it's almost there (How to get pure black shadows in RGB workflow)
it's almost there (How to get pure black shadows in RGB workflow)
- Subject: it's almost there (How to get pure black shadows in RGB workflow)
- From: Roberto Michelena <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 14:35:18 -0500
> Tip 2. Create a spot channel to the RGB image for pure K.
> My comment: Theoretically this could actually work, but unfortunately
> InDesign does not seem to allow placing of such RGB-PSD that contains
> a spot channel (at least in my testing it didn't).
I just did the experiment, it works... just until you print.
- using Photoshop CS and InDesign CS
First caveat: typically you do the shadow in another layer, so the shadow
can be a complete shape and parts of the shadow are "hidden" by the actual
objct in front.
But when putting the shadow in another channel, it won't be covered by the
object, no matter if it's on a lower layer. So you have to take the object's
shape, cut it out from the shadow (so that only the visible portion of the
shadow remains). And then, no reason to keep the layers, as the shadow is
already cut out, and it's on a separate channel, you can put it in the same
layer as the object.
Result: you are in Photoshop, you have a single-layer document open, it has
4 channels: R,G,B and "shadow" ; in RGB is only your object, in "shadow"
only your shadow.
You can save it in three formats:
- as a PSD file
- as a "Photoshop PDF" file
- as a "Photoshop DCS 2.0" file (it's an EPS)
Then, go to InDesign, open your document:
Second caveat: you have to FIRST create in InDesign a spot color named
"shadow" and asign it the CMYK value of 100K you want. Otherwise it will
bring CMYK values from Photoshop where the spot can't be defined as 100k.
Then, you can "place" any of those three files. In all cases, when asked to
'there is already a color in the document called shadow, replace by the one
being imported' you say no. You want to keep control of the composition of
this color.
The differences between using PSD, PDF, and DCS:
- IF besides the shadow you had a mask in the object, in PSD format there
seems to be a bug related to transparency, some areas that should not appear
are showing up. If the object was totally cut-out, no problem.
- the PDF does not preview correctly in InDesign, unless you do a "proof
colors"
- for the EPS to preview correctly, you should select the "rasterize
postscript" option at the time of import.
Up to here, everything seemed fine; I checked by doing a "proof colors" and
then previewing by separation, I had five seps, looked ok. The spot is still
a spot. I printed the seps, with the spot still as spot, it prints five
seps, and it's ok except for the PSD one which lost a mask. (I believe
that's because I did not keep separate layers).
But then I went to print separations telling the ink manager to convert
"shadow" to process.... nothing worked. Instead of using my definition of
the spot color "shadow" which is 100K, it reverted back to Photoshop's
definition of "shadow", which was CMYK.
And that's not all: the PSD one lost even more of the mask, the PDF one lost
the shadow. The DCS2 one is the one that worked best, but still converted
the spot color to CMYK.
So we're close. We need to be able to define the spot color's CMYK
equivalent in Photoshop, so that when it passes it inside a DCS2 file, it's
passing as 100K. I don't know how could this be done... maybe if Photoshop's
color settings are used with a gray profile in place of the CMYK one...
Otherwise we would need sophisticated post-processing to double-burn the
"shadow" plate into the K one.
ah, it's a buggy world...
-- Roberto Michelena
EOS S.A.
Lima, Peru
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