Datasheet

662
Creating Spot Color Separations
6. In the New Spot Channel dialog box, select a
Solidity value between 0 percent and 100
percent.
A value of 100 percent represents an ink that’s
completely opaque, such as a metallic ink,
which completely covers the inks beneath it.
A value of 0 percent represents a transparent
ink, such as a clear varnish. But the solidity
value affects only the screen view and com-
posite prints; it doesn’t affect the separations.
It can help you see where a “clear” varnish
will print.
7. Click OK to close the dialog box.
Your spot channel appears in the
Channels panel and is filled in the
image, as well. I created a spot
channel for my crest graphic and
for the type (Pantone 7417C), as
shown in Figure 1-5.
In the printing process, spot colors
are overprinted on top of the four-
color image, as shown in Figure
1-6. That means that the spot color
is applied at the end of the printing
process and is printed over the
other inks. This can sometimes
cause lighter spot colors to darken
somewhat.
If you need your spot color graphic
to knock out the underlying image,
create it in an illustration or page
layout program. A knockout is a
hole left in the four-color image,
which is filled with the spot ink.
The spot ink doesn’t print over the
other inks.
8. Save the image in the native
Photoshop, Photoshop PDF, or
Photoshop DCS 2.0 (Desktop Color Separations) format.
TIFFs also support spot channels, but your page layout program may
not recognize them.
Figure 1-5: The Channels panel
displays the spot channel.
Corbis Digital Stock
Figure 1-6: Spot colors are often used for
color-critical logos that print on top of
your image.
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