illustrator problem NOT FOR NEWBIES

[Fuzzbuster]

I have had a heck of a time in illustrator with specific pantone spot color gradientsin Cs3 They come out like bands at bus scale

and i dont have any printer problems

any help appreciated
Using onyx production house 7.5 for rip

 

[rdm01]

I have had the same problem before. It seems to happen in the rip. What type of file are you printing? I had a couple ways of solving, but it depends on what type of file you are trying to rip? Does the gradient go from one spot color to a transparency or two diferent spot colors?

A quick fix that I found was to flatten transparencies, but sometimes (if not always) winds up with a color shift. There are a couple other more labor intensive ways I have found to solve the problem, but again depends on rip software, file type and other factors.

 

[Fuzzbuster]

the file is a straight forward vector...the file size beleive it or not.... for a bus is under 100k...
complicated shapes and stripes but all vector

Gradient PANTONE FILLS length of bus with solid black outlines

gradient are pantone to pantone

just cant do pantone color matches in photoshop

 

[rdm01]

100k seems very small for full bus, but if it works even better. Generally when this problem happens to me it seems to be on a large file. Sometimes the easy "newbie" approach actually works for me the best. Convert the spot to process, print a test and bust out the pantone book to check for a match. I know, it's the down and dirty way but you would be amazed at some of the results.

 

[Mike Paul]

Has sending Spot Color Gradients worked fine for you in the past?

 

[Fuzzbuster]

Thanx for the tip

just trying to do it with spot for exact color matching to other dupont paint colors

Guess i`m gonna have to work for it

technology......decades away from being perfect

 

[Fuzzbuster]

Bump!

Anyone else?

 

[Bigdawg]

Are you going from 100% to 0%. What actual PMS color are we talking or is it everything? What resolution are you printing it at?

 

[RobGF]

PostScript supports only so many steps in change. If your gradient is going from 100% spot to 50% spot and this is to happen over, let's say, 50' PostScript would see about 126 steps and those steps would be visible obvious. Now that's the perfect world. Given the fact that the tonal range of solvent prints is small and the fact that only the best of profiles are completely smooth, the steps will be visibly more obvious depending on the colour. I think for safety sake, a long gradient works better as a raster element with some noise applied in photoshop.

 

[GK]

PostScript supports only so many steps in change. If your gradient is going from 100% spot to 50% spot and this is to happen over, let's say, 50' PostScript would see about 126 steps and those steps would be visible obvious. Now that's the perfect world. Given the fact that the tonal range of solvent prints is small and the fact that only the best of profiles are completely smooth, the steps will be visibly more obvious depending on the colour. I think for safety sake, a long gradient works better as a raster element with some noise applied in photoshop.

Rob said it perfectly. Does it absolutely have to be sent as an .eps/.pdf file? could you convert it to raster? you will also notice that horrible stepping tends to happen when printing drop shadows and outer glows direct from Illustrator as well compared to the ones used in Photoshop, just something to keep in the back of your head for the future.

 

[Cy Fan]

A quick simple fix is to highlight all and rasterize. If your using flexi to rip you will have a heck of a time trying to get the gradiants and pantones to match exactly, when left as vectors.

 

[Rooster]

+1 for replacing the vector blends with a raster version (with noise).

 

[Rick]

Out of curiosity, when using Pantone spot, have you tried the "BLENDING" tool instead of gradient? You have an option to do 1000 steps in blend by double clicking and modifying in "SPECIFIED STEPS", you can also modify from edge to edge by playing with the shapes, center line or "CONVERT ANCHOR POINT" the center line to modify the blend even more. If the gradient needs to be within shapes you can then mask the blend.

 

[Goatboy]

CS3 is infamous for outputting gradients as the actual steps versus a single shape with a blended color. The raster method is probably your best method except you probably won't be able to get it raster at that size even at sub 72 dpi. Couple of work arounds are publish to pdf(large file size but the latest ps settings work very well with gradients as well as trans elememts) or if your rip will take it...a legacy,uncompressed AI.

 

[RobGF]

Out of curiosity, when using Pantone spot, have you tried the "BLENDING" tool instead of gradient? You have an option to do 1000 steps in blend by double clicking and modifying in "SPECIFIED STEPS", you can also modify from edge to edge by playing with the shapes, center line or "CONVERT ANCHOR POINT" the center line to modify the blend even more. If the gradient needs to be within shapes you can then mask the blend.

It's a neat idea but it doesn't matter. The interpreter can handle x amount of steps. Sending a zillion steps just means the interpreter will average them down to the amount that it can handle. I mention x steps because certain interpreters have patches to go beyond what Adobe has santioned but it still doesn't get around that limit and the fact that some profiles aren't smooth all the way through causing "jumps" in a gradient that mathematically should work out perfectly.

 

[rjpjr]

We used to have frequent issues with gradients where I am employed. Assuming you have not already tried this, when saving the .eps file, make sure to check the "Compatible Gradient and Gradient Mesh Printing" option box. Most of our gradient related issues disappeared when we started using this feature.

 

[Fuzzbuster]

Have to say thanx to all those who replied

This is an ongoing problem that alot on designers are faced with

It is not exactly clear where the problem is

I personaly think it`s at the rip,,, but i`ll keep trying different things and when i find a exact cure i`ll definatly post it

Thanx again guys

 

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

Here's another plug for the rasterisation method- make the gradient in Photoshop, and apply a hefty blurr if necessary. Save is as a low resolution file, and place that into Illy & stretch it out to size.

 

[eye4clr]

It is not exactly clear where the problem is

I personaly think it`s at the rip,,, but i`ll keep trying different things and when i find a exact cure i`ll definatly post it

Thanx again guys

Reread Rob's posts. He's 100% on target.

Just a minor detail to add that likely doesn't matter is that ai converts all pantones in gradients to the native file format of rgb or cmyk.

So might as well rasterize and be sure.

 

[Fuzzbuster]

Here's another plug for the rasterisation method- make the gradient in Photoshop, and apply a hefty blurr if necessary. Save is as a low resolution file, and place that into Illy & stretch it out to size.

Cant create a pantone fade in photoshop:Oops:

and rasterizing a pantone color is not a exact spot color match

a raster is a raster??