grayscale,
08:54 it's mapping them to the potential values in the final inks.
08:58 So, we want to back off on the black quite a bit, because we want to have the
09:01 Cool Gray 6 carry sort of the quartertones and midtones.
09:06 We want to have the Cool Gray 9, go from midtones to three quartertones.
09:10 So, we're going to make a skeleton black that really just carries the heaviest
09:14 shadow shapes. So, I'm going to pull way down on this,
09:18 so already it looks a little better. The Cool Gray 6, again, I'm going to have
09:23 that carry from highlights to midtones. You may find that sometimes it adds up so
09:29 much in the end of the things that you pull down a little bit on the high end,
09:32 so that you don't have three inks piling up in the deepest parts.
09:36 But you still want to have some definition.
09:38 That's starting to look better. And then finally on the Cool Gray 9.
09:42 I'm not going to have that down in the highlights.
09:45 I might have a little bit in the midtones, but it's really going to carry
09:48 the three quartertones and up through the shadows.
09:50 I might actually pull up a little bit on that.
09:53 I think that looks pretty good. But it's getting a little bit heavy in
09:56 the middle of the camera lens, so I think I'm going to come back in and pull down a
09:59 little bit more. And the Cool Gray 6, and I might end up
10:04 going back and reworking the grayscale a little bit.
10:08 I might use some shadow highlights to open this up, but I think I have a good
10:12 Tritone recipe here. So again, it looks like a grayscale, but
10:16 when you see something like this printed, you'll see that it just looks a little
10:19 bit more high quality. It's smoother, it has a little bit more
10:23 character to it. And on something like an annual report,
10:26 this is a treatment that's frequently used.
10:29 So, just remember how these are created. They really just start life as a
10:32 grayscale, so the better your grayscale, the better your Duotone or Tritone is
10:35 going to look. Remember the little trick about the
10:38 Adjustment layers, and using that black and white conversion initially from your
10:41 color image. So, that you can control how those hues
10:44 are converted. And then use the Duotone controls, to
10:47 control how each ink is going to be output.
10:50 And the great thing about this is, even though you're only using two or three
10:53 colors on your job, you're really making the most of those two or three inks.
10:57
Collapse this transcript
Creating a simple spot color channel
00:01 I'm starting with this nice, color image, but I'm going to use it on a project
00:04 that's just printing in two colors, a Pantone 354 green, and black.
00:10 So, I want to do something sort of interesting to him.
00:12 I don't want to use just a standard duotone.
00:14 I want to make sort of an interesting effect, where I have a solid hit of that
00:18 spot color right where his shirt is. So, I need to do a couple things to
00:22 prepare for that. First of all I have to start by making my
00:24 gray scale image. And I'm going to use that nice black, and
00:28 white adjustment. Now, a little tip, if you want to use
00:30 that black and white adjustment you have to start with an RGB image.
00:34 You'll find that adjustment isn't available if you start with a CMYK image.
00:38 So, if that's what you have, you'll have to convert it to RGB first, and then you
00:41 can do it. So I have an RGB image, I'm going to use
00:44 my Adjustment layer, and I'm actually going to lighten up a little bit, and
00:48 then I'm going to come back and do a local correction, to the shirt.
00:53 So remember, I still have a color image, even though it looks gray scale, it's
00:56 really still an RGB image. You can see those channels are still
00:59 here, in the Channels panel. So first you need to make it an official
01:03 gray scale image, by going to Image > Mode and Grayscale, and then Photoshop's
01:06 going to warn me that I need to flatten in order to exercise that adjustment, so
01:10 I will flatten. And of course if you get tired of seeing
01:14 these you can always check that Don't Show Again box.
01:17 Now I have a good old fashioned gray scale image.
01:19 But I want to pump up the dark parts of this shirt, so that I sort of accentuate
01:23 the creases and I want to lighted the lighter parts and the mid tones, in order
01:26 to leave room for that greens that's going to come in on top of it.
01:32 Otherwise it looks a little bit heavy. So, sort of like a cooking show, I happen
01:35 to have a mask, and I'm going to use that.
01:38 So, I'm going to go to Select and Load Selection, and I'm going to use that shirtmask.
01:44 And, I think for this I'll just use Levels.
01:46 I'm going to drag this little midpoint slider a little bit to lighten up the midtones.
01:51 Remember, it's just happening to the shirt.
01:52 See, it's just the shirt that's being affected because of that active
01:55 selection, I'm going to add a little bit of white by dragging the black point slider.
02:00 This is a fairly heavy green, so we want that shirt to be able to sort of fight
02:03 back, and I'm going to lighten up the lighter ends.
02:06 You don't want to really get rid of everything, I just want to lighten things up.
02:09 So, when I close properties, if I turn that Adjustment layer off and on, you can
02:13 see that I've lightened up the shirt, but I haven't gotten rid of the content of
02:16 it, I still have some gradation. To do what I want to do next, I'm
02:21 going to flatten this. So, I can choose either Merge Down or
02:24 Flatten, either choice is going to really result the same.
02:28 Now I need to make my Spot Channel. Now I have two channels already in this image.
02:33 But they're Alpha Channels, they're just places to store mask.
02:36 What I need is a special kind of channel which is a dedicated Spot Channel.
02:40 So, in the Channel's Panel Menu I just choose New Spot Channel.
02:44 When I click color, it thinks I want to pick something out of the picker.
02:47 But I don't, I want an official Pantone color.
02:50 So, when I go to Color Libraries, I can choose the correct color.
02:54 I want to choose Pantone 354, so I'm just going to type 354 really fast, there we go.
03:00 When I click OK. I now have my new spot channel, but
03:03 again, it has nothing in it to begin with, so I need to populate it.
03:07 Now this going to be a solid hit of that Pantone 354, so what needs to happen in
03:11 this channel is I need to have a solid fill of black to represent that solid
03:15 fill of ink that's going to print. So I'm going to use my shirtmask.
03:22 Now here's another way to load a selection; this is actually my favorite way.
03:24 If you'll just drag it down to this first little icon, which is, make a selection,
03:28 there you go, there are my marching ants. Now I want to fill this with black.
03:33 So if I, were to change my background color to black an hit Delete you would
03:36 think that would happen. when I hit Delete, I get the content
03:40 aware fill. Well actually the fill dialog remembers
03:43 the last choice you made, but the default is content aware.
03:46 Oh, that's not what I want. Well, I could choose black.
03:49 Frankly, that's the long way around. Let me show you a little trick that I
03:52 like of course, it's up to you to do it however you want.
03:55 What I like to do is use a keyboard shortcut to do this.
03:59 So, if I switch my foreground and background colors, then I can hit
04:02 Opt+delete or Alt+delete. And that's the short cut for fill with
04:06 foreground colors. That's my solution, just swap them, so
04:09 that I have black as my foreground color, hit Opt or Alt+delete and there we go.
04:14 A little faster then writing out that dialog.
04:16 So, remember I specified this is Pantone 354, when I turn the gray channel back
04:20 on, this is how it's going to print. Pretty cool, huh?
04:25 So, this is the only way to control exactly where spot colors are going to
04:29 fall in a multicolor image. You can't do it with a standard duotone,
04:33 you have to do it manually, like this. The one other thing I wanted to do, of
04:37 course, was separate him from the background.
04:39 So, to do that I could just bleach out the background, but what if I wanted to
04:42 put him in on top of something else when I wanted to show behind him.
04:46 Well then I would just have opaque white, so that's not what I want.
04:50 First of all, to get rid of my shirtmask just to make the file a little bit smaller.
04:55 Generally speaking I keeps those things around until the last minute, but I think
04:58 I'm going to be okay here. If I want to silhouette him, I can't do
05:03 that with this background layer. The reason is that a background layer is
05:07 sort of glued to the ground, it can't have transparency.
05:10 So, this needs to be a floating layer, before I can mask it off, so that he's
05:14 just floating in empty space. So, first thing I'm going to do is, I'm
05:19 going to load the Selection. That is this knock out selection that I'd
05:22 already make. So, it's a channel that already exists
05:25 near my marching ants. In order to mask this, I need to convert
05:29 this to a floating layer. All you have to do is double-click on
05:32 that background, and of course you can give it a name if you want.
05:36 I'm just going to leave it at Layer 0, and click OK.
05:39 And now at the bottom of the Layers panel, I'm going to choose Add Layer Mask.
05:43 And there we go. And that gingham, of course, is how
05:46 Photoshop shows you that this is transparent.
05:48 So, now I can save this image just as it is, it's going to print in two colors.
05:53 And I can put it into Illustrator or into InDesign.
05:56 And he's going to be floating on empty space.
05:58 It's all going to be transparent behind him, and that way anything that's behind
06:01 him is going to show around him. So, remember how we got here, started
06:06 with my color RGB image, used the black and white adjustment in order to convert
06:09 it to a little bit better gray scale. Need a spot color channel, and then fill
06:15 that area of his shirt using a mask in order to apply that spot color green just there.
06:20 So it's really not that hard once you do it once or twice, and sometimes it's just
06:24 a little more interesting result than just making a standard duotone.
06:30
Collapse this transcript
Creating a touch plate to enhance a color image
00:00 This artwork is going to be used in a fashion ad, and the shirt that it's
00:03 representing, looks magenta onscreen, but in reality it's going to be a fluorescent pink.
00:09 An we're going to use a fluorescent pink when we print this, so that it's more
00:12 representative of the real article. But we want to have some definition to
00:16 it, we want to have a little shape, a little shading, so we don't want just a
00:20 flat shape, shaped like, the shirt. So we're going to create what's called a
00:24 touch plate, or bump plate, or kiss plate it's different terms for the same thing.
00:30 And you'll see it used in fine art prints, often to accomplish a color that
00:33 we can't get within the range of CMYK. It's a subtle change, but it's just
00:37 enough to make a more realistic print. So, I already have some masks made, that
00:42 are going to come in handy, I have one for the little squiggles on the pants.
00:46 One to isolate the shirt, and then one for the shirt and pants together just in
00:50 case I need that. And then let's look at what we have in
00:54 the process color channels at the moment. There's the cyan, and now that has some
00:58 nice shading to it. And that could come in handy for giving
01:01 some definition to the shirt. But the problem with that is, that if
01:05 that cyan falls underneath the pink fluorescent that we're going to print,
01:08 it's going to turn that a little bit blue, and we don't want that.
01:12 But we're going to use this for something else.
01:14 The magenta, I'm going to need to get rid of, because it's going to compete, it's
01:17 going to shift that fluorescent and really undo what I'm trying to accomplish.
01:22 The yellow, there's nothing there. The black right now just carries the line drawing.
01:26 But here's a little tip. I want the shading that I have right now
01:30 in the cyan channel, but I don't want it to change the hue of that pink that I'm
01:33 going to put on top of it. So, what I'm going to do, is I'm going to
01:37 transplant this into the black channel. And that way, I have something that's not
01:41 going to change the cast of it. It's not going to change the color of it.
01:45 In other words, I'll have the shape and shading in black, but it's not going to
01:48 interfere with the shade of the pink. So, that's my first task, is transplant
01:53 this cyan content into the black channel. So, I'm going to load that shirt mask by
01:58 dragging it down to the make a selection icon.
02:01 There are my marching ants. I'm going to Copy, and then I'm going to
02:06 go into the black channel, and Paste. And I think that's going to work pretty well.
02:12 Although I think I would like a little more contrast in it.
02:15 I would like the dark parts to be a little bit darker.
02:17 And I don't want this black tint all the way across the shirt, because that's
02:20 going to sort of dull out the pink. So, in other words I don't want something
02:24 that competes with the spot pink that I'm going to bring in.
02:27 But I want something that kind of supports it.
02:29 So, I'm going to go into Image > Adjustments and Levels.
02:33 Now if you're wondering why I'm not doing this with an Adjustment layer, it's
02:36 because I'm working in an individual channel.
02:39 And Adjustments layers are for adjusting layers, as you might expect, and here I
02:43 just want to target this individual channel.
02:46 So essentially, I want to increase the Contrast.
02:49 So, I'm going to lighten up the light end, and I'm going to drag the black
02:52 point slider. And you always end up sort of juggling,
02:55 you know, one end against the other. And then, of courses, there's little mid
02:58 point guy. So, I'm trying to clean out that sort of
03:00 cast all over the shirt, but I want to accentuate the little shadows.
03:05 I think it's starting to take shape. So, there aren't any perfect numbers, you
03:12 know what you do is going to depend on the nature of the piece you're working on.
03:16 Now sometimes you'll find that the first pass of this doesn't do quite what you
03:19 want, so I'm actually going to hit it again.
03:21 I'm going to go to, back to Image > Adjustments and Levels, and you can see
03:24 that the histogram has changed. See now I can make the dark parts darker,
03:29 pull down on the top end there, that's good.
03:32 Its going to look like a little natural sketch, and again the black is not
03:35 going to change the cast of that pink color.
03:38 Well that's good, but now I need to go back into the cyan channel, and I need to
03:42 get rid of the cyan, because its going to compete with the pink.
03:46 So, I can just fill it with white, I can just say Edit > Fill and choose White or
03:51 I could have used my Option or Alt+delete.
03:57 I'm going to Deselect and let's see what's going on.
04:00 If we look back at the CMYK, you can still see that there's Magenta there.
04:03 So, that I need to clean out too, because that's going to sort of kill that
04:06 fluorescent pink that I want on top. So, I can load the mask again.
04:11 I could have just kept it going, but I thought it was good to take a look at
04:13 what we've accomplished so far. So, now I'm going to go into just the
04:17 magenta, and I'm just going to empty that out.
04:20 So, I'm just going to use my little keyboard shortcut, my foreground color is
04:23 white, so I'm going to use my Option+delete or Alt+delete.
04:27 So, its going to look a little anemic now when I go back in, it just looks like
04:30 black and white. But now I'm ready to put in my pink,
04:33 although I think I might want to get rid of some of these little squiggles down here.
04:38 So, I just happen to have a little pants mask, and I want that to happen in all
04:42 four colors, so I'm selecting what's called the composite channel, it's just
04:46 the CMYK. And the same thing, I want to fill with
04:51 white, so I'm just going to hit Option+delete.
04:54 There we go. Now there's a little remnant of them, I
04:56 may end up coming back later and cleaning a little more out, but we'll see what the
04:59 results are. So, now I'm ready to bring in the spot color.
05:04 So, in the Channels panel, I'm just going to say New Spot Channel.
05:08 And remember that if you're shopping around, you need to know your color first.
05:12 And I think I'm going to go for the 807. It's a pretty brash color, but it's
05:16 going to look really cool when this is printed.
05:19 So, notice, I'm in the Pantone Plus, solid coded color library, and I'm
05:22 picking the fluorescent color. So, that's part of the color library,
05:26 when I click OK. And then click OK again, right now I just
05:30 have, a completely empty channel. But I'm going to take my shirt mask,
05:35 activate that, and for now I want to fill this with solid, so it's going to be a
05:39 solid hit of this, but it's going to have that black, that's going to change the
05:43 shape of it a little bit. So, I'm going to swap my colors, hit my Option+delete.
05:51 And there's my fluorescent pink, and let's see what this looks like so far, See?
05:55 When that comes back on top of the black, it's not going to change the color, but
05:58 it's going to give it some definition. So, now I have to decide what I want to
06:02 do about the pants. I have a little bit of shape going on in
06:05 the other colors, but I think I probably want to leave that there just to make
06:08 them look a little bit different from the shirt.
06:12 If I want to get rid of them later I always can.
06:14 So, I'm going to turn off the visibility of the CMYK, just so you can tell what's
06:18 going on. I'm in my Pantone 807 C channel, and I'm
06:22 going to load the pants mask, and just do the same thing, I'm going to fill it with
06:25 that solid pink. With my Option+delete, or Alt+delete,
06:31 Deselect with a handy Cmd or Ctrl+D. And you'll notice that these aren't solid.
06:36 It may be a little hard to see, I'll zoom in.
06:39 So, they're not entirely solid, but we've been told that they're not going to be
06:42 quite as bright on the pants, because it's a knit fabric, so it's sort of stretchy.
06:47 So, this is actually going to give us a more realistic result.
06:50 Remember, you can always go back and tune these up.
06:52 I could use my levels or curves in order to strengthen these little squiggles if I want.
06:56 But let's see what we have so far. I think this looks pretty good.
07:00 So just remember this, touch plate, bump plate, kiss plate, again different names
07:04 in different circumstances, but it's the same concept, it's adding a spot color to
07:08 an existing four color file. So, that you accentuate a color, or you
07:14 manage to create a color that you couldn't otherwise render in CMYK.
07:19 And when you have all those colors in Pantone books, think of all the fun that
07:21 you could have with them.
07:23
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Creating a spot varnish
00:01 Here's an image that I want to do a couple of special things to.
00:04 First of all, I want to silhouette him, so that I get rid of this background.
00:07 And then I want to add a spot varnish to him.
00:10 So, an overall coating, would cover the whole printed sheet, but a spot varnish
00:13 is going to be applied just where I specify.
00:16 So, it's kind of a neat way to sort of, accentuate him so that he's separated out
00:19 from the background. Not just by being silhouetted, but he'll
00:23 have a little shine to him too. First of all, of course I need to
00:26 sillouette him, I just happen to have a mask channel, so I'm going to load that
00:29 mask channel. And my favorite way is to just drag it
00:33 down to the little make a selection icon, now I have matching ants.
00:37 I'm going to go back to my Layers panel, and remember I have to turn him into a
00:40 floating layer, so that I can apply that mask.
00:43 When I double-click, click OK, now he's a floating layer.
00:47 And since I already have my marching ants, all I have to do is come down here
00:51 and click the Add Layer Mask icon, and there.
00:54 Now he's silhouetted from the background. So, when I place him in Illustrator or
00:59 InDesign, he's just going to float on top of whatever content is already there.
01:04 And now I need to create that spot varnish, well when I go in to channels
01:08 and I choose New Spot Channel. I don't want to use a Pantone color,
01:13 because it's not going to be an ink, its going to be a varnish that's shaped, like
01:17 the guy. So, frankly the color I apply really
01:20 doesn't matter, its the name that's really important.
01:23 Now I always used sort of an ugly green, so that it was pretty obvious what was
01:26 going on. But it's up to you, remember the color
01:29 doesn't matter, the name does. So when I click OK, I don't want to call
01:33 it Spot Color One, I'm going to call it Varnish.
01:36 Now, the way you name this is important in a couple of different ways.
01:39 Well for one thing, it helps you recognize what's going on here.
01:42 But as you assemble this image into an existing project, as you bring it into,
01:45 let's say InDesign, you want to make sure that you have consistent naming.
01:50 So, if there were other images that you're creating spot varnishes for, you
01:53 want to name it exactly the same. It wouldn't really matter what the color
01:56 was, although I think it would be nice to be consistent, but it's going to be the
01:59 naming that's important. So, if you have one image that has a spot
02:03 varnish with a capital V, one has a lower case v, InDesign is actually going to see
02:06 that as two separate varnishes, and you'd have to jump through some hoops to
02:09 combine it. So just kind of establish a naming
02:13 convention as you strike this out. And be sure to use it on every image.
02:17 So, now when I choose OK, and I turn on my Varnish, I don't see anything, because
02:21 right now it's just empty. So, I need to fill just the area of the
02:26 guy with a solid coverage for that Varnish..
02:29 So again, I'm going to load that knock out, there are my marching ants.
02:34 I want to make sure that I'm in that varnish channel.
02:37 Double check by turning off your CMYK, and then I'm going to fill it with black
02:40 indicating solid coverage of that Varnish.
02:44 Again, I like to turn my foreground color to whatever color I want to use it for fill.
02:48 Hit Option or Alt+delete there we go. Now when I turn back on the CMYK, you
02:52 know he looks a little bit sickly, but its a great visual reminder that you have
02:56 something else going on in addition to the image.
03:00 I'm going to clean up my image a little bit by getting rid of that KO.
03:03 If I ever needed it back I could reclaim it from that Varnish, or from my Layer mask.
03:08 But now I have the guy floating on space, so that when he goes into InDesign, which
03:11 is where I'm going to use him, he wont cover up anything that's underneath.
03:16 And now I have my spot varnish. So, this is a really easy trick to do,
03:19 frankly the hard part is creating the mask.
03:22 But you needed that anyway to silhouette it.
03:24 So, just remember your names have to be consistent, so that when you assemble
03:27 this into InDesign, that everything falls into place.
03:30
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5. Illustrator
Adding Pantone color swatches
00:00 Once you've decided to use a spot color, how do you get them?
00:03 So, here I am in Illustrator, I go to my Swatches panel, I have a global color
00:07 that I've used for the orange on all these little orange shapes, but that's
00:11 still a process build. And my client has told me that they want
00:16 to use Pantone 021, which is very vibrant orange.
00:20 Because orange is one of those colors that really doesn't render well in CMYK.
00:24 You can come close, but you can't get a really vibrant orange.
00:27 So, I know what color they want, now I have to add it to my Swatches panel and
00:31 apply it to all these shapes. The lower left hand corner of the
00:35 Swatches panel in Illustrator, there's the Swatch Library, and you'll see that
00:38 there are a ton of them in here. When you're looking for a Pantone color
00:42 though, your first temptation, I think, is to look in the P's and there's no Pantone.
00:46 That's because they are under Color Books, and that's because Pantone is not
00:50 the only ink reference available. Although you'll find it's the most widely
00:54 used one, ANPA for example is used in newspapers, TOYO is used in Japan,
00:58 TRUMATCH is actually not a spot color reference at all, it's actually a book
01:01 full of process swatches. And in fact Pantone dopesn't necessarily
01:07 mean spot, you can see that there's Pantone CMYK Coated and Uncoated.
01:12 The Color Bridge is great resource, It shows you spot colors, next to the
01:15 closest CMYK equivalents, then of course metallics and pastels, and so forth.
01:21 The most commonly used one, is the Pantone Solid reference.
01:25 You'll notice that they're solid coated, and Solid Uncoated.
01:28 Now that doesn't refer to the ink. The Pantone O21 that I plan to use is
01:31 Pantone O21 regardless of whether it's being applied to coated stock, or
01:35 uncoated stock. It's just that when an ink is applied to
01:39 uncoated stock it tends to spread a little, and it looks a little darker, and
01:42 it looks a little duller. So, these two libraries try to replicate
01:46 on screen the way the ink's going to look.
01:49 Now, you probably know that your monitor and a printed piece are not going to be identical.
01:54 I'm going to tell you, generally speaking, I just pick from the solid coated.
01:57 I know what color I want, I don't count on the screen to tell me exactly the true
02:00 story, so at least I know I'm specifying the right ink.
02:04 Let me show you something nice that started in Illustrator CS6.
02:08 This find field, at the top of the little library window, lets you immediately type
02:11 the number that you want, but if you're using an older version of Illustrator
02:14 you're not going to see that. You're just going to see this and you're
02:19 looking at all these little squares and you're trying to figure out which one is
02:21 the color you want. Well you could do this, you could choose
02:25 Small List View from the Panel Menu, then at least you get to see the names, but
02:28 you can see how it goes on and on forever.
02:32 So, the quick way to do this, if you're using an older version of Illustrator, is
02:35 to show that Find Field. So, this little phrase makes no sense
02:39 when you first see it, Show Find Field, until you know that there's something
02:42 called the Find Field and you need to show it.
02:45 So, when you choose that, this will show up.
02:47 Remember, in CS6 we got this for free. Now, after all these years we could
02:52 finally have the find field, so I know I want 021, so I'm going to type 021.
02:56 But while I'm here I want to show you what I considerd to be a little bit of a
02:59 bug in Illustrator. Let's say that I wanted Pantone 485,
03:03 that's a very commonly used color, It's a red.
03:06 So, I highlight this and I type 485, and Illustrator says, how about a nice 1485?
03:12 Now that's pretty, but that's not what I wanted.
03:14 I wanted 485, so I try it again, 485, no it wont do it.
03:20 So, this little bug will drive you nuts. You don't have to scroll down to find
03:23 that color though. There's a way to trick it into doing the
03:26 right thing. It's a little crazy but this works.
03:29 If Illustrator doesn't give you the right number, but you can see that it's hearing
03:32 part of it. Do this, hit your Spacebar, then type the number.
03:36 So, when I hit spacebar, and then 45, then it gives me the color I want.
03:40 Why it's like that? I don't know, I'm just telling you that,
03:42 because it's a way to get out of it, when it's driving you crazy, when your trying
03:45 to pick a color and it wont let you. So, I know I'm at, want my 021, and it's
03:50 been added up here, so I'm going to close this up.
03:55 And I want to select all these little orange shapes, and apply that 021.
03:58 Now I could Shift+Click and get them all, frankly I think the easiest way is to
04:02 come up here to Select and choose Same, in this case they all have the same fill,
04:05 so I'm going to say select everything that uses the same fill color.
04:10 And then I'm going to add that 021. There, that's much better.
04:14 Now, let me double check, it's a pretty simple page.
04:17 I don't think I've missed anything, but it's always a good idea to use those
04:19 forensic tools that are available to you. So, under View > Overprint Preview.
04:24 All right, everything looks good. And under Window, when I choose
04:28 Separations Preview, I can turn off that 021 and everything that ought to go away,
04:33 goes away. Oh, but I have these extra colors and
04:36 that's kind of confusing me. So, it's a good idea to clean everything up.
04:40 I'm going to come over here to my Swatches panel, and I'm going to say that
04:43 I want Illustrator to get rid of everything that I haven't used.
04:46 Select all unused and then when you hit the Trash Can you get this little alert.
04:51 But I'll show you a trick. If you choose Select All unused and then
04:53 you hold down the Option or Alt key and hit the Trash Can, then you don't get the
04:56 little alert. And that saves you a little bit of time.
05:01 So, now there's my little spot color, I know that my job's going to print correctly.
05:05 And now you know where to go shopping to find your Pantone colors.
05:09 Just go under Color Books And then most of the time as I say you're going to go
05:12 to solid coded at least no you know where to find all of these
05:16
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Using Overprint Preview to proof the display of spot color transparency
00:01 I have some simple shapes here, but I'd like to make them look a little bit more
00:03 interesting so I'm thinking about using Blending modes.
00:07 But, let me give you a little caution. When you're using Blending modes in
00:10 Illustrator and they're involving spot colors, Illustrator doesn't always tell
00:14 you the truth about what's going to happen.
00:17 First of all, let's find out what's going on in the file.
00:19 If I go up to Window in Separations preview, and then turn on Overprint
00:23 Preview, then I can see what colors are used in the file.
00:27 Now, I know there's no cyan image on yellow.
00:30 There's black, and then a spot green, Pantone 339, and a yellow, and an orange.
00:37 So, it looks kind of dull, so let's see what happens if I start using some
00:40 Blending modes. I'm going to turn Overprint Oreview back off.
00:44 And then, I'm going to select this orange flower and see what might be interesting.
00:49 How about if I use Color Dodge? Oh, that's kind of cute.
00:53 And then maybe my yellow flower, I could use Soft Light.
00:57 Yeah, that's sort of nice. I still see the shape, but it sort of
01:00 interacts with what's in the background. But I had some bad news for you.
01:04 This is actually not how this would image.
01:06 If I go up to View, and it's near the top so it's easy to miss.
01:09 Over Print Preview will tell me the truth.
01:12 And that's the heart breaking truth. All of those cute little intersections
01:15 that we you saw where we had different colors, it can't render that.
01:19 It cannot make that out of those spot colors.
01:22 It would be neat if Illustrator gave you a warning, but it just doesn't.
01:25 So, I'm going to recommend that you make this part of your toolbox.
01:28 Make this part of your, little forensic tour through a file before you submit it
01:32 for print. If you're using spot colors and you're
01:35 using Blending modes, always check this with Overprint Preview.
01:38 Now, is there something else I could try? Well, let me go back and change this to Normal.
01:43 And change this to Normal. And let's see if maybe we could
01:46 accomplish some of that same look, or at least something similar to it, by using
01:50 opacity instead. So, I'm going to select the flower, and
01:53 instead of using a Blending mode, I'm going to try Opacity.
01:57 Well, let's see what happens with that. Back to Overprint Preview.
02:01 At least this will image. So, it's telling me that I'm essentially
02:04 going to get a tint of that orange here. And then, I'm going to get a combination
02:08 of the green and the orange here. So, it's not as cute as what I had in mind.
02:13 But at least, it means that I get to have that sort of interaction of shapes.
02:16 So, what you might do when you're thinking about experimenting using
02:19 Blending modes or Opacity with spot colors.
02:22 There are some Blending modes with certain spot colors that will actually
02:25 work, but I picked two that I know always misbehave.
02:28 But you probably pretty safe if you use Opacity.
02:31 So here, if I select my little yellow flower and I back off of the Opacity.
02:36 Still, I get to see that interaction of shapes, but this overprint preview that I
02:40 see confirms that this will actually image at least the way I expect it to.
02:45 So, remember this. When you're using spot colors and you're
02:48 thinking about using Blending modes and Opacity, always double-check by turning
02:51 on Overprint Preview. And then, you'll know ahead of time how
02:54 this is really going to image and how it's going to print.
02:57
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3D shading: Preview with overprint on
00:01 Illustrator lets you add a little bit of dimensionality to shapes by using some 3D methods.
00:06 Now, it isn't really a 3D program, but it adds the illusion of depth.
00:11 So, this is a job that's going to print in black and Pantone 021 orange.
00:15 I'm going to select this flower, and see what happens when I use the Extrude & Bevel.
00:22 When I preview, well, doesn't look bad. It's, maybe it's a little too far, maybe
00:26 I'll make this a little bit more shallow. Oh, a little trick if you don't know it,
00:32 if you want to increase or decrease the value in a field, and you don't feel like
00:36 typing or in this case that little slider's not very exact, you can use your
00:39 Arrow keys. So, I just clicked in that field, if I
00:43 hit my Down Arrow, see it reduces the value, hit my Up Arrow, it goes up.
00:48 And if you're in a hurry, Shift makes it go faster.
00:51 So, that's probably about right. One little depth, don't want to get
00:54 carried away. notice this little caution here though.
00:57 It says, spot colors will be convereted to process.
01:00 Well that's not going to work, this is a two color job.
01:02 All hope is not lost though. When you click More Options.
01:07 There it is, Preserve Spot Colors. Now why that's not out in the open, I
01:11 don't know, but this works. When I choose Preserve Spot Colors, wow,
01:14 great, now it looks even worse. There's a little trick to this though,
01:18 don't give up hope, it really is going to do the right thing, and it tries to
01:20 confirm that for you here. Spot colors will be shaded with black
01:24 overprint, and look it even tells you what to do.
01:26 Turn on Overprint Preview to view. How helpful is that?
01:31 So, although it looks like it's going to print in grayscale, lets do what it says.
01:35 Go to View choose Overprint Preview and low and behold, it's going to be alright.
01:40 So, why is this? Well it's because Illustrator's using a
01:43 little bit of trickery in order to ensure that this will image correctly.
01:47 So, it's sort of cheating, it's putting the dimensionality out of just black, so
01:51 you're getting sort of a black overlay over it.
01:54 And as part of its normal sort of lazy display, it doesn't show you the overprint.
01:58 But at least it's polite enough to tell you in that dialog that you need to turn
02:02 on Overprint Preview, and as I say Overprint Preview is a great forensic
02:05 tool when you're using spot colors. It's a great way to get a better view on
02:09 screen of the color. And in this case, it's a great way to
02:12 assure yourself that this is actually going to image the way that you hope.
02:17 So, don't forget Overprint Preview, it's kind of your friend, when you're dealing
02:20 with spot colors.
02:21
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Converting spot colors to process
00:01 When you're working on a project, it's best if you determine at the beginning of
00:04 the project, whether you're going to print in spot colors or process, because
00:07 you can get some disappointing results if you start by working in spot colors and
00:11 then later on in the project you convert to CMYK.
00:15 Now keep in mind sometimes you have no choice.
00:18 So for example, if this job is now going to print on a digital press, we're
00:20 probably not going to get quite as bright colors, because they can't print spot colors.
00:25 But it's a good idea to find out what's going to happen early on, before we send
00:29 this to the printer. So to get an idea, if you look at that
00:33 bright green, it's quite vibrant. Over here in the swatches panel, if I
00:37 double-click on that swatch and check preview, it would take me two steps to
00:41 convert this to process. First, I have to change it from Color
00:45 Mode Book Color, to Color Mode CMYK, and then it will allow me to change this to process.
00:51 And if we look at before, and after, before it's a very bright fluorescent
00:55 green, and afterwards, this is as close as we can come in CMYK.
01:00 But of course this is why we have spot colors, in order to enable us to print
01:03 those vibrant colors that we just can't accomplish with CMYK.
01:08 So, that's one way that I could change it from spot to process.
01:11 But here's another way. If I hit Cancel, and I select all this
01:14 artwork, I can go to Edit > Edit Colors > Convert to CMYK.
01:19 And that does it immediately. The good news is that that fixes everything.
01:25 The sort of bad news is, that now I don't have swatches in my swatches panel that
01:28 correspond to that orange and that green. And I still have the spot colors.
01:33 So, to make my swatches panel content be consistent with my artwork, especially in
01:36 case I want to create other objects using those colors, I need to add those colors
01:39 to my swatches panel. And I think it'd be a good idea to get
01:43 rid of the colors that I'm not using. So in the swatches panel, I'm going to
01:47 choose Select All Unused. You can see that they're outlined.
01:51 And when I hit the trash can, they're deleted.
01:54 And now to add the orange and green, I'm going to go to the Swatches Panel menu again.
01:59 This time I'm going to choose Add Used Colors.
02:02 And you can see there's my orange and my green.
02:04 (SOUND). Now if you want to give them (SOUND)
02:06 maybe more telling names instead of just the recipe here, you could name it, well,
02:10 I don't know. Orange.
02:13 And then, of course, you'd want to name the green.
02:16 Now this is sort of interesting. Here are the actual values.
02:18 In other words, that was the determination that Illustrator made.
02:22 Well, this is as close as I can come to that green.
02:24 And it tried to cut it fine as it could, but in the name it rounds it off.
02:29 The name actually has nothing to do with the way it's going to look, it's this
02:31 recipe over here that really counts. So it doesn't look as spiffy as it did before.
02:37 But at least now I have a better idea of how it's going to print.
02:40 So I would say, in the interest of realism, when you know that at the end of
02:43 the job it's going to print process. If you know that you're never going to
02:47 print spot colors, I recommend that you actually specify your colors as CMYK to
02:50 begin with. For one thing, it gives you a slightly
02:53 more realistic view on screen of what's going to happen.
02:56 It also ensures that your contents correct when it goes to the printing company.
03:00 That way they know for sure that it's intended to print in process.
03:04 So, the more you can do to make sure that your files in keeping the way it's
03:06 going to finally going to print, I think the better off you are.
03:10
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Creating a varnish
00:00 In this project, I'd like to accentuate the flower shapes and the little
00:03 ampersand, but I don't want to have those components compete with the type.
00:08 I don't want to make them darker. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to
00:11 apply a spot varnish. First, I'm going to create the varnish color.
00:15 Now, there isn't a varnish, book. So there really isn't any place you can
00:18 pick an existing varnish color from. You just make your own.
00:22 So here in the Color panel, I tend to like to make them bright green just
00:25 because I think it makes it obvious that it's not part of the real artwork, that
00:28 it's something separate. It's up to you what color you pick.
00:34 I'm going to add it to the Swatches panel and I'm going to name it varnish and by
00:37 the way, if I were going to incorporate this with other pieces of artwork.
00:41 And in InDesign file, I have to make sure that that word varnish is spelled the
00:44 same and capitalized the same, so that InDesign understands that's all one varnish.
00:49 If there's any difference in the name, even capitalization, it thinks, oh,
00:52 there's two varnishes. And of course I want it to be a spot color.
00:56 And again, this build doesn't matter. The color mode really doesn't matter,
01:01 although if I change it to RGB maybe it will render a little brighter on screen,
01:04 and be a little more obvious. By the way, you may notice this little
01:08 triangle with the alert in it is just saying well, we can't really do that in
01:11 process, we're warning you, that's okay. I'm going to create a separate layer for
01:16 my varnish, you don't have to but I just sort of like to keep things separate,
01:20 just so it's easier to keep track of things.
01:24 So I'm going to make a new layer and I'm just going to name it varnish.
01:28 Because I want the shape of the varnish to correspond to the shapes that are
01:31 already in the page, half my work's really done.
01:34 So I'm going to select this flower and I'm going to shift click to get this.
01:38 Now, these are grouped together, the text and the ampersand, but that's actually
01:41 going to help me with a little problem that I need to fix.
01:45 In order to duplicate, I'm just going to hold down Option or Alt and I'm going to
01:48 drag that little square from layer one up into the varnish layer.
01:52 And you'll notice that the handles change color, and the selections change color to
01:56 sort of ear mark it as being now on layer varnish.
02:01 When I turn off varnish It goes away when I turn off layer one and turn back on
02:04 varnish you can see that, that artwork's been duplicated.
02:07 Always good to double check. So I'm going to select the big flower and
02:11 I'm going to change its color to varnish. Now the big flower is actually using a
02:15 50% tint of the spot color but I don't want 50% of the varnish I want solid varnish.
02:21 But you'll notice that when I apply the varnish color it takes on that percentage.
02:25 So I need to remember to come up to color and drag that up to 100.
02:28 Now for Hansel and petal, where that overlaps, I only want the varnish where
02:33 you see blue now. So I want it just to correspond to the
02:36 little flower shape. I don't want varnish on the letters.
02:40 So I need to knock out the varnish. I need to make sure that varnish doesn't
02:44 happen there. So I'm just going to double click, to put
02:47 myself in Isolation mode. I love Isolation mode, select the text,
02:51 come to the Swatches panel, and fill the text with white.
02:55 Now white in Illustrator doesn't mean white ink, it means, well, it means no
02:58 ink prints here. So, now, you can see that's exactly the
03:01 shape I want in my varnish, I don't want it going into the letters, and covering
03:04 up parts of the letters. I'm going to hit escape to exit my
03:08 isolation mode. I'm going to select this shape, double
03:12 click to get in to isolation mode and get this and I'm going to apply that spot
03:15 ddvarnisj again. And as you saw with the big flower, it's
03:19 taking on the tint value, so I want to make that 100%.
03:23 Hit escape. And then get my other little piece.
03:28 The little ampersand by double clicking again.
03:30 I could've also said select All Same Fill Color.
03:33 That would work too. Back again, apply the varnish, change
03:37 that from 40% to 100. And now, I think I'm good to go, except
03:41 for one thing. So let me show what happens if we don't
03:44 change an attribute of that varnish. Remember that one of your most valuable
03:49 forensic tools in Illustrator is overprint preview, coupled with
03:52 separations preview. So I'm going to go to Window>Separations Preview.
03:57 And it doesn't activate separations preview unless you turn on overprint preview.
04:02 So, again, you get a better view of what your color is.
04:04 But this is pretty important. If I turn off varnish.
04:08 Hey, what happened to my blue? Knocked it all out.
04:11 By default fill colors in Illustrator are opaque.
04:14 So they get rid of whatever's underneath. So if we were to image this job, the way
04:18 it is now, we wouldn't have the blue in the ampersand, and the two flowers.
04:23 So we need to do something special to these varnish shapes.
04:26 So I'm going to select this one, And go to select same fill color.
04:30 So then I have all the little varnish shapes and I'm going to set them to over print.
04:34 And here's where you do that. Under window an attributes.
04:38 And this is one of those things that's sort of hiding down in the corners.
04:40 Look little tiny checkbox over print fill.
04:44 An now you can see a change in the color and the reason is now it's showing you
04:46 that green. Coupled with the blue of the artwork underneath.
04:51 And we can double check by looking here in Separations Preview.
04:54 If it hasn't knocked out, when we turn off the little eyeball by varnish, the
04:58 blue is still there. So remember this, any time you create a
05:02 varnish, be consistent with the name If it's going to be combined with other
05:05 components in InDesign later on. And also remember to take those varnish
05:10 shapes, and always set their attribute to overprint.
05:13 So a little reminder, because it's not a panel you use very often.
05:16 It's under Window, which is where all panels are, Attributes, and Overprint Fill.
05:21 Now, these shapes don't have strokes on them, but just for future reference, if
05:24 you ever need to do that to a stroke There it is, overprint stroke.
05:28 And that's one of the main jobs in the Attributes panel, is just set things to overprint.
05:32 So now, I know that this is built correctly, I have my little spot
05:35 varnishes, and when this job is printed, and the varnish is applied, those little
05:38 areas are going to be a little shinier, and so it's just going to sort of call
05:41 attention to them. It just sort of emphasizes them.
05:46 It's a subtle way without changing colors to call attention to certain important
05:49 spots in a design.
05:51
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Creating spot gradients
00:01 I was hoping to add a little interest to this job by adding a gradient that goes
00:04 from spot orange to black. But you can see how anemic it is.
00:08 So it's a little bit disappointing. If we look at this in Separations
00:11 Preview, you can get a better idea of what's going on.
00:14 When I go to Window > Separations Preview, if I turn off the Orange, so
00:17 that we can see the Black, it's going from solid black at the very right, and a
00:21 little transition off to white on the left.
00:26 And then if I turn off Black, you can see what's happening to the Orange.
00:29 So you can see that they both start falling off pretty much immediately.
00:32 And so that mean that you don't have any real, strong combination of those colors
00:35 here in the middle and that's why it looks a little bit weak.
00:39 It looks a little bit gray. Now there is no way in Illustrator to
00:42 create an ink that's a combination of two colors.
00:46 So, I can't make a swatch that's a combination of Black and Pantone Orange,
00:49 that's what I really like to do, but since I can't do that, I am going to cheat.
00:54 So in the Layers panel, you can see there's my Gradient, so I'm going to
00:57 select that object, and I'm going to duplicate it.
01:01 And I can just drag it down to the new sublayer icon, and that'll do that.
01:05 So here's my game plan. I'm going to have two versions of the gradient.
01:08 One is just going to be for the orange, and one is going to be for that
01:11 transition from black to white. So I'm going to turn off the top one,
01:15 select the bottom one, and this is really just going to be solid.
01:20 It's just going to be that solid orange. And now I'm going to come back and turn
01:23 on the other one. By the way, this is kind of a great
01:27 little trick. If you want to select something sort of
01:29 by remote control, that little circle there is a target for that object.
01:33 If I click on the circle, that selects the object.
01:35 Sometimes in a really messy document, that's an easier way to get a hold of something.
01:39 So for this, I'm going to go into my gradient panel, and where I now have
01:42 orange on the left, I'm going to change that to just be white.
01:47 Now, what's going on up to this point? Well, if I turn the original little shape
01:51 on, we can't see it because the black doesn't overprint.
01:55 So now, I'm going to select my black gradient, and I'm going to go to Window >
02:00 Attributes, and set the Fill to Overprint.
02:04 We don't see the results, because Illustrator is not showing me Overprint,
02:07 but since I already have my Separations Preview open, I can just do it there.
02:11 When I click on Overprint Preview, now you can see, that looks much better.
02:16 Although, now that I'm doing it this way, I think I might change the distribution
02:19 of that black to white gradient. So with this shape still selected, I'm
02:23 going to go into my gradient panel. And this little diamond up above the
02:27 little ramp here, lets me determine the break point.
02:30 If I move it all the way to the left, you can see that it stays solid black longer,
02:33 and then there's a sudden transition to white.
02:36 If I move it to the right, it stays white longer, and there's a sudden transition
02:39 to black. So what I want to do is have that heavy
02:43 end happen a little longer. So I want a little more weight over here.
02:48 So, I'm going to move it a little left of center.
02:50 And I think that does what I want. I still see plenty of orange but I have
02:54 enough weight over here that it looks more robust.
02:58 So this is a little trick. It's a bit of a cheat, it's going to look
03:00 a little weird unless you have overprint preview on.
03:04 But anytime you have a gradient that goes from a spot color to black, remember this
03:07 little trick in Illustrator. It's the only way you can get a good mix
03:11 of the spot color and the black and not have that sort of anemic gray look that
03:14 you saw initially. It takes two objects, and you have to
03:18 remember to turn on Overprint Preview. And remember the way I induced Overprint
03:23 in that shape was to go to Attributes And turn on Overprint Fill.
03:28 So, remember that little trick in the future and your Gradients will look a lot better.
03:32
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6. InDesign
Importing art containing spot color content and resolving issues with Ink Manager
00:00 When you bring in artwork to an InDesign file, and that artwork is using a spot
00:04 color, you don't have to worry about adding that color to the Swatches panel
00:07 ahead of time, that artwork actually imports it for you.
00:12 So here I have two spot colors in my Swatches panel, and I'm about to bring in
00:16 a Duo Tone. When I go to File > Place, and I choose
00:20 that Duo Tone, notice that even before we see the image, that new color, that
00:24 PANTONE 202 has been added to my Swatches panel.
00:28 So when I place him, now I think you start to suspect his color's a little bit different.
00:35 And we already had a hint when we see the spot color numbers, so there are some
00:38 issues with this that I'm going to need to fix.
00:41 Let's see what's going on, and where these colors are used.
00:45 When I go into Window and Output, and Separations Preview, and I turn on
00:48 Separations Preview, now I have three spot colors in my list.
00:53 I happen to know this is really a two color job.
00:56 So somehow, I'm going to have to combine these colors, or I'm going to have to
00:59 correct the art work. If I turn off the 185, you can see that's
01:03 used in this text. Well, that would be easy to change,
01:06 because that's something that was created right here in InDesign.
01:09 Then there's the 187, and that's used for most of these images, and then the
01:13 PANTONE 202 that came in when I imported the Duo Tone of the photographer.
01:19 It'd take a fair amount of time to go back to Illustrator and fix the logos and
01:22 fix the spiral. And it wouldn't take too long to go back
01:26 into Photoshop and fix these two images. But I really don't have to do that, and
01:30 this is one of the really nice things about InDesign.
01:33 You can actually fix this problem. I have three spot colors, I really should
01:36 just have one. I can do this all in InDesign without
01:39 having to change any of the artwork. And here's how you do it.
01:43 You do it with something called Ink Manager.
01:45 And you can find Ink Manager in several locations.
01:48 In the Swatches Panel, there's Ink manager.
01:50 In the Separation's Panel, there's Ink Manager.
01:53 And I think that's because sometimes these problems aren't discovered until
01:56 you go into Separations Preview. It doesn't matter where you choose it, it
02:00 still preforms the same function. Ink Managers purpose is to fix this
02:05 common, frankly fairly age old problem. Gee, I have multiple spot colors, but I
02:10 really only want one plate generated. So what you do is what's called Ink Aliasing.
02:15 So first I need to know what the correct color is.
02:18 And I just happen to know that PANTONE 187 is the correct color.
02:22 So I need everything on the 185 plate to go out on the 187 plate and everything on
02:26 the 202 has to go out on the 187 plate. And here's how I do it, I choose the 185,
02:32 and then the rest of this dialog sort of wakes up, and under Ink Alias, I tell it
02:37 to become 187. And I'll do the same thing for everything
02:42 that's using 202. I tell that to now become 187.
02:46 And you can see a little icon here. It's a little arrow pointing at an ink bottle.
02:51 When I click OK, well, nothing's changed. Look, I still have these spot colors.
02:56 I don't understand. but look over here in my Separations
02:59 Preview panel. I just have one.
03:01 And when I turn off that one color, notice that everything travels
03:04 together,and that's what I want. So it looks like it's correct in the
03:09 Separations Preview, but it's not correct over here.
03:11 Well, here's what's going on. The Ink Manager fix is actually a
03:15 non-destructive fix. So it gives you sort of a back door, if
03:19 for some crazy reason, you really wanted these three very close reds, they're
03:22 really still this way. So if I double-click that 185, we look in
03:26 here, it still is 185. So it's a non-destructive change.
03:31 If I hit File > Print, and I print out of InDesign or I create a PDF.
03:37 Those three colors are going to be combined into that one 187 plate.
03:41 So, the outgoing content is going to be correct.
03:44 It may seem to you that what's left behind in InDesign hasn't been fixed, but
03:47 it's InDesign's way of giving you sort of the best of both worlds.
03:51 If you needed to go back to the original arrangement of things, it's still there
03:55 it really hasn't been changed, but using Ink Manager has guaranteed that I'm
03:58 going to get correct output. Now, this might be a little bit confusing
04:02 to somebody who picks up the job, I wish there were little icons that appeared
04:05 here in Swatches panel to inform us that these colors have been managed by Ink Manager.
04:10 We don't have that. But you'll know that everything is all
04:13 right when you use your Separations Preview.
04:15 So, remember to use that as sort of a forensic tool to make sure you know
04:18 exactly what's going on in the file. And be glad to know that you can use Ink
04:22 Manager to fix this common problem without having to go back and change all
04:25 your artwork.
04:27
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Using Overprint Preview to proof the display of spot color transparency
00:01 This is a five color project, I have four colors, CMYK for my color image, and then
00:05 I have a fifth color which is PANTONE 202.
00:09 And I have a nice gradient here and I set up a little interaction between that
00:12 gradient and the color image underneath, by going into the Effects Panel and
00:15 choosing Color Dodge. But I want to be sure of course, that
00:19 this is how it's going to print. You might notice that things look a
00:22 little ragged. Well, I'm going to go up to View, go to
00:24 Display Performance and choose High Quality Display.
00:28 Now things look a little bit sharper. And here's a warning, that isn't enough
00:31 to tell you the true story about how this is going to print.
00:35 Big caution, and remember this, any time you're using spot color components in
00:39 your project, and you start playing with any of those blending modes, worry that
00:42 it's not going to image the way it initially looks on screen.
00:46 Is InDesign lying to you on purpose? Well, no.
00:50 It's not taking the time, or the computational effort to show you
00:53 everything on screen. So, it's enough to keep you going but,
00:56 it's not enough to tell you the whole story.
00:58 So make this a habit. Any time you're using Spot Color
01:01 components and you're using any kind of Blending Modes, use this forensic tool.
01:05 Go up to View and choose Overprint Preview.
01:08 It's the first thing on the list so it's sort of easy to overlook.
01:11 Watch the bottom of the screen when I choose that.
01:14 Oh, it looks totally different. I don't have that nice interaction
01:17 between my gradient and that image underneath, and I have these ugly yellow splotches.
01:21 And this is how it's going to print, too. Not at all what we want.
01:25 So, let me select this shape and consider maybe using a different Blending Mode.
01:30 As long as I'm still in Overprint Preview, I'm going to see how it's really
01:32 going to image. So, I can go through the list.
01:36 Now, Multiply's going to be a little bit heavy.
01:39 Screen gets rid of the image entirely. Now Overlay looks sort of like what I
01:44 originally had in mind, so I think I'll settle on that.
01:48 But remember, if you go back and you turn off Overprint Preview, you can be misled.
01:52 This is not how it's going to image. It's not how it's going to print.
01:56 This is the true story when you use Overprint Preview.
01:59 Now you might find in a graphic heavy document that having Overprint Preview on
02:02 all the time, may slow your performance a little bit.
02:07 An that's why InDesign doesn't turn it on by default.
02:09 But remember any time you use spot color components and you start experimenting
02:12 with blending modes. It's probably a good idea to work with
02:17 Overprint Preview on, but if you don't want to do that, at least remember,
02:19 before you finish the job, go up to View, turn on Overprint Preview, take a good
02:22 look at everything and make sure that things are really going to image the way
02:25 you expect.
02:29
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Converting spot colors to process
00:01 If you've created your job using Spot Colors, but then you print that job in
00:04 CNYK, you have to expect that your color is going to change.
00:09 Now sometimes that's because the job's specs change, sometimes that's because
00:12 people pick colors out of the spot book, knowing that it's going to print CMYK.
00:17 My recommendation is that you always start up front with the specs for the
00:20 job, the way it's going to print, and then you specify your colors that way,
00:23 and here's why. Here we have two very bright colors,
00:28 Pantone 802 which is a fluorescent, and then Pantone green, which is also sort of
00:31 a fluorescent. So that's nice and festive, it's in
00:35 keeping with the, the floral theme of this.
00:38 But let's see what happens when we convert this to CMYK.
00:41 So I'm just going to Double-click on that swatch.
00:43 I've checked Preview, and to make this into Real Process, I have to do two
00:47 steps, but when I choose CMYK as my color mode.
00:52 Immediately you're going to see the results.
00:54 So this is InDesign's way of saying, well this is as close as I can come.
00:58 Now of course if this is going to print process, I need to do one extra step,
01:01 which is Convert that to Process. And then then I Click OK, well it's a
01:05 little bit disappointing. Undo, and Redo, now that's one way to
01:09 change to Process, but here's another way to change it.
01:14 And, this is a non-destructive way, so you might like this way better.
01:18 And that's by using Ink Manager. So, you can find Ink Manager in the Panel
01:22 Menu of the Swatches Panel. You'll find it in Export Dialogues as well.
01:26 And when you're in Separations Preview you'll see it too.
01:29 So Ink Manager's job of course is to map a spot color to a process color, change a
01:33 spot color to Process, or map one spot color to another, and this is one real
01:37 easy way to change them all to Process. So you'll notice there is the little spot
01:43 icon, and when I check Use All Spots to Process, there we go.
01:47 Now when I Click, OK you'll see both of them change.
01:51 So the blue's gotten duller, the green's gotten duller, that's unavoidable, that's
01:55 the best we can do if we print in CMYK. But again remember, that Ink Manager is a
02:00 non destructive force, so you don't see any change in your Swatches panel.
02:04 The colors still think they're Spot, but if I export a PDF, those are going to be
02:08 rendered in CMYK. So this is typical of the sort of change
02:12 you're going to see when you start with a spot color, but then you convert to CNYK.
02:17 So keep this in mind as you plan your jobs, know the most that you can about
02:20 how a job's going to print, and then spec your colors accordingly.
02:25 And that way you don't have any disappointment at the end.
02:27
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Creating a spot varnish
00:01 This is, part of a project that we're doing for the Roux Academy of Art, Media
00:04 and Design, and we want to make it, just a little bit higher quality.
00:09 So, what I want to do is, I want to create a spot varnish that's just
00:12 going to cover, the photographer here. Now I could do that, in Photoshop, but
00:16 I'm going to show you kind of a neat way to do this within InDesign.
00:20 And the success of it depends on me having a path in that Photoshop file,
00:24 that I can invoke in order to serve as a home for my spot varnish.
00:29 First, I'm going to make the swatch for the spot varnish.
00:33 So I'm just going to choose New Color Swatch.
00:35 Now, this is going to be a spot color, because it's going to represent that varnish.
00:40 Now, it's Color Mode frankly wouldn't matter, but I tend to want to make the
00:43 varnish representation kind of loud, so I can recognized it in the pack.
00:48 So, I'm just going to make it a nice bright green.
00:50 Again the color doesn't really matter, the name does.
00:53 So, I'm going to name this varnish, and I need to make sure that if I'm going to
00:56 knit this back into an existing InDesign file, I need to make sure that the name
01:00 is consistent with the name for the varnish in other parts of the file.
01:07 So, when I click OK. There we go.
01:08 Now, you might notice the way this is represented in the Swatches panel, the
01:11 little spot icon tells you that it's spot.
01:14 The RGB tells you that it's RGB, but it doesn't really have color, right?
01:19 It's really just going to represent one output and that's for that spot varnish.
01:23 This is just InDesigns way of telling you hey, I'm using RGB values, because that's
01:26 what you told me. To try to render this on screen, and
01:30 that's all that signifies. So, in this image, I actually have a
01:34 path, and this is what I'm going to use as a bases.
01:38 I'm going to make it a little bit easier on myself, by going into the Layers
01:41 panel, and I love this about InDesign, you can look at the individual objects,
01:44 and address them. So, I'm going to duplicate him, and I'm
01:48 just going to drag him down to the New Object, so now I have two of him, there's
01:52 the original. And I'm going to turn off the original,
01:56 and then turn on this new one, and select it.
02:00 I'm going to go to Object > Clipping Path > Options, and I'm going to check
02:04 Preview, and it's not really going to change much.
02:08 But when I choose Photoshop Path, it recognizes that path in the document, so
02:12 this is one of the cool things about InDesign and Photoshop and Illustrator,
02:15 sort of an ecosystem. And if you think of InDesign as sort of
02:20 the mixing bowl, it understands the way the Illustrator and Photoshop files
02:24 behave, it understands whats in those files.
02:27 And that's why it can be aware of this path.
02:30 Then you can do funny things like invert it and get rid of the photographer, but
02:34 what I want is this shape. Now I could of gone to Photoshop and
02:38 copied that path and tried to paste it in position.
02:41 But this is kind of a neater way to do this, I think.
02:45 So, I'm going to click OK. And now I just have the photographer, but
02:47 I don't need the photographer. I have him in that other instance of the image.
02:52 What I need is just the shape, so here's what I'm going to do.
02:55 I'm going to keep the shape, but I'm going to get rid of the image.
02:58 So, when I go to Object, and Clipping Path, here we go Convert Clipping Path to
03:03 Frame, because right now the frame, is that enclosure.
03:08 You can see the blue outline, that's the frame, and then within it we're isolating
03:11 part of the image by invoking that path. But when I choose Object > Clipping Path
03:17 > Convert Clipping Path to Frame, it gets rid of that original rectangular frame
03:21 and it leaves just that little edge. And it might be a little hard to see, I'm
03:26 going to turn on my frame edges. Can you see that little blue outline?
03:30 Now there's the rectangular bounding box, don't let that confuse you.
03:33 Now there is a frame shaped like the guy. That's great, but I don't need the guy, I
03:38 just need the frame. So, I'm going to switch to the Direct
03:41 Selection tool, and when I click you can tell by the change in the color that what
03:44 I'm talking to now is the image, not the container, and I'm just going to delete.
03:49 See, there we go. There's my photographer's shape.
03:51 And now I can select that shape and I can go into my Swatches panel and I can apply
03:56 that varnish. Now it looks a little dull here, but
04:00 remember color doesn't matter, it's just really a way to identify it.
04:04 Now back in my Layers panel, I'm going to turn the original image back on.
04:07 If I were to out put this, this is what's going to happen.
04:11 I'm just going to have a knock out shape, on top of him.
04:14 So, just to kind of prove that, if I go to Window > Output > Separations Preview,
04:18 turn on Separations Preview, if I turn off the varnish, see it would knock the
04:22 guy out, we don't want that, we want it to overprint.
04:27 So, what we have to do is select this shape, and do one of two things.
04:31 Either set it to multiply using Blend Mode, or you can go to Window > Output,
04:35 and Attributes. It's kind of buried, there.
04:39 You have to sort of search for it. And this is really its only job.
04:42 It lets me designate this as overprinting, and immediately you can see
04:45 what's going to happen. Now remember, it's not going to be a
04:48 green varnish. He's not going to turn green.
04:50 The green's just to help me identify the area, but now I have something that's
04:54 going to make this look just a little bit better when that spot varnish is applied.
05:00 It's just going to sort of make him pop out, because he's going to be shining,
05:02 everything around him is going to be a little duller, because the colors
05:05 grayscale, and because it's going to be on sort of matte stock.
05:09 So, it's going to really give him the illusion of a little bit of dimensionality.
05:13 And look how easy that was to create, so just remember the trick here was that I
05:16 had a path in my Photoshop file. I could invoke it here in InDesign, and
05:21 then I could keep that path, and then get rid of the image inside, and use that
05:24 path, just as a carrier for my varnish. And it's a really great trick, it's a
05:29 great way, to enhance a printed piece, and give it a little bit more depth and dimension.
05:34
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Creating and using mixed inks
00:01 When you're working with just two colors, it can seem like you have a very limited
00:04 palette to work with. Here, I've created a gradient that goes
00:08 from a spot color to black. But you can see how anemic it looks and
00:12 it's sort of grayed out in the middle. Let's take a look at separations, an
00:15 this'll give you a better idea of what's going on.
00:19 When I go to Window > Output > Separations Preview, and then turn ns.
00:25 I get a truer look at what's going to print and it's still not good enough.
00:29 If I turn off the 187 you can see that the black starts at 100% at the top and
00:33 it fades off to the bottom. And then the red, the 187, is doing the opposite.
00:40 So, as they fade out, it gets very weak in the middle of this gradient.
00:45 So to strengthen this and to make a much more attractive gradient, I'm going to
00:48 use a great feature in InDesign called Mixed Ink Swatches.
00:51 In the Swatches panel- Go to the Panel menu, and I choose this, New Mixed Ink Swatch.
00:59 What this lets me do is combine a spot color and a process color, or several
01:02 spots and several process colors. And this can be a great way to extend at
01:08 least the illusion that you have a larger spectrum to work with in a two-color job.
01:13 So this'll just be my black plus 187, and I'm going to add 100% of my 187 To 100%
01:17 black, and you can see here that I could have less then 100%, and keep this in the
01:22 back of your mind. When you're working on jobs that involve
01:27 spot colors, especially if you're working on a two color job, this can make it look
01:30 like you have more crayons to work with. So I'm going to click OK, you can see
01:35 that new little icon there that tells me that this is a Mixed Ink Swatch.
01:40 And now, I'm going to use that to modify my gradient.
01:42 So, instead of having just black all by itself for this stop, I'm going to change
01:47 that so that it uses that black plus 187. And immediately you can see the change in
01:52 that gradient. I'll click okay.
01:55 And anytime you're using spot colors, it's always a good idea to double check-
01:59 By going into separations preview an turning on separations, because that
02:02 turns on overprint preview. An we already know that we just have two
02:07 colors, but keep that in mind to, even if you aren't going to wake up that
02:10 Separations panel. Up under View, and it's the first item so
02:14 it's easy to overlook, Overprint Preview gives you a truer rendition of color onscreen.
02:19 And especially, if you're using blending modes or anything like that with spot
02:22 colors, again, it gives you a truer rendition of what you're doing and you
02:25 have a better idea of how this is going to print.
02:29 So in the future, when you're working on two-colored jobs and it seems to you that
02:33 you're very limited in your range. Remember this, you can create mixed ink
02:37 colors and you can greatly extend, what you can do in that project.
02:41
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7. Acrobat XI
Examining with Output Preview
00:01 This is part of a larger project that we're doing for Roux Academy, and the
00:04 entire project is supposed to print in two colors, PANTONE 187 and black.
00:10 And, this PDF that I've just received doesn't look quite right.
00:13 You'll notice that the word Graphic is a little brighter than the other text, and
00:16 the duotone of the photographer doesn't look right either, so I'm going to find
00:19 out what's really going on. And for that I need the Print Production tools.
00:24 When I click Tools and wake up the Tools pane, that doesn't show up by default.
00:29 You have to go and find it, and you do that by clicking on this little icon at
00:32 the upper right, and then choosing Print Production.
00:35 Now, you know that there is a limit to what you can fix in a PDF, but this is
00:38 something I probably can fix. First of all, I need to find out exactly
00:42 the nature of the problem. When I click Output Preview, my
00:45 suspicions are confirmed. I have three spot colors where I really
00:49 ought to just have 187. So let's find out what's going on where.
00:53 I'm going to turn off my Process Plates, and then one by one, I'm going to check
00:56 to see which components use which colors. So 187 is my correct color, well at
01:01 least, most of my components use that 185 for the word graphic, that's why it looks
01:05 so much brighter, and the 202 has been used in the Duo Tone for the photographer.
01:12 This is one of those problems that I actually can fix by using Ink Manager.
01:17 And if you're an InDesign user, that rings a bell with you, you might have
01:20 used Ink Manager in InDesign, and it works just the same here in Acrobat.
01:24 Although, I will point out that on the Mac, there's a little bug.
01:27 You had a little idea of what 187 and 185 and 202 look like now, but you notice
01:31 this little set of rectangles doesn't look right.
01:35 It's just one of those things. It's a bug in Acrobat 10 Pro and Acrobat
01:38 11 Pro on the Mac. But we're working from the number anyway
01:42 so, you know what? We'll just ignore that.
01:45 So I want everything that uses 185 to actually image on the 187 plate.
01:49 And when I select 185, you can see that the rest of the dialog wakes up.
01:53 And I'm going to use what Ink Manager calls Ink Aliasing.
01:56 I'm going to tell everything that's currently 185, go out the door on the 187 plate.
02:01 And you can see the little arrow that confirms that it's going to do that.
02:05 Anything that's 202 is also going to go out on the 187 plate.
02:10 When I click OK, it looks like everything's just fine.
02:13 And you can see now, it's been consolidated into just the one spot color.
02:17 If I turn off that color, everything travels together, that's great.
02:22 But watch what happens when I close out Print Preview.
02:25 Well now it's back to the way it was. What does this mean?
02:27 Well, this is just one of those things. Ink Manager, as it is in InDesign is a
02:32 non-destructive process. Acrobat's thinking is, well, if you image
02:36 directly out of Acrobat, I'll fix this on the way out the door.
02:39 But we almost never work that way. This PDF is actually going to go into an
02:43 imposition program. And it's going to ignore that, it's not
02:46 going to see that set of instructions. Only Acrobat sees that and exercises it.
02:51 So what we have to do to sort bake that Ink Manager instruction is use Convert Colors.
02:58 What you do is chose Preserve, because you want to preserve what's in there, but
03:01 down at the bottom, and this is something that's easy to overlook.
03:06 It does recognize what I've asked it to do in Ink Manager.
03:09 So I check preserve to make sure that it doesn't convert any spot content to process.
03:14 I'm going to click OK. I get this little message, and there's a
03:16 lot of stuff that you can do in Acrobat for which, you're not going to have an
03:19 Undo, at least it's polite enough to tell you.
03:22 And in this case, I don't want an undo, I want it to fix it.
03:26 So I'm going to choose Yes. I'm going to double check, and back
03:29 there, you can see that everything looks okay.
03:31 When I turn off the Spot Plates, everything travels together, and when I
03:35 close Output Preview, look the colors have really been converted.
03:39 So if you have this kind of a problem, this will actually fix it.
03:43 This PDF is actually safe to send on down the line.
03:46 It will image correctly. It will just generate that one Spot Plate
03:49 and black. You know that there's some things that
03:51 you can't fix, but this is one of the things you can.
03:53 But, do remember that it takes two steps. You use Ink Manager to set up the
03:57 instructions how you want Acrobat to handle those colors.
04:01 And then you bake it in, if you will, by using Convert Colors.
04:05 So just remember the Print Production tools give you a lot of ability to fix
04:09 problems with PDFs.
04:11
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Using preflight profiles
00:01 If you're looking for problems in just a single PDF, you can probably just use
00:04 Output Preview. But if you're looking for problems in
00:07 multiple PDFs and you'd like to batch process them.
00:11 Then you need to create a Preflight profile.
00:13 To do that, go to your Print Production Tools and choose Preflight.
00:18 And you'll see that there's a pretty good number of presets that ship with Acrobat.
00:23 But what I'm going to do, is use one of those as a starting point, and then I'm
00:26 going to customize it and have it look for anything that's not spot color or black.
00:31 In other words, anything that's going to generate a cyan, magenta, or yellow
00:34 plate, So under Prepress, I'm going to use this Sheetfed Offset profile as a
00:38 starting point. Now, I don't want to change it.
00:42 I want to leave it intact. So I'm going to come up to Options and
00:45 choose Create New PreFlight Profile. And I need to name it.
00:49 And I'm going to tell it to search for CMYK.
00:52 So I'm going to name it no CMYK. And you can put all sorts of information
00:56 in here if you want to. And here on the left, you can see that
00:59 there are a number of kinds of problems you can have it look for.
01:02 But in this case, all I'm really worried about is what sort of plates it's going
01:05 to generate, and there it is right at the top, and that tells you something, this
01:08 is really a common problem. So I wanted to search for anything that's
01:13 going to generate (INAUDIBLE) or yellow plates, and I have 4 options here, the
01:16 inactive option, well it might find it but it's not going to report on it.
01:22 Info, Warning, and Error, well, all three inform me that it's found something.
01:25 So really I could use any one of them, but I'm a fan of just using the error,
01:28 because when we see that big red X we know we have a problem.
01:33 I might check to make sure there's nothing RGB as well, because that would
01:36 also generate cyan, magenta, and yellow plates when it goes to a plate setter.
01:41 So, I'm going to save this and then I'm going to have it look at this file.
01:47 So when I click analyze, well immediately we see that we have a problem.
01:51 But think how beneficial this would be if I had to do this to 50 pdf's.
01:55 It would report on all of them. I notice there's a problem, but I don't
01:59 know exactly where the problem is, so I don't really know what to tell the
02:01 original designer to fix. So I need to know what the image is or
02:05 multiple images if multiple images are causing the problem.
02:09 When I click on this, nothing happens, well this is the secret.
02:13 Down here at the lower left it says show in Snap, which makes no sense until you
02:16 know there's something called Snap view, and this is it Snap view.
02:21 There, now I know what the problem is, it's this image.
02:25 So, now I know how to inform the designer, they need to go back, into
02:27 Photoshop and fix that image, so that it's really a duotone.
02:31 It looks like a duotone, but it isn't one.
02:33 So, I can't fix this. There's no way to repair this.
02:37 Here in Acrobat but at least now I know what the problem is and so now i can
02:40 inform the designer. So if you have multiple PDFs that you
02:44 want to check, make sure that they're healthy consider making a Preflight
02:47 profile, it sort of does the work for you it's much more efficient.
02:51 You can automate the process and it's all about trying to make sure that your files
02:55 are healthy before you send them to press.
02:58
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Conclusion
What I hope you've learned in this course
00:01 After taking this course, I think you understand why we need spot colors to
00:04 extend the range of hues that we can print.
00:08 And I'll bet you have some appreciation now for the craftsmanship that goes into
00:11 creating printing inks. You've seen some examples of how spot
00:15 colors and varnishes can enhance printing projects.
00:18 And you also have some idea of the printing issues that you might face, so
00:21 you should consider them when you plan your job with spot colors and varnishes.
00:26 I hope I've taught you some useful techniques for creating artwork for the
00:29 correct printing of spot colors and varnishes.
00:32 An I've also shown you how to use some forensic tools in Adobe Acrobat, so that
00:35 you can check your files before you send them off for print.
00:40 And most of all, I hope I've inspired you to explore the wonderful possibilities
00:43 that spot colors and special finishes provide, so that you can translate what
00:47 you imagine into print.
00:49
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Next steps
00:01 If you want to learn more about spot colors, and the ink reference guides.
00:05 I've complied a short list of resources that you might find helpful.
00:08 And if want to expand your skills and learn new techniques in the graphic
00:11 design programs that you use everyday. You'll find a multitude of courses right
00:16 here, within this library.
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