Adobe Illustrator - Spot Color to Black Gradient in Illustrator

Author

Spot Color to Black Gradient in Illustrator

Fleemo

2004-02-12, 6:29 pm

What's the best way to make a gradient that fades from a spot color to
black in Illustrator? Are there any special instructions I need to
provide my printing house when using art like this?

Thanks.

-F

WharfRat

2004-02-12, 7:28 pm

> What's the best way to make a gradient that fades from a spot color to
> black in Illustrator? Are there any special instructions I need to
> provide my printing house when using art like this?
----
You should look into overlapping 2 gradients.
One goes
spot to white
the other goes
black to white.
Chances are a spot to spot gradient will not work.
Spot to process should work and black is process -
so that should work, as well.

MSD

Paul Asente

2004-02-13, 4:28 am

In article <79a519dd.0402121429.6c130829@posting.google.com>,
fleemo17@comcast.net (Fleemo) wrote:

> What's the best way to make a gradient that fades from a spot color to
> black in Illustrator? Are there any special instructions I need to
> provide my printing house when using art like this?

In Illustrator CS at least, just do it. I just output separations for a
spot-to-process black gradient and it came out fine.

-- paul asente
To reply, make the host be the same as my last name

Fleemo

2004-02-13, 6:28 pm

> In Illustrator CS at least, just do it. I just output separations for a
> spot-to-process black gradient and it came out fine.

Paul, when I try and do a simple black to spot gradient, even in CS, I
get the dreaded gray zone where the gradient drifts into gray before
arriving at the final color. I thought in order to get a smooth
gradient, you needed to add the spot color to the black, so that the
spot color never actually fades out, but the black eventually takes
the image darker until it's black. Easy to do with process colors
with a CMYK build, but I can't figure out how to add black to a spot
color.

>You should look into overlapping 2 gradients.
One goes
spot to white
the other goes
black to white.<

MSD, how would you "overlap" the gradients? If I create two identical
graphics and stack them, then set the transparency mode to Overlay,
the same gray zone happens. I'm stuck!

-F_

WharfRat

2004-02-13, 8:28 pm

in article 79a519dd.0402131428.242cfa7c@posting.google.com, Fleemo at
fleemo17@comcast.net wrote on 2/13/04 2:28 PM:

>
> Paul, when I try and do a simple black to spot gradient, even in CS, I
> get the dreaded gray zone where the gradient drifts into gray before
> arriving at the final color. I thought in order to get a smooth
> gradient, you needed to add the spot color to the black, so that the
> spot color never actually fades out, but the black eventually takes
> the image darker until it's black. Easy to do with process colors
> with a CMYK build, but I can't figure out how to add black to a spot
> color.
>
> One goes
> spot to white
> the other goes
> black to white.<
>
> MSD, how would you "overlap" the gradients? If I create two identical
> graphics and stack them, then set the transparency mode to Overlay,
> the same gray zone happens. I'm stuck!
---
I used multiply - and it looked pretty good.

Paul Asente

2004-02-14, 5:28 am

In article <79a519dd.0402131428.242cfa7c@posting.google.com>,
fleemo17@comcast.net (Fleemo) wrote:

>
> Paul, when I try and do a simple black to spot gradient, even in CS, I
> get the dreaded gray zone where the gradient drifts into gray before
> arriving at the final color. I thought in order to get a smooth
> gradient, you needed to add the spot color to the black, so that the
> spot color never actually fades out, but the black eventually takes
> the image darker until it's black. Easy to do with process colors
> with a CMYK build, but I can't figure out how to add black to a spot
> color.

It all depends upon what you want. If you want the spot color to fade
out, you can just set the stops, but if you want the spot color to go
throughout, you'll need two layers.

> One goes
> spot to white
> the other goes
> black to white.<
>
> MSD, how would you "overlap" the gradients? If I create two identical
> graphics and stack them, then set the transparency mode to Overlay,
> the same gray zone happens. I'm stuck!

You don't want to use any transparency mode--if you do, you will lose
your spot color and Illustrator will turn it into process.

What you want to do is have two fill layers ("Add new fill" in the
appearance palette.) Make one of them solid spot, and the other
black-to-white. Then make sure that ""Overprint" is set for the top
fill. You'll have to go into Overprint Preview mode in the View menu to
see how it looks. (This isn't the default because it makes screen
updates slower.)

-- paul asente
To reply, make the host be the same as my last name

Fleemo

2004-02-15, 6:28 am

> What you want to do is have two fill layers ("Add new fill" in the
> appearance palette.) Make one of them solid spot, and the other
> black-to-white. Then make sure that ""Overprint" is set for the top
> fill.

That did the trick! :) I had tried this earlier, but was making the
mistake of trying to "Overprint Black..." via the color filters
instead of checking the "Overprint Fill" box in the Attributes
palette.

One last thing... when importing the image to a page layout program
and separating it, the black comes out as a CMYK build. Is there a
way to make it print out as a two-color, spot plus black instead of
spot plus CMYK?

Thanks for the help.

-F

Oldylocks

2004-02-16, 9:28 pm

"Fleemo" <fleemo17@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:79a519dd.0402150217.2abbc5f2@posting.google.com...
>
> That did the trick! :) I had tried this earlier, but was making the
> mistake of trying to "Overprint Black..." via the color filters
> instead of checking the "Overprint Fill" box in the Attributes
> palette.
>
> One last thing... when importing the image to a page layout program
> and separating it, the black comes out as a CMYK build. Is there a
> way to make it print out as a two-color, spot plus black instead of
> spot plus CMYK?
>
> Thanks for the help.
>
> -F

Really? It does? What program? If that black gradient was 100% K it should
have worked.
-Oldylocks.

Fleemo

2004-02-17, 11:14 pm

>>Onelastthing...whenimportingtheimagetoapagelayoutprogram
[color=blue]
>Really?Itdoes?Whatprogram?Ifthatblackgradientwas100%Kitshould
>haveworked.

Oldylocks,ithappensinInDesignCS.Despitetheblackinthe
gradientis100%KasdefinedintheGrayscalecolorspace,onceit's
importedtoInDesign,theblackgradientseparatesintoaCMYKbuild.

IsupposeIcouldtelltheservicebureaunottoprintouttheCMY
plates,butthatbordersonunprofessionalIMHO.Enoughproblems
occurintheprintingprocesswhenthefilesIsubmitare100%
perfect.Ihateintroducingroomforerror.

-Fleemo