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I work in a screenprinting shop that primarily uses spot color for our RIP. I made a line and added a gradient stroke to it with 3 different spot colors. When I go to print the films, the spot colors dont show up. Any ideas?
Pic 1 is what it looks like.
Pic 2 is what shows up in the separations preview.
Thanks
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Illustrator is converting two of your spot colors and the overlap between those colors and the third one into process when the gradient is applied along a stroke. It does the same when applying a gradeint along the stroke, but not within the stroke or as a fill in a shape.
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Is there an option for it to not do that? I need the gradient to follow that arc otherwise i'd just make that shape and use gradient fill. Only problem is gradient fill wont follow that curve, (or I dont know to make it) it stays on a straight line.
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You may try to create 3 gradients, each one with a single spot from 100% to white stack them in the Appearance panel and use darken mode to blend them.
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Thanks for the suggestion but still the same outcome.
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Works fine for me.
Have a look at this file in the Separations Preview panel:
https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/20bb2f0e-bae7-42ed-678c-13850f27d264
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Did you have a look at the file and still have a problem?
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Im not sure what im doing wrong. It looks right but still doesnt show up in the separations preview right. When I merge the graphic styles the preview doesnt look like yours.
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Can you share what you did?
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I see that you redefined white (which is no ink in Illustrator, but used for paper color), as a spot color.
Blending with a gradient between spot colors causes the problem.
Either use white (the original paper color) or use the spot with 0% transparency in the gradient.
See
https://shared-assets.adobe.com/link/fe7e0e07-da19-4251-5749-8087cc69af29
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Ok so the spot white was the problem. I changed all the spot white to default "Paper" color and that worked! Thanks for all your help.
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Good to hear that helped!
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Usually gradients between 2 spots colors are separating fine (although the preview may not match the printed result). But applying them along or across a stroke is a problem.