spot channel
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- _salisae_
I asked friends, I googled, I referenced books on printing and each had a different answer to my question.
I have an image of dirt that is being printed cmyk plus one metallic brown to give it a shimmer. How do I set up the psd file for the printer?
- Duane0
Go to the Channels palette and then to the little arrow on the right. Click it and select 'New Spot Channel', name the channel and then click on the color swatch. Pull up the Pantone® Metallic Coated swatch library and then paste in whatever artwork you want into this channel.
- MrOneHundred0
Providing you know what you are putting on the spot channel, just make sure the spot channel is named the same as the PMS colour, save it as a PSD and you’re golden. The ink order is decided by the printer, but that’s something you shouldn’t need to know about. in some cases you will want to knock-out spot channel info from the CMYK. Maybe ask your printer – let those bastards wear some of the responsibility.
- Agreed. Asking the printer for file set-up advice is always the best thing to do.Duane
- _salisae_0
thank you, mr100. That was the part that varied so much, how to assign the metallic ink to a color range. I wasn't sure if that was something I should know or something the printer set. Suppose I will learn more at the press check.
- _salisae_0
Vent inserted here:
this is actually a job for our printer (media kit & booklet). He asked for artwork to be turned around in a day and then was unreachable when we had questions. Turned my day into a mad one.Pretty rude if you ask me.
- heh. I resisted the urge to say that what you will learn at the press check is that printers areMrOneHundred
- ...c**ts.MrOneHundred
- MrOneHundred0
There are lots of different ways to get that info onto the spot channel. I often duplicate the most contrast-y channel from the CMYK and go from there – altering curves to get that metallic right where you want it.
- _salisae_0
Interesting. We were tempted to make it a duo-tone with black and metallic. I wish I had the means to play with the various options.
Also, we don't have a fiery printer so we couldn't test the separations.