[78robots]

Here's what I'm doing:

I am doing a CD package layout, We had an illustrator do some drawings for us. The drawings were scanned and brought into Illustrator. They are one color (black on white). I would like to have the black printed as a metallic spot color. Now here is my question: can I just tell the printer that I want the black printed as a metallic, or do I need to set it up somehow. I'm just wondering because I can't adjust the colors of a Tiff in Illustrator.

I hope this makes sense, and thanks for any help!
Aaron

[strawbleu]

Assuming that when you PRINT SEPARATIONS, the bits you want in a metallic ink print on a unique separation then you don't need to do anything. And, you should be able to adjust the colour - assuming the tiff is set to Black and White or Grey... or you used to be able to when I was a print designer (back in 1995 with Illustrator v3 or something...

>> picks up walking stick and complains about RSI, and other medical complaints <<

[sleepingfish]

Originally Posted by 78robots

can I just tell the printer that I want the black printed as a metallic, or do I need to set it up somehow.

It might be worth giving the printers a call and asking them.

[78robots]

I'm not printing separations, I'm just sending the Layout (in EPS format) to our printer. And I mean I can't adjust the colors of a Tiff in Illustrator By selecting just the black and choosing the Pantone that I want it to be. Yes I will call the printers, I would like to know in general if there is a way I should set it though.

[78robots]

Anyone else know?

[chick]

1) make a selection of the area you want to be a spot

2) on the channels fly-out menu, choose "new spot channel"

3) enter pantone # & solidity

4) save as a photoshop DCS 2.0

sometimes if you are doing complicated traps there can be issues with the metallic ink and other ink types, so you may want to discuss art with pre-press before sending your files in, as you may need to modify your design.

[strawbleu]

If I understand this, you are printing one colour only - if so, send it to print as whatever you want, tell them to output black only and print black as P****

Job, jobbed.

[78robots]

Thanks guys,
The best way to learn is to just do it!

Strawbleu- Yeah I figured that I could just tell the printer to do it that way, I was just wondering if there was a way everyone else did it. Thanks for the feedback.

Chick- I am using the Tiff illustrations as a backround in my Illustrator layout. I don't think I can set up spot channels in Illustrator. Is there a way to that you can save the spot channels in Photoshop and import them into Illustrator?

[chick]

Sorry let me clairify - my previous list was for setting up spot colors using Photoshop.

Using spot colors in Illustrator is easy - go to the top level menu Window>Swatch Libraries>Pantone and load them into Illustrator. Choose the color you want to use ( I suggest swithcing to list view via the flyout menu on the swatch pallette). Once you have selected your Pantone color, you will see it appear as a swatch in your project's Swatches pallette. You can distinguish the difference between a process and a spot by the little dot in the top of the swatch. Now you can create vector and set type in your spot color.

Instead of using a tiff, set up the art as I mentioned before in Photoshop, save as a DCS 2.0, and place that into the Illustrator file. You need to have it saved as this DCS 2.0 as that is the only way that I know of to have a proper spot and a preview for a bitmapped print graphic.

Be sure that your Illustrator project swatch pallette only contains the spot colors that you want to print with - delete any other spot colors that appear before sending out for print, as any color you select in the pantone swatch library will be automatically imported into your project swatch pallette even if you delete all artwork that used the unwanted color. To convert a spot to CMYK double click on the instance of the swatch in the project swatch pallette and change to CMYK, then you will notice that the dot will be gone from the swatch.

Hope that helps! Oh yeah and always write the pantone number in the margin of your hard copy that you hand off with your files so that your project is not delayed by pressmen!

btw maybe you might want to think about using InDesign 2.0 or *shudder* Quark if you plan to do more print work in the future

[78robots]

Thank you very much! I will give that a try.