Forums: Design:

I am working on a presentation folder for my employer. The logo uses a Pantone color, and it is used in other areas of the folder as a color accent.
When doing a save as, I get a message from Illustrator that states: "When spot colors are used with transparency, changing to process colors outside of Illustrator can generate unexpected results."

I am using a transparency, but not on the logo. Will this affect my design or the Pantone colors used? In other words, what does this message exactly mean? Anyone know?

Thanks
cory

just that some inks don't carry the same hue as a transparency indicates.

Originally posted by: cory0518
I get a message from Illustrator that states: "When spot colors are used with transparency, changing to process colors outside of Illustrator can generate unexpected results."

In other words, what does this message exactly mean?
Anyone know?

cory, the message means that if you are sending the file to someone for printing,
or placing the file in another document within a layout program such as InDesign o9r Quark... the Spot Color information carries along with your file...

Spot Colors are fine, and have a purpose and an added expense
for example, my employer has a specific numbered Spot Color for reference, but they won't pay to have anything printed using Spot Colors. The conversion of Spot Colors to both RGB and to CMYK or Process Colors can and do produce different results from one another and especially from what you might expect , if you don't convert the Spot Color to Process Color/CMYK in Illustrator


here's a good instructional page

another example
ktdesign.wordpress.com/2007/12/19/pantone-swatches/

Issue
Pantone color values set in Adobe InDesign or Adobe Illustrator appear to be different colors in Adobe Photoshop.



Additional Information
You must set InDesign CS3 and CS2 and Illustrator CS3 and CS2 to use Lab values that are in the library; this is not the default setting for either application. When you set InDesign CS3 and CS2 and Illustrator CS3 and CS2 to use the Lab values, you can encode alternate colors for spot colors using the same Lab values. If spot colors are converted to process colors, then Illustrator CS3 and CS2 and InDesign CS3 and CS2 convert those Lab values to CMYK using the Profile selected at print time or using the document profile if the conversion-to process happens before print.

There is no setting to use Lab values in Illustrator or InDesign in versions earlier than CS2. Neither application used different Lab Pantone values; both were designed to use the Pantone CMYK values to define color appearance, while Photoshop uses Lab. This was changed In InDesign and Illustrator CS2.

Thanks guys,
I am still confused...
So will the Pantone color carry over correctly and get printed correctly with that message? I am sorry if I have misunderstood, but I am new to print design.

Did you use any transparency? If not, then you have nothing to worry about.

I did use transparency... not in the logo (that is what uses the pantone color)
What does that mean for my design? Will it no longer use the Pantone color but rather convert it to CMYK?

Thanks again

No, it means you have little to worry about.

Here's what it means. If you used transparency on a Pantone colour on your logo, saved the file with the Pantone colour, and then placed the logo into an InDesign brochure and outputted that for a four-colour offset print then you may or may not have problems. To keep the transparency consistent in your InDesign file (or outputted PDF) you'd have to ensure the Pantone colour was outputted in that file as well in a five-colour file.

You're usually best not using Illustrator or anyone else's transparency feature. You're better off actually drawing the objects using tints of the Pantone colour.

no problem cory...

ah, after writing most all the stuff that follows, I opened Illustrator and see something that might help... if you open the swatches palette, find your spot-color swatch and double-click, you get a dialog like the top one below? with spot color greyed out?



If you follow the progression of the dialog, switch the color mode from Book, to CMYK... that will give you the greyed out selection for color type, which you can then change from spot to process... which then will allow you to choose cmyk as the color mode ... I don't know if the preview will help, you can always undo


maybe that will work



regarding the transparency, this is something I run into all the time with my coworker[s] wo create gradients and other design elements not only with transparency, but with spot colors rather than working in CMYK...

now, what you said also rang another bell... changing the spot color to process sometimes doesn't work as easily if you have an object or element placed or linked in your final document.

you could always send me a copy and I could look at it, or even have my coworker look at it...





hope that is of some small help...

Originally posted by: cory0518
I did use transparency... not in the logo (that is what uses the pantone color)
What does that mean for my design? Will it no longer use the Pantone color but rather convert it to CMYK?

Thanks again

basically, what it means to have a Spot color is that you would need a fifth channel or Plate... rather than running on a four-color press, they add a fifth etc... this costs money... so, you can simply [sic] convert the spot color to a four-color process color... they give you a warning, because not all pantone or spot colors convert exactly—just as you get a shift from RGB to CMYK, some Pantone colors look different when converted... the reason there is an added issue with transparency, is that the single-channel of a spot color interacts differently than four-channels of your object will react to the four-channels of your artwork—if you let the RIP or layout program do the conversion later...

as Storm says. you probably have little to worry about


I sent you a reply to your PM... call me if you feel a conversation will help