Thanks Monika. It's weird how Adobe Suite is more of a disparate collection of software than a suite. This feature exists in InDesign. ... View more

Ton, perhaps what I've been asking in the last few posts is not clear as I'm trying to replicate, in numbers, what Illustrator is displaying in the case of the spot colour. Thanks to c.pfaffenbichler, we managed to do that for process colours; I'd like to see if the same approach can be developed for spot colours, that's all. ... View more

Ton, you have a feature that I unfortunately lack in CS4. Your Separations Preview gives you colour values. I understand that the spot colour is a separate plate, but given that it has a CMYK equivalent, I assumed Illustrator is using those equivalent process values, in combination with the regular process colours, to determine the colour it is displaying. So is there an equivalent CMYK to the overall process colours combined with the spot colour that would allow me to place an equivalent CMYK colour to represent Spot set to overprint and Spot set to multiply? I can't figure out what CMYK those values would correspond to. Kat, I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. Reading your post, it wasn't clear to me if you read the previous posts in this thread. ... View more

Please explain what values you end up with for the Spot colour set to multiply and then the Spot colour set to overprint, and how you get to those values. If you look at how I described and calculed the result for Spot colour set to overprint, you will see that I treated the spot colour as a separate plate, effectively I ended up with Base colour + Spot colour (all expressed in CMYK). ... View more

Hi Ton. Thanks for taking the time to draw up that diagram. Everything with the process colour is as expected, from my standpoint. The issue arises with the spot colour. https://forums.adobe.com/people/Ton+Frederiks  wrote With Overprint Preview Off, the preview is what is send to a color printer. I would ignore Overprint Preview Off when we look at the overprint results in this discussion. That being said, I don't understand your statement as I would expect the printer to receive the overprint settings regardless of Overprint Preview Off in Illustrator! With Overprint Preview On, I cannot explain the difference between Spot and Process Multiply. Neither can I. I believe the Spot colour multiply is wrong. I would have expected it to look just like the Process colour multiply. Can anyone explain what is going on here? With Overprint Preview On, Spot Multiply and Overprint is as expected, it is treated as a separate ink, that does not share inks If the Spot colour was treated as a separate plate, let's look at Spot overprint which is easier to figure out. The top object would therefore have inks 0 0 0 0 Spot (ie C M Y K Spot) - even though Spot has CMYK equivalents, we treat it as separate. The base object would have inks 20 90 10 0 0 (CMYK and no Spot). According to the rule defined earlier in this thread, the result would be: 20 90 10 0 Spot. All the base layer inks are let through and the top Spot ink too. So we end up, in CMYK terms, with: C: 20 + (from spot) 30 = 50 M: 90 + (from spot) 30 = capped at 100 Y: 10 + (from spot) 0 = 10 K: 0 + (from spot) 0 = 0 But when I compare this colour 50 100 10 0 with the result of Illustrator's Spot overprint, it doesn't match! Can anyone explain what I am doing wrong? Or is Illsutrator wrong? With Overprint Preview On, Overprint Process is correct too. Because the Overprint Process color shares Cyan and Magento Agreed. The rule for overprint applied to the top process colour of 30 30 0 0 means that the result is 30 30 10 0. Is there any information in Adobe manuals about how Illustrator handles spot colours in blending modes and overprint? ... View more

Let's put Pantone aside for a minute. I created a custom swatch in Illustrator with CMYK values and set it to spot, rather than process colour. I then created an object filled with the spot colour (let's call it S) and another object filled with same the CMYK values as the spot colour, but as regular process colours (let's call it P). I then create a third object filled with some process colour that serves as my base object (let's call it B). To my surprise, I can get a different result when I set S and P to mutiply on B. Likewise, I can also get different results when I set S and P to overprint on B. I was expecting the result for S and P to be exactly the same when comparing multiply and multiply together, and then when comparing overprint and overprint together (because S and P have the "same" CMYK values). Please explain what I am missing. Note that I am not comparing multiply with overprint here. For example, try: S (spot colour): 30 30 0 0; P (process colour): 30 30 0 0; B (process colour): 20 90 10 0. ... View more

That's right, I forgot about your 1 1 1 1 overprint example. So for overprint: If Tc > 0, Rc = Tc else Rc = Bc I find that counter-intuitive because effectively, in case Tc < Bc then Rc = Tc, the top layer channel is effectively "knocking out" the base layer channel. However, I do observe what you are saying in Illustrator! (Overprint Preview) For multiply, the formula I proposed is the same as yours. Bear in mind that I do the divide/multiply by 100 prior and after to keep the formula light. ... View more

Thank you very much c.pfaffenbichler and theangietaylor (the angie! for a reason) for your input. This really turned my (mis)understanding of multiply and overprint upside-down. Let me summarise what I gathered from what you said. Please correct anywhere that I may be wrong. MULTIPLY -First of all, multiply applies channel to channel (each channel is independent). This is in line with the Adobe document referenced earlier by Ton (Blend Modes Addendum) which refers to multiply as a "separable" blend mode. -To determine the result of multiply, there is no conversion to any other space. This too is in line with how I read the Adobe document. -In CMYK, say the the Base object B has values Bc Bm By Bk, and the Top object T has values Tc Tm Ty Tk. T is set to multiply. For the C channel (Cyan), the operation is: To simplify, all values are first divided by 100 to get a C value between 0-1. The final result Rc is then muliplied by 100 to get a C value between 0-100. Rc = Tc*(1-Bc) + Bc The same operation applies to the M, Y, and K channels. The Adobe User Guide states for multiply: "The resulting color is always a darker color". Let's check. Rc = something positive + Bc >= Bc. True. "Multiplying any color with black produces black". For black, Tk=1. Rc=Tc*(1-Bc) + Bc = some value. Likewise for the M and Y channels. For the K channel, Rk=Tk*(1-Bk)+Bk = 1*(1-Bk)+Bk= 1. So the result is Rc Rm Ry 100. True. "The effect is similar to drawing on the page with multiple magic markers". That, I can't say! OVERPRINT -Overprint applies channel to channel (each channel is independent). -To determine the result of overprint, there is no conversion to any other space. -In CMYK, say the the Base object B has values Bc Bm By Bk, and the Top object T has values Tc Tm Ty Tk. T is set to overprint. No need to alter values (divide by 100) here. If Tc > Bc,  Rc = Tc,   else Rc = Bc The result R would then be composed of values from both B and T, depending on how they compare for each channel. Another notable aspect is that both effects are profile/colour space -independent. This brings me to cyhun-akgun's statement "When you multiply, the color values in the blend vary. So, the upper color and the lower color do not mix at 100%". Is what ceyhun is observing a result of printer intervention (RIP), for example, to limit the amount of ink used? That would then not be related to multiply as such but to the printer. ceyhun, do you observe that in Illustrator too or simply in print? Is there a document you (c.pfaffenbichler or angie) can point me to that fully describes these two operations? ... View more

Hello Mylenium, Well, in all fairness, I did mention colour profiles. Would you be able to walk us through the example that I had provided in the original post? Or perhaps the same example in Photoshop and you can point out and add any information that might be missing from my post. ... View more

Hello Ton, Thanks for this link. I had an inital read-through. The document is not very clear to me either. In particular, I am not sure if the section Doug quoted from page 6 applies to all blending modes or just the non-separable blending modes of Table 2. This is because for the K component, there is no reference to how separable blending modes (which include mutliply) are handled. Also, there is a reference on page 1 to what appears to be some pictures, but I did not see those: "Plates 18 and 19 illustrate the resulting visual effects for RGB and CMYK colors, respectively". It's still all clear as mud to me! Perhaps a good soul from Adobe or anybody else can walk us through, with numbers, and explain how Illustrator gets the result it does in the scenario of the original post. ... View more

Hi Doug, I gave your suggestion a spin in Illsutrator, with the values I had provided. I assume this would depend on the colour profile. CMYK: 30 0 0 0; RGB: 171 225 250; 0-1 scale (RGB/255): 0.67 0.88 0.98 CMYK: 30 0 0 30; RGB: 128 169 189; 0-1 scale: 0.50 0.66 0.74 Result when multiplying each 0-1 scale value together: RGB (0-1 scale * 255): 86 149 185 AI converts this RGB value to CMYK (in my case): CMYK: 68 31 16 0 It doesn't match the numerical result I observed (in Photoshop though, which might be using a different profile). However, the resulting colour does not match in Illustrator, visually. How about question #2?  ... View more

Anna, Monika. Thank you both. Saves me a few clicks! I could not find this information here: Default keyboard shortcuts for Illustrator ... View more

Hello Ton. I don't think so. It also shows up in PDF if I save as PDF. It's real, as far as I'm concerned. Either way, you seem to indicate that whether you're using the GPU or the CPU, the problem is still there, but not consistent! Monika was kind to call it strangeness, I think it's an insidious bug. ... View more

I was not using clipping masks in the example I provided. I had applied the fill to the text object, the stroke also to the text object, then offset the stroke by half the stroke size to the inside. I cannot apply an offset or any FX to the stroke if I apply the stroke to the characters instead of the text object - they're all greyed out. I think that the stroke applied to live text seems to follow the shape of the text when it is converted to outlines (which is not quite the shape of the live text). The stroke follows the shape of the outlined text perfectly! ... View more

Here is an example with the letter U. It is a large font size, with a 1pt stroke, that is offset by -0.5pt. That should make the 1pt pink stroke flush against the interior of the blue U, but it is not flush. I turned the stroke's opacity to 50% so that you can see where it doesn't sit flush with the character U. It undershoots the inside curve of the U and overshoots the outside curve. In the solution you proposed, I believe the problem is still there but because the stroke overlaps the outside eedge of the U, it is less apparent (the giveaway is the stroke size which varies around the U). It's a better solution than making the stroke slightly thicker in the case of the attached picture, so that it too overlaps with the outside edge of the U, effectively hiding the gaps. ... View more

Monika, you're my saviour! Thank you very much. Before writing my post, I was doing what you said but for two things: I was knocking out the top layer stroke instead of the overall text/characters, and I was not setting the opacity of the top layer stroke to zero. Obviously, there is something that I have misunderstood about masking and type/characters and will have to do some reading! Thanks again. You must have encountered this issue before. I wonder why the font is misbehaving to begin with (font or Illustrator's stroke applied to the font). Not all fonts misbehave that way. Though I have to say Illustrator is not short on such "almost unnoticeable" bugs. ... View more

Angie, in the Symbols panel, when I click on Edit Symbol from the drop down menu, it goes straight to Isolation Mode. That suits my case here as I wanted to apply the FX to the symbol, not just an instance of the symbol. Is there a way to apply the FX to the symbol without being in Isolation Mode (or to edit a symbol without being in Isolation Mode)? ... View more

Hi Angie, Thanks for your response. After your suggestion, I went back in to Isolation Mode to edit the symbol and looked at all the layers. I found the Offset Path FX I had added to the symbol though it is unclear to me why it wasn't showing in the appearance panel when I click on the symbol (in isolation mode still). Here's what I "discovered". For the symbol, in Isolation Mode, when I click on the symbol, the Appearance Panel shows Groups, then Contents below that, then Opacity below that, like this: Group Contents Opacity Only when I click on Contents does the Offset Path FX I had previously added appear! A bit confusing to me. The stack in Appearance then looks like this: Group: No Appearance Group Offset Path Contents Opacity ... View more

I see. That's a far-fetched workaround but it's actually an excellent suggestion!! Thanks Ton. ... View more

Anna: I guess you meant Place as I don't have Import in Illustrator. Ton: did you separate the two (image and its shadow) in Illustrator or Photoshop? ... View more

Doug: My image is TIFF (raster, not vector) and the transparency was created not with clean borders like Anna's (she uses a vector path) but with a mask having various levels of transparency near the borders. But it's otherwise just like Anna's image with a non-transparent shape surrounded by transparency. I don't have the path so I would have to create it but it would not be clean like Anna's because of the borders. Anna: Understood. The steps I described were me trying to apply your method to the image, without the vector path, ENTIRELY in Illustrator. I was highlighting where I would get different results from your Photoshop+Illustrator method. ... View more

Thank you very much for the responses! Monika: I provided the information I felt was necessary for a generic problem in the original post. Only after the subsequent questions did I realise that the nature of the object (vector art, image with or without transparency, etc.) mattered. Doug: I tried to reproduce what you have done in the image but it's not working with the image I have (which is not a rectangle but something very similar to Anna's image she shows in step I.1: a non-transparent shape surrounded by transparency). I see a Rectangle FX under Fill. What is that for? The drop shadow seems to be applied to the rectangle. Where is the transparency in your image? Either there's a step that I misunderstood or what you are doing is not quite what I'm looking for. Anna: This is exactly what I would like to achieve. Based on your method, I assume there is no way of doing that entirely in Illustrator. Is that right? If I take your image in step I.1 and place it in Illustrator, then apply the Drop Shadow to it in Illustrator, I would get what you show in step II.2. If I make a clipping mask with Knockout Group of the Contents in Illustrator, the drop shadow disappears and I get something like II.1 again. It seems that Illustrator can recognise the non-transparent shape inside the image and apply the drop shadow to that but wouldn't let the user have access to the non-transparent shape. So I can't get to the image you show in II.4. ... View more

Thanks Doug. I should add that my object is an embedded image with transparency! I can't apply a fill to that in Illustrator, as far as I've tried. ... View more