Remove black from complex stock art lens flare gradients for use on white backgrounds

[elena.fx]

Hello! First time poster here.

I have a logo that has used stock art of lens flares which have the gradients set to fade into black. 

Is there a quick way to change all the blacks to white and change their opacity to 0 so there's no muddyness? 

Thanks for any suggestions in advance. 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

These stock illustrations are built with a transparency effect that requires something behind it to work properly. Try that.

[elena.fx]

Thank you! I didn't even think to try this. This worked but the colours in the art did vary with the colour of the background and blending modes. I need to build out assets that will remain true no matter the colour of the background so will get in there and ajust the art as best I can.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"the colours in the art did vary"

and they will.

The main transparency effect that they utilizie is either Screen or Lighten, so the background colour totally affects the result.

You can see why the outside has to be black, then, as if it was white, it would be Lighter than the background causing the exact reverse problem.

So, yes, working with opacity gradients is your best best. Personally, I would have brought this into Photoshop and rendered a mask to do the work and left it as a PSD file.

[elena.fx]

Thank you Brad @ Roaring Mouse

The file's end use will be a logo for use on books and other print so I think I need to keep it as a vector as it will need to scale as well as be used over any coloured background. 

I'm having a lot of heartache with the finished art file converting to CMYK– even when I manually edit all the flares to be 'normal' transparency and fade out to 0% opacity colours it appears as a muddy grey as a placed Ai /  PDF file in Indesign – say if someone was to use this asset to make a poster or the book cover.  

I've dabbled with flattening transparency but it makes funny white lines, slices up the look of the logo and when placed in Indesign has big white chunks – I think maybe EPS isn't a good format for vector art with transparencies.

Any ideas how to artwork this file correctly for print would be much appreciated. 

[elena.fx]

PS. When placed over a photographic image, the Ai / PDF looks good. Just when I place over the solid black it looks very muddy... I will get a test print tomorrow but any insight here very much appreciated. 

[elena.fx]

Apologies – attached here. 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Two problems:

1) Once you removed the Screen/Lighten transparency effect, your colour in your flare will essentially behave as such normally... as in it will replace each pixel of the background colour. And 2) since you replaced the Black with 0% opacity of White, at any point between the ends of your gradient it will be partially transparent... this is what is causing the grey halos (i.e you are seeing 50% opacity of a white/yellow in the center)

The file NEEDS to have the respective Transparencies set to Screen/Lighten as it was provided, and the Black is needed so it is DARKER than the background. This will only work, of course, if you are working in the same colour space, which for this to work is RGB.

[elena.fx]

Ah ok, I see what you mean about the grey halos.

Do you have any idea what would be the best course for translating this design for use in print / providing finished artwork assets to the client? The design has been approved 😕 

Should it be provided as a RGB file only to then be exported out by whichever program for print once it's overlaid on an image? I'm really stuck for how to resolve this, any jelp much appreciated. 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Build your cover in RGB. I assume you are providing PDFs at the end?

You can make the decision there whether to leave it as RGB (in this case, that would be my preference) and send it that way in PDF (Export to PDF > No Conversion). Alternatively, you can also do a PDF where YOU convert it to CMYK at the end, in fact, it would be a good test before you go too far (Convert to Destination), but you need to make sure you have appropraite color settings. If the printer has a recommended output profile, use what they want, otherwise use something high quality like GRACOL coated.

Do test PDFs, open it in Acrobat, and take a look at the flares and see how they look, either way.

Personally, I would consider rendering the main part of cover into a flattened image in Photoshop so that you can be certain things work the way you want, and just layer the remainder (like type copy, etc) as vector on top of it.

[elena.fx]

Thanks very much! You're right, I think as long as the artwork is built in RGB then converted it's ok... for future / large branding jobs that need assets for international artworking I would love to know the best way foward. 

When I set up dummy cover art in Illustrator (in RGB worspace using the native RGB Ai file) and just convert to CMYK destination profile in the PDF output the print looks fine!


If I save out an RGB logo asset (PDF / Ai) from the native file (with transparent background) and then place over an black background in Indesign the print has the grey halo issues.


I'm still not 100% sure why this should be the case if the logo asset is RGB and doesn't have any transparency effects applied. Is it because the workspace of indesign is CMYK perhaps? 

Finally, my manually set-up CMYK asset (with transparent background) prints great over images but bad grey halo over a black background even though it's a CMYK workspace. 

 


If the assets were to be built out as standalone CMYK files (say if this lands a film deal etc) should I just engage a senior finished artist to translate and manage the design? 

I usually just design simple flat colour logos so this has been a good learning / testing experience 

[Lars5CDF]

This was usefull info!

[Monika Gause]

If they are in fact gradients (and not blends) you could use "Recolor artwork" to change the color from black to white. But you cannot change the opacity with that.

[elena.fx]

Thank you! 

I tried this and then used the select similar fill colour to adjust the transparency to 0% of multiple white points at once just with the transparency menu. Some of this I had to do manually but I definitely saved some time and sanity.