Designer: Make Color Transparent

[KJTP]

Hello internet! I've been working on a line art design to print, and the picture shows, there's a lot of overlapping layers. I've used black lines and fills for most of the separation between elements, and now that I've finished the project I realize I want it printed with no black because it will be on black fabric. I really don't want to go through the whole document adding masks to every layer, is there a simple way to apply a blanket effect to the whole documetn that will make all black transparent?

TIA,

KJTP

[toltec]

Is this is going to be printed by silk screen process?

 

If so, as a former printer, I can tell you not to worry about the black, assuming you have designed this as spot colours?. The printer doesn't have to print the black, or even make a black film. So just tell him (or her) to ignore the black. 

 

You do have another problem to consider. What about the white?  That will need to be printed, at the moment, it is set to not print because it is the colour of the paper. What is needed is a separation for each individual colour (including white). 

 

You need to make the Blue, Red and White components spot colours. If you haven't already done so.

 

If you have designed it as four colour process, then you need to go back and change it anyway. 

 

Do talk to the printer though!

[roberting]

This is an interesting point - I tried to use white as spot colour, however, this only seem to work for vector layers. My problem is that I have brush-shape elements, that are defined as spot colour "white" have to be rasterized for export. The trouble is, that any way I tried (rasterizing manually or during export), the spot colour "white" will be converted to "paper white" so these elements will disappear all together in the resulting PDF. Is there any way to rasterize vector shapes and keep the spot colour, or – alternatively – to apply spot colour to the rasterized pixel layer afterwards?

 

(the whole logo will be printed in red and white on a dark grey metal plate; the white scripted "A" in the red box will convert to a "cutout shape" rather that spot colour white)

 

Thanks for your help!

 

[toltec]

Why does it have to be rasterised?

 

The problem is, when you Rasterise something, you are turning it into a pixel layer, which has to be RGB or CMYK. Or I suppose greyscale but I think all software treats that as RGB internally. it has to display it on an RGB screen.

 

A spot colour has to be separate from that process.

 

With your image Ideally create a white and a red vector layer set as spot colours and output as two spot colours.

 

I don't know how you are printing this but remember, it does not matter what colour you design in when using spot colours. Your printer will need the red and the white as solid black films. That is all spot colours are when he makes the films or plates. Even CMYK are just 4 solid black films (with dots to simulate greys). Years ago I used to do spot colour printing from a program that only did CMYK separations, I used to set everything as black and magenta (sometimes plus cyan). I still ended up with two perfect (100% black) spot colour films. I just put PMS 245 (or whatever) ink on the "magenta" plate,

 

If the white letter in the middle is cut out, it will be grey then? Where the background shows through.

[toltec]

this is what the printer needs. What colour ink he uses decides what colour you get.

 

[roberting]

Hello toltec,

 

thanks for your answer - you got it to the point. I my case, the "A" would be disappearing from the "white plate". 

But it boils down to the point that the "brush" stile that I used for the "A" is not compatible with the PDF-export-format (PDF/X-1) that I use. In the export dialogue it read that "portions of the design will have to be rasterized" - this is where the "A" is.

 

I helped myself by redrawing/outlining the brush stroke with a "proper" (or hard) outline shape filled with "White" - that worked for me. 

 

However I'd like to know whether it is possible to use brush strokes with spot colours. Since these brush stiles are semi-transparent (they require at least some degree of antialiasing when rasterized) , this would basically translate to: "Can I have a fade among two spot colours and being able to output that correctly, while using brush stiles?"

 

Thanks a lot!

 

[toltec]

If you start blending like that, to be honest there is not much point. 9 times out of 10 it would be cheaper and easier using 4 colour process. You are trying to mix too many processes. Spot colours and bitmaps (basically RGB) etc. I don't actually know of any software that does that except for silk screen printing stuff.

 

Because T Shirts are often printed on coloured shirts, 4 colour process is impossible because there is no white background. The prints are usually many more colours, one of which usually has to be white. There is some very specialised and very expensive software for that.

 

http://www.ultraseps.com