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Lantzalot
Known Participant
January 25, 2024
Question

Averaging B&W image

  • January 25, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 236 views

So I'm trying to find something similar to the Blur->average in photoshop. From what I can tell, it's not available. Essentially I'm trying to find a way to figure out roughly how much of the print surface will be inked. Our presses are flexographic, so every color that is printed is converted to a black & white image where the black becomes the raised relief part of the plate that prints. 

 

At any rate, I'm trying to find a way to have a script calculate the total ink coverage so that when pantone colors are being mixed, the printers have a better idea of how much ink to make. If I convert ink to black and the print area to white and drag it into PS, with blur -> average I get a percentage value for the black (35% for example) which tells me the print is 35% covered with ink. 

 

Is there a way to do this in Illustrator? Doing this Photoshop method for every job is not something I want to attempt. I've seen the possible solution with InkQuest mentioned in searching here but was hoping maybe there was a way to do this with Generative recolor (I've attempted without success). All I really want to get to is that percentage, and it doesn't really have to be that precise. Increments of 5 or even 10% would be much better than what we have now, which is printers eyeballing it and taking a guess.

 

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2 replies

Inspiring
January 26, 2024

There's a nifty property for these cases - pathItem.area 
You can collect all colored paths, calculate their total area and divide by canvas area.
Its not so straighforward, since you will have to deap with Compounds too.. and Compounds love having negative areas some days. But yes, its doable.

Kurt Gold
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 25, 2024

Can you share at least one Illustrator sample file for inspection?