Export multiple spot color channels to Illustrator

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
January 24, 2019
1 reply
6201 views

I'm currently setting up a file for offset printing that has a combination of raster and vector assets. The raster assets were created in Photoshop and have been converted to Spot Channels in the channels panel, the spot channel preview looks good in Photoshop. However, when I save the file as a PSD or DCS 2.0 and place it in Illustrator to combine with the vector assets, the PSD appears black.

Is this how it should appear and the spot color information is just hiding under the surface? Is there a better way to combine Pantone colored raster and vector assets in a single file for print? Am I going about this all wrong? The internet has so far turned up very little on this so any help would be appreciated!

Thanks

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Daniel E Lane

Inspiring

1. What color space are you using inside of Photoshop?

2. How are you getting it into Illustrator? File>Open the PSD or Drag & Drop the PSD into the Illustrator window you want it to be part of?

Try as I might, I can't get anything to come in and just show black. Everything I'm trying brings across all of the colors, either flattened into a single image or with all layers split out into separate objects. Would you mind telling me the actual process you are doing to get from Photoshop to Illustrator?

alexs65702213Author

Known Participant

Thanks for your response Daniel,

1. I'm working in multichannel color space, I attached an image of my color channels, these are basically the three layers I need printed in different PMS colors

2. So I've tried saving it as a PSD and dragging it into Illustrator, also tried saving it as a DCS 2.0 EPS file and dragging it into Illustrator that way, what would you recommend for bringing spot channel raster artwork into Illustrator in a print friendly way?

In this screenshot below, the version on the left is CMYK and the intended colors, the version on the right was saved with Pantone colors in Photoshop and brought into Illustrator with file > open PSD, one thing I noticed though is that when I opened it this way, despite it showing up black/grayscale, the correct PMS colors appear in the Swatches panel, does this mean it's just not generating a preview of the colors and will actually print okay?

Here is a screenshot of the color setup in Photoshop:

alexs65702213Author

Known Participant

One file is all you need and easier to manage. Make sure you choose spot channel, or double click on channel and set to spot.

Good question on your black rectangle, had a feeling you might ask. You need to put a white layer, so the inks do nto act like transparent. It would need to be the shape of your 2 spot colors combined. Or if you do not need transparency/overprint, add a color fill adjustment layer.

Forget that Multichannel exists. What you did was a good guess never having done this before, but Adobe really needs to chime in on Multichannel and update their help, so others do not fall into this trap.

I see, thanks for the help!

One more question regarding the order of spot channels if you don't mind...is it typical for the order of these channels to be set up in the pre press stage or by the designer? Is this something I should be concerned about or is it more a matter of getting the document to the printer looking correct with the correct colors on the correct objects?

I know we've strayed from Photoshop topics a bit at this point but if you have advice on this it would be super helpful!

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