Spot Colors and Transparencies

[Signed Out]

having trouble perserving my rvw spot colors in illy files that have effects such as drop shadows. when i print with my xj540 i get the notorius grey box around areas with effects. ive tried exporting as a tiff, but then i lose my spot colors. how can i save a tif file with rvw spot colors.

 

[Sticky Signs]

Select the areas with the drop shadows and hit "flatten Transparency". Than trun off "preserve over prints and spot colors". Some one may have some better info soon.

 

[Signed Out]

ive tried that. it fixes the grey box issue, but then i lose my spot colors which makes the print look horible. and if i flatten with the preserve spot color checkbox then it prints a white box which is worse then the grey box. this is so annoying

 

[P Wagner]

having trouble perserving my rvw spot colors in illy files that have effects such as drop shadows. when i print with my xj540 i get the notorius grey box around areas with effects. ive tried exporting as a tiff, but then i lose my spot colors. how can i save a tif file with rvw spot colors.

You cannot save a TIF file with spot colors. Only certain file formats support spot colors, these include EPS and PDF.

Try this. Save an EPS file from Illustrator, and bring it into Versaworks. Open the Job Settings dialog, and go to the Quality Tab. In the area labeled Color Management, change the Preset to 'Full Page Conversion Mode'. Click OK to close the Job Settings window. Print.

This should solve most of the problems you are experiencing.

 

[Signed Out]

tried switching to full page conversion but still got the grey box. should i have tried to flatten the image before saving as an eps?

 

[HaroldDesign]

I usually convert the spot colors to process values to get around this. If necessary, I will make small test swatches of process to get a match, and then use those values for the swatches in the Illy file.

 

[Signed Out]

could you be a little more specific on how to change the spot colors to process values. wont that just put me back to the same problem of getting a lower quality print bc im not using the rvw spot colors?

 

[HaroldDesign]

could you be a little more specific on how to change the spot colors to process values. wont that just put me back to the same problem of getting a lower quality print bc im not using the rvw spot colors?

I don't use a Roland. However, what pms color is a match? Make the element that color from the pantone library in Illy. Double-click the swatch in the pallete, and make it a process color rather than spot. See how it looks. I always just make 1" x 1" color block of it first so I can tweak it before applying it the the file and wasting material.

 

[HaroldDesign]

Sometimes just saving as a PDF/X-3 format out of illy takes care of transparency issues, also.

 

[Bigdawg]

That won't really accomplish what he wants Harold.

The RV swatches give better color - it loads the spot color swatch without letting the profile interfere with it. Yellow is a prime example... virtually any profile tries to put some cyan into the mix. Using the RV swatch as a spot color instead stops that - giving you the bright yellow you want instead of a cyan-tinged one.

I'm not sure of the answer for OP... can you rasterize the areas with transparency? Or are the spot colors part of that rasterization.

 

[rozankan]

Regarding Roland Spot Colors and special effects

In this case, from our understanding with certain postscript features, there is no way to use both the drop shadow effects (or other special effects) with RVW spot colors.

The only option would be to use any CMYK or RGB color instead of the RVW spot color that can be rasterized with a transparency or special effects.

When using regular assigned process colors in Adobe Illustrator, the best way to get the purest colors when printing (aside from the Roland Spot Color Library) is by going into the "Color Management Properties" settings in Roland VersaWorks and click the check box to turn on “Preserve Primary Colors” . This will give you for example a bright pure Yellow.

Feel free to PM me, or give Tech Support a call at (800) 542-2307 - Press '2'.
__________________
Robert Ozankan
Senior Product Manager - Color Products
Roland DGA

 

[Signed Out]

thanks everyone for your input. im pretty new to this and all this information helps me get a better overall picture of the digital print world. through talking with my roland dealer i found that for this particular file that changing the preset for color managment to "density control only" solved my spot color and transparency issue.