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Question

Export multiple spot color channels to Illustrator

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
January 24, 2019
1 reply
6191 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:

Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

Thanks for your responses, I really appreciate the help.

I'm printing to food packaging/pouches and I believe they're printing rotogravure.

So I've set my base color mode in my PS document to grayscale, and I have my spot channels as well, would you recommend saving each spot channel as a separate file and then layering them in Illustrator with the vector artwork?

I was able to save the photoshop file with the spot colors and bring it in to illustrator, where it appears to still be using the spot colors, however it isn't behaving like a normal layer. I've added a screenshot below where I added a rectangle as a test. Despite the rectangle being below the spot artwork in order of appearance, it looks like it's sitting above the spot artwork. Any idea why that is?

I'm have a feeling there's something basic I'm not understanding about this process, so thanks for bearing with me!

In vector programs, the default behaviour is for one object stacked or layered over another object is to knock out.

In Photoshop, spot channels overprint by default and one must create the knockouts manually.

When placed into Illustrator, the Photoshop file will knock out underlying objects, unless transparency features such as blend modes and opacity are used. If an Illustrator object with overprint or transparency settings is placed over a spot image from Photoshop, then be careful! :]

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