Re: Saving in 300 DPI?

JETalmage · ‎May 11, 2019

Adrianq09, This thread is 10 years old. There was no Export For Screens in 2009. JET

JETalmage · ‎May 07, 2019

The only way to get close to that blue is to use a Spot color, not CMYK... How is defining a spot swatch from a library going to "get closer to" the subject blue? First, setting up a spot swatch does not in any way enable your RGB glowing monitor to display colors it cannot display in a RGB mix. All the monitor ever displays is RGB. It never actually displays a spot color from a Color Book Swatch Library; it merely displays an RGB approximation of it. Defining a Spot Swatch is not going to magically cause the monitor to be able display more RGB combinations. Moreover, Ryana already has exactly "that blue" displaying on the monitor. As stated, the subject desired blue is the RGB color in the original post screenshot. Second, Using a spot color swatch is not going to help someone achieve that color in a dye-sublimation printing process unless a corresponding physical spot ink is available for the target printer. Dye based inks are often somewhat more brilliant than CMYK offset inks, just as watercolors are often more brilliant than oil paints. But that doesn't mean a sublimation dye even exists that corresponds to a spot ink selected from Pantone's color book for offset printing inks (or any other manufacturer's color book library). If the solution here was to merely define a Spot Swatch, Ryana could simply sample the desired blue with the Eyedropper Tool, define a color Swatch, and then specify that Swatch to be treated as a spot color. Spot Swatches don't have to be selected from a "Color Book" Swatch Library. If you know what spot ink you are specifying, its on screen display doesn't even matter. By definition, all that affects the printed color of a spot color is the ink that is actually loaded into the printing device. So how does selecting a spot color from any of the provided Color Books get Ryana any closer to a solution without even knowing if a matching dyes or ink is even available for the sublimation printing device? The only way selecting a Spot Swatch from one of Illustrator's spot Color Books would be of any help is if one of those Color Books represented inks available for the target sublimation printer. And just as with offset printing, that doesn't ensure an accurate printed match to what is merely a published recommendation for simulating a physical ink on screen. (Many Pantone inks simply cannot be closely simulated on the monitor.) Brilliant blues is one of the weakest areas in offset process printing because of the nature of cyan ink. Inkjet process dyes (sublimation printers are often inkjets) can be brighter than offset printing inks. But sublimation printing is still a reflective printing medium. You're not going to get a glowing fluorescent neon blue in any printing process without actually laying down a glowing fluorescent neon blue ink. This thread is simply about the fundamental common misconceptions that: "Any color" can be replicated by an RGB monitor. Process reproduction (be it RGB or CMYK) can render "any color." The simple fact is, neither is true. JET

JETalmage · ‎May 06, 2019

...smart guides show the vertical alignment is good, but they don't tell you anything about the horizontal alignment. Can one get smart guides to show that... To answer this part of your question: Yes, Smart Guides can display more than one construction guide at a time. Example using version CS6. Construction Guides are set to 30° angles. White Pointer, all nodes selected: Mousedown on the node to be dragged. Press and hold Ctrl. Drag to one of the nodes to be used as an alignment reference. Drag to another node to be used as an alignment reference. Drag to approximately where you want the path to be and "feel around" until the intersecting Construction Guides appear. Mouseup. Release Ctrl. It's documented in the Help files. JET

JETalmage · ‎May 03, 2019

In SolidWorks, the 3D model itself is an entirely different thing from its 2D drawings which are generated from the model. SolidWorks doesn't export its models as .ai files, just its drawings. The drawing creation interface has basic setups for things like sheet size, scale, etc. The SW user is probably just setting up something inappropriately in that regard. I'm presently working from a remote VPN, so don't want to run SolidWorks from here to check specifics. The thing is; many (probably most) users of programs like SW have little to no experience with general purpose mainstream 2D print-centric drawing programs like Illustrator. There is an express command for exporting a drawing as a .ai file, but the actual 2D content (paths) is really no different from any other drawing export with which the user would likely be more familiar. I'd try just asking the SW user to send you a .dxf file. You can open that in Illustrator and scale it there. JET

JETalmage · ‎May 02, 2019

I understand your argument, Ton. But advising users to "…always use Overprint Preview when looking at Pantone Spot colors" is too general, and therefore bad advice, especially for someone who even stressed: "I am not looking for someone to talk over my head with a solution." We should be careful making admonitions like "always use." There are always exceptions, and I dare say in the context of spot color, the exceptions are more common than your recommended "rule." Scorely22 specifically mentioned he is setting up process-plus-two projects, not one- or two-color spot jobs. It's quite likely—I'd even say probable—that the two spot inks will be set to overprint process inks, if only for trapping. If they are, Overprint Preview will wreck the on-screen appearance, especially for the purpose of customer soft-approval. Also, I will reiterate my previous point that '…all your monitor ever displays is an array of glowing RGB pixels…'. Scorely22 needs to understand that's still true, even if those RGB values are converted from Lab values. He's still looking at RGB, not spot inks. A large reason many garment imprint designers default to multi-channel format in a raster program for higher quality imprint artwork is because opacity can be set for each channel, thereby far more realistically simulating the printed results. I've long argued that the setup for Spot Swatches should include an opacity setting. That would make Overprint Preview far more useful for projects involving spot inks. JET

JETalmage · ‎May 01, 2019

scorely22, Monitor calibration devices can assist you in making your shop's various monitors look similar. But it really can't address the root issue: First, understand: No matter what the color model of your document is, no matter how painstaking your calibration, all your monitor ever displays is an array of glowing RGB pixels. It is simply unrealistic to expect a glowing RGB monitor to accurately display the appearance of physical, reflective spot inks because there is more to it than just "color." The above-mentioned example of metallic spot inks is classic for explanation purposes. The defining difference about metallic inks is that it has the reflective sheen properties of metal. You can mimic the appearance of metallic surfaces in artwork by actually drawing reflections, but that does not translate to a single color separation. No combination of RGB values is going to mimic that appearance. You can prove that to yourself: Take the physical Pantone swatch book for metallic spot inks to your computer. Select any metallic ink swatch. For example, a "rusty bronze" metallic. Use the software's color mixer to define a color that looks as close to the physical swatch as you can. No matter what you do, the closest you will get is a muddy dark orange that simply does not look metallic at all. No one looking at that color on your or their monitor will perceive it as the appearance of a metallic ink. It's just not going to happen. The same principle applies to far more spot inks than just the extreme example of metallic inks. A familiar everyday example is school bus yellow paint. Color-wise, it's an orange. That implies some combination of Y and M in CMYK, or some combination of R and G in RGB. But no such combination really matches it, because that industry-standard paint has a luminance and chroma that just can't be mimicked on an RGB computer monitor. That, in a nutshell, is one of the reasons why spot inks exist in the first place. And it's why we still use physical swatch sample books when designing with spot inks. Now as far as your shop's workflow is concerned, understand this: In software, a spot color is nothing but a command to send objects colored with a particular swatch name to a separate grayscale separation plate. That's it. There's really no "color" involved. Just think of a spot color as an instruction to the print shop to load the press's inkwell with a particular industry-standardized physical ink. That means that you can literally specify any "color" mix you want for displaying a spot color swatch in your software. You do not have to use, for example, Pantone's recommended color mix for displaying, say, Pantone 124. You can just create a new Spot Swatch, name it "Pantone 124", and with the physical Pantone swatch book in hand, adjust the RGB or CMYK sliders however makes the best "match" to your or your customer's eye. It won't make any difference whatsoever in the actual print, because that's simply a matter of the pressman loading Pantone 124 ink into the inkwell. So if your shop has a set of repeatedly-used spot inks for particular clients, you can standardize the display values for those spot inks within the scope of your shop by defining those Spot Swatches, saving them as a Swatch Library, and making it a business rule for all your designers to use that Library for spot color projects. By the way, I'll differ with Ton on this: Do not use Overprint Preview when working with spot colors. Illustrator's Overprint Preview assumes the translucency of CMYK process inks. One of the many differences of spot inks is that they are quite often more opaque than process inks.Illustrator (at least as of version CS6) provides no adjustment of opacity when defining a Spot Swatch. Therefore, for example, with Overprint Preview turned on, a spot ink that is lighter than the inks behind it will always look darker in the overlap areas, when it should look lighter. JET

JETalmage · ‎Apr 24, 2019

ALWAYS ask yourself this: "What advantage do I expect to gain from auto-tracing this image?" Because, contrary to runaway misconception, the advantage is usually nothing. The commonly assumed advantage is that because the result will be "vector," it will therefore automatically gain the advantages inherent in deliberately, intelligently, and efficiently created vector graphics: resolution independent scalability. And that is the fallacy. The auto-trace in post 2 is a case-in-point. You don't even have to enlarge it to see that the instant-gratification auto-trace feature has just traded one kind of scale-dependent ugliness for another: It just swaps raster noise for vector noise; it swaps raster pixilation for a bunch of meaningless vector jaggedness. So enlarging one is just as ugly as enlarging the other. There is no shortcut. The inherent advantages of vector-based artwork are based on intelligently built vector artwork. JET

JETalmage · ‎Apr 24, 2019

I totally agree! I teach both Illustrator and InDesign and that's always an important part of my instruction. As I'm sure you know, It should be basic instruction for all computer users. Immeasurable amounts of error-prone, productivity-wasting tedium dealing with inappropriately formatted spreadsheets and PDFs containing randomly ordered text objects could be avoided across all industries. JET

JETalmage · ‎Apr 24, 2019

I'd like to be able to copy/past in large strings of numbers which is why I'm linking the boxes. Franky, take no offense if you already know this. It's pretty amazing how many graphic designers don't. This is an open forum, so it may be good advise for other viewers of this thread, if not for you. Get in the habit of separating your data from its style. Get familiar with the basic use of two things: Tab-delimited text. This is nothing but simple plain (un-decorated, un-styled) text in which values are separated by tab characters and lines are separated by paragraph returns. Tab characters correspond to "columns" in spreadsheets or "fields" in databases. Return characters correspond to "rows" in spreadsheets or "records" in databases. This is basic "normalization" of the data you are dealing with as data. Paragraph Styles. In your layout programs (be it Illustrator, Word, or whatever), stop automatically resorting to "table" features or tediously constructing grid-like arrays of individual text frames. Read the documentation on creating and using document-specific Paragraph Styles (and, if offered, Character Styles.) The specific interfaces differ somewhat between various design programs, but the principles are pretty much universal. Once accustomed to their use in any program, the concept is easily transferable to most any other program. This is usually the "right" way to stylize tabular text. Once armed with just those two working habits, you can develop simple task-specific workflows in which: You use tab-delimited plain text as your "exchange format" for the data between all the various programs you use. You rely upon the paragraph styles you've defined in all your design program templates to handle all the document-specific on-page styling and spacing. Being handy with these two simple skills makes for tidier documents and renders routine updating of your data little more than simple copy-paste affairs in everything from stylized brochure documents to the boss's spreadsheets. If more designers (in fact, just more office workers) took the time to understand these basic concepts, everything from PDFs to Excel spreadsheets would be put to better use. JET

JETalmage · ‎Apr 23, 2019

Artboards can overlap. You can create a single Artboard that encompasses all your individual "panel" Artboards. Then Save As… just that one large Artboard to a PDF for your client to review. JET

JETalmage · ‎Apr 23, 2019

I don't see how (in Illustrator) dragging out a rectangle, [performing an operation], then deleting it, is any more a burden than (in Photoshop) dragging out a marquee selection, [performing an operation], then deselecting. Exactly. When it comes down to it, the document metaphor of a raster imaging program like Photoshop is based on a single raster image, and everything else is relative to that "background." The document metaphor of a vector-based drawing program like Illustrator is not like that. It is a stack of independent objects in an otherwise empty space. There is no "background" image to align to. You align objects to other objects (including regions of the coordinate system; i.e.; so-called Artboards). Hbkmano, In the context of a vector-based program, the behavior you want is like thinking you could place an asteroid in some absolute position in utterly empty space, with absolutely nothing else to reference. Was hoping this is not the answer as this is annoying to me, i mean Photoshop does it better, faster and easier. And there are countless things a vector drawing program does better, faster, and easier than a raster editing program. They are different programs for doing different primary things. They should not be constrained to identical interface metaphors. JET

JETalmage · ‎Apr 19, 2019

Whether it's computationally intensive in Illustrator is not really your concern. You're not running the game in Illustrator. Your concern is whether the exported result is data intensive in the actual game environment, which will in all probability have been flattened to simpler constructs than the live effects in Illustrator. So answering the question would require more information about what you are actually delivering. JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 31, 2019

What is the best process, the correct process, to color an image after the linework is completed. There is no single "correct" step-by-step procedure for "coloring" as you create vector based artwork. Best practice involves more than just on-screen appearance. It depends on everything from efficiency in creating the work to the technical considerations of how the work is to be reproduced. Flood-fill features like Illustrator's so-called "Live Paint" work by creating additional path objects in the shapes of regions that merely appear to be "enclosed" or "surrounded" by multiple other paths. Its intention is to let you pretend you are doing things like "inking" and then "filling." But thinking in terms of "inking" and then "coloring" as if you were creating comic book illustrations in pre-computer days is neither the only nor necessarily the best or "correct" way to work. It is actually more fitting to think of your drawing as a stack of colored-paper cutouts, which may or may not be transparent and may or may not be outlined along their edges. It's far better to understand what your drawing actually is, and what is actually going on. That's how you learn to decide for yourself the best procedure for building a given illustration to not only achieve the desired appearance, but to serve the needs of its intended reproduction method. Illustrators have been creating drawings similar to yours literally for decades before programs like Illustrator ever had flood fill features. And such drawings are still created every day without using such instant-gratification features. A vector-based illustration is in fact a stack of individual, independent objects: vector-based paths (i.e., cubic Bezier curves) live text frames raster-based images (rectanglular array of pixels) Assuming your line work consists entirely of vector paths: Each and every individual path is a distinct object. Each one can be: Stroked Filled Open Closed Just because you draw those paths of your "line work" to look like they are connected to form closed regions doesn't mean they actually are. They are still just individual path objects which can individually be stroked, filled, open or closed. An Illustrator typically works by being aware of those basic principles, and decides whether to stroke or fill or close each path as he proceeds. The "line work" and "color" of some elements of the drawing may be the stroke and fill of the same paths, or they may be separate path objects. The path objects which visually constitute the "line work" and "color" may or may not actually be separate path objects. Separate path objects may or may not actually abut each other; they can overlap and thereby partially hide each other. JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 17, 2019

The principles involved are not specific to "logo" design. They are the same as generally applicable to any kind of artwork for commercial reproduction. Do you understand the meanings of the repro graphics terms line art and contone (continuous-tone) and the difference between them? A gradient is an example of contone art. Faithful commercial reproduction of contone artwork on offset printing presses requires screening; simulation of continuous tone by rendering it as arrays of tiny dots, be it AM (halftone; consistently spaced dots of varying size) or FM (stochastic; varying spacing of same-size dots). Banding is a consequence of the resolution of the output device when rendering contone art as halftone screens. For any given halftone screen ruling (expressed as LPI; Lines Per Inch), the lower the hardware resolution of the output device, the fewer levels of gray it can produce. Each visible band is a change between two levels of gray. So for any given output device, the likelihood of noticeable banding is affected by multiple factors, including: The resolution of the output device The screen ruling specified The distance the grad spans The number of separations (inks) involved The overall tonal range of each ink involved Consequential considerations in the context of logo design: Although there are exceptions in narrowly-focused businesses, a strong logo needs to be recognized when rendered by many different reproduction methods. A logo is seldom just about commercial offset printing. It needs to be reproduced by engraving, embroidery, screen printing, foil stamping, fabrication, embossing, die cutting, and on and on. Line art is far more repro-versatile. A strong logo is an entity's signature message elegantly boiled down to its unencumbered essence. Gratuitous decoration just obfuscates that. If the "uniqueness" of the design is dependent upon contone effects like grads, you should probably go back to the drawing board. There are creative ways to suggest conceptual transition or action as line art, rather than resorting to contone effects. If the purpose of the gradient is merely decorative and not conceptual, it is probably superfluous and should be removed. These are reasons why real logo design is more than just "making a little graphic." JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 17, 2019

Show a screenshot of what you are trying to do. It sounds like you are making it far more complicated than necessary. JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 10, 2019

Your source file is just a JPEG image. That's just a raster image (a rectangular array of pixels). That means: It contains no actual text. It contains no actual font information. It's just a "painting" of some text. (Note "could be" in Ray's reply.) It has no inherent "actual size." A pixel is not a unit of linear measure; it's basically just a color value. So the "size" of the "text" is purely dependent upon how large or small the raster image is scaled when rendered (i.e., its effective resolution), which can be anything. Therefore... Regarding Font: Determining the actual font used is, at best, an educated guessing game, whether done by eye or by some rules-driven artificial recognition algorithm. Example: Suppose I launch FontLab, create a font based on the shapes I discern from your image, name it "JET UglyBlock Plain," and publish it by posting it on WhatADealFreeFonts.com. Then suppose someone else uses some online WhatIsThisFont service to "determine" the actual font used in your source image. Conceivably, my font could have as good a chance of being among the possible fonts "recognized" by the algorithm, even though it didn't even exist before the image was made. Regarding Font Size: Font size is the "em square," which is a relative measure, not an absolute measure. For "accurately" recreating the logo from a mere raster image, all you can do is compare the rendered size of the "text" portion of the image to the rendered size of the overall graphic; both of which are inherently inaccurate due to their being comprised of anti-aliased pixels. Conclusion: Such are the fallacies of using a mere raster image as a source for accurately creating a faithful reproduction of an already-established logo. With no real original source data to go on, it necessarily involves (hopefully skilled and experienced) judgement. There is no precisely accurate automagic for such things just because the file is "digital." Practicality: If the customer is determined that a precise recreation is all he will accept, he needs to either provide the actual original-creation source files. Failing that, he needs to be informed about the practical reality of the matter, as explained above. Since this is not any kind of "household word" recognized identity graphic (and frankly, not one of particularly professional quality), assuming the raster image is all you are going to get as source material, you will have to eitther: Research fonts which appear to be close-enough "matches" or... Use typographic skill to manually draw the glyphs as vector-based paths. A proper logo file would have contained vector outlines of the entire graphic, including the glyphs; not actual live font and text data. The font specification, if any, should have been provided in the original style guide provided with the graphic. JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 08, 2019

…I`m trying to make the forms with specific measurements. Clabtl, Provide an example of one that you cannot draw "with specific measurements." A good answer requires knowing what your requirements are, and what kind of measurements you have. JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 03, 2019

Obviously, you need to fully explain what you mean by "rotate around." JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 03, 2019

What effect? JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 02, 2019

...none of the lines are connected so these are not connected shapes. Black pointer: Select all the open paths which (visually) comprise what you are calling a "shape" (e.g.; all the paths that make up the "star"). Object Menu > Path > Join (or just use the Cntrl-J keyboard shortcut). That joins the selected paths at their nearest endpoints. What is the easiest way to connect these to create shapes and apply pattern? Now you have a closed path, which can be filled with a Pattern Swatch. However, you need to be careful to explain what you mean by ambiguous shop-talk terms like "dieline". A Pattern Swatch fill actually involves the functionality of a clipping path. The star-shaped closed path is acting as a mask; portions of the Pattern Swatch tiles are merely hidden in Illustrator's interface. If the file is then sent as-is to, say, a knife plotter, those merely masked portions of the paths that are stored in the Pattern Swatch tile are still there, and will be "seen" by the plotter, resulting in unwanted cuts. So whenever designing for any kind of numerically-controlled device (plotters, cutters, routers, etc.) which are usually driven by HPGL, you need to deconstruct any and all so-called "live effects" down to their most basic constructs, so you can actually see all the paths that will be "seen" by the plotter. In Illustrator, you do that by using the appropriate Expand command(s), and then manually removing any unwanted portions of paths. This is why especially beginners should not be advised to use instant-gratification "magic" live effect features (e.g., Live Paint) for questions about preparing files for projects involving NC devices. And beginners need to be aware that even some age-old "regular" features that are not labeled as so-called "Live Effects" in Illustrator, still are. Examples include: Pattern Swatches. Such features are nothing new, but they are still--in effect--"live" effects, because when it comes to sending things to devices driven by other languages, "What You See" is not at all necessarily "What You Get." Stroke weight. Even this most basic command is arguably a "live effect." On an ordinary closed path, it looks like a wide shape with two edges in the drawing program. But in terms of paths (which is all a cutting machine deals with), it is just one zero-width path. You always have to bear in mind that programs like Illustrator were originally and still are are primarily oriented to offset lithography printing. Even when "designing for print," you have to be aware of any "printing" operations (e.g., die cutting) which are not done on an offset press. JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 02, 2019

So when adobe and pantone get together and redefine how the colors are built every year, it makes a prepress technician's job a lot harder than it need so be. No it doesn't. You can use the RGB or CMYK mixer sliders to set the on-monitor display of your Spot Swatches using any values you want. It has no bearing whatsoever on what INK the pressman loads into the inkwell. Just name the Spot Swatch with the name of the INK. With spot colors, that's all the pressman needs to know. Working with spot color, however you set the display of a Spot Swatch has absolutely no effect on the printed result. So if you don't like the simulation of a spot ink that is recommended by an ink manufacturer's color book, (as I often don't), just set that Spot Swatch to any color mixture you want. By definition, a Spot Swatch is one that does not get color-separated at all. It's just printed to it own single separation plate. JET

JETalmage · ‎Mar 02, 2019

So to rephrase: You're saying that the Add AnchorPoint Tool and Delete AnchorPoint Tool are absent from the Pen Tool icon. Unless it has changed since CS6, you can invoke those tools by tapping the + and - keys, respectively (as explained in the documentation). JET

JETalmage · ‎Feb 26, 2019

That kind of shading can be easily done with a few simple entirely vector-based blends. Resorting to raster imaging for this is neither necessary nor necessarily "best practice." JET

JETalmage · ‎Feb 17, 2019

Is there some reason you are using text objects for this? JET

JETalmage · ‎Feb 16, 2019

Normally, colours would change if you convert from RGB to CMYK...My problem is that I'm experiencing [color shifs] when I change the colour mode from CMYK to RGB.. this makes no sense to me. In a conceptual nutshell: Here are four numbers, each less than or equal to 100: 20, 15, 5, 8 Here is the product of those four numbers: 12,000 Please convert that exact product to three factors, each less than or equal to 256: 128, 3.75, 25 ? 15, 20, 40 ? 60, 8, 25 ? ...? Just because the CMYK color gamut is more generally considered a "subset" of the RGB gamut than the other way 'round, doesn't mean there is only one set of values that will "convert" between the two color models. There simply is no precise 1:1 correspondence between the two color models, without an intermediary conversion to and from an absolute color space; which is where color management and device calibration comes in. So things like color management rules, device calibration, file format--even the angle at which you are viewing different portions of your LCD monitor-- still come into play. And you do realize, don't you, that you posted your screenshots on a web page. Web pages don't display CMYK images. Your "CMYK" screenshot is an RGB image, being viewed by others on RGB monitors, with who knows what settings and conditions. JET

JETalmage · ‎Feb 14, 2019

I'm still unclear on what is actually being done when I make this change in the Swatches panel.My previously CMYK colour…a CMYK swatch (a red colour in this case)…is now regarded by Illustrator as a Spot colour…So some kind of change has taken place - from CMYK to Spot. Right. 100M, 100Y. That's as "red" as red gets in CMYK process printing: Magenta and Yellow printed as solids (no tone dots). It's a prime example of what I said about process-to-spot not being the exacting 1:1 correspondence many think it to be. It is also simply not true that "all colors can be made by mixing process C, M, Y, and K." Far from it. There is a whole world of colors that cannot be "matched" in 4-color process. That's one reason why spot inks exist. Examples: Pantone 185C is a very common choice for a "very red" red. One could say it is actually "redder" than the "reddest" you can mix in CMYK process inks. How? Because there is more to "color" than just hue (yellow, red, purple, etc., etc.) There is reflectance. Chroma. Even luminescence. Pantone's Spot to Process color guides specify significantly less than 100% of M and Y in order to simulate 185C. And that mix falls far short. You can try all varying percentages of Y and M and you are never going to get school bus yellow. And most of all, you are never, ever going to get "sky blue" from any tint of Process Cyan, because of the four process inks, Cyan is the weakest. When designing for print, forget "color." Think "inks." What's being done is exactly what I said: Defining a Swatch as Spot simply tells the program to create a separate grayscale color channel (color separation plate) labeled by that Swatch's name. That's it. Suppose your project is a brochure to be printed on a commercial sheet-fed offset press. So you set it up as CMYK (four inks). In order to print that file, it has to be color separated; imaged as a set of individual films (or plates); one for each ink. Software first creates one image (channel) for each ink: An image for Cyan ink An image for Magenta ink An image for Yellow ink An image for Black ink Did you catch that? Each image is just a grayscale image. There is no color involved. Each of those channels is then individually screened by the Raster Image Processor into a bitmap; an array of tiny solid black dots. That's what actually gets printed to the film (as a negative) or directly to the plate (as a positive). Again, catch that: Now there are not even any grayscale tones. Each channel has just become a bitmap; a 1-bit image; it's all just "pixel on" or "pixel off." An offset press doesn't print "tones" of ink. It either prints "ink" or "no ink." But suppose the client's logo color specification is a particular spot color, Pantone 185, and the client wants it that color; not a mere approximation of it. (The four color process brochure has now become "process plus 1.") So you define a new Swatch, tediously adjusting whichever color mode of sliders and fields you want, calling upon all the extraordinarily sensitive artistic discernment you can muster in order to simulate on your monitor what you think looks as precisely close as possible to the color of Pantone 185 ink. But fact is, as soon as you tell the program "I want this to be a Spot Swatch", the color settings you've been sweating blood over really mean absolutely nothing. Neither the program nor the pre-press imaging process is going to "mix" the ink for you. The pressman is going to pull it off the shelf and load it into the inkwell, just like he does with Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black process inks. By setting the Color Type to Spot you've just told the program, "This Swatch represents another separate ink. It is not to be color-separated into CMYK. So anything colored with this Spot Swatch shall not appear on the C, M, Y, or K plates. Everything colored with this Swatch is imaged in one additional single grayscale channel which is merely labeled 'Pantone 185.'" So when the printing house receives the file he images it as color separations, just as before, but this time gets 5 plates, again one for each ink: An image for Cyan ink An image for Magenta ink An image for Yellow ink An image for Black ink An image for Pantone 185 ink Here's the thing: You could have "mixed" the displayed color of the "Pantone 185" Spot Swatch using 100M and 100Y (as you did, and as I would). It doesn't matter one whit whether that is what Pantone Inc recommends as the "best" CMYK simulation for that Pantone ink. In fact, you could name that Swatch "Pantone 185" but edit its color to look like my Muddy Orange on the monitor. It would not change how the extra separation plate images at all. You could also have forgotten to name that Swatch "Pantone 185." If you had, the program would have left its name "C=0 M=100 Y=100 K=0", and functionally, that also wouldn't change a thing. But you'd probably get a call from the printing house asking, "What ink do you intend to use for this spot color. Or did you make it a spot Swatch by mistake?" You could go back and rename that Spot Swatch "Peter Pan One Eighty Five" and that wouldn't matter one whit, either. The spot color that prints is simply a matter of what color ink the pressman loads into the inkwell for that separation plate. There is no programmagical "link" between how you color your on-screen simulation of a Spot Swatch and the ink that the pressman loads. It's just a piece of information that needs to accompany the job. JET

JETalmage · ‎Feb 13, 2019

You're basically confusing color model (RGB, CMYK) and color type (Process, Spot). When I changed the Colour Type to Spot Colour I assumed I would see some sort of conversion mechanism, offering to try and convert the CMYK colour to the nearest colour book colour e.g. a Pantone colour. As I recall, back in the day, FreeHand could indeed "match" a color defined in CMYK to the ostensibly "nearest" Pantone ink. But that is not a simple 1:1 data match. Just as there are many ways to "convert" a given RGB color to CMYK values, spot colors are not limited to those in the various "color books" from ink vendors. The actual color (and density, and reflectivity, and chroma, and…) is simply a function of what ink is physically loaded into the press (or thread loaded onto the embroidery machine, or sign vinyl loaded into the cutter, or stained glass to be bought and chipped into shape, or…). A spot color in drawing software is simply a color that is sent to its own grayscale plate when printed as color separations. The "color" of that plate is effectively nothing but a text string label applied to that plate. For example, there is nothing preventing my mixing half a pint of One Shot Imitation Gold with a quarter pint of One Shot Fire Red (although I wouldn't recommend it) with which to letter a customer's race car. To create my pounce pattern in my drawing software, I would define that as a spot color named Muddy Orange. For production purposes, I really wouldn't care one whit what it looked like on the monitor, because I would know it's simply a label on an extra separation plate, and changing the displayed color of that Spot Swatch to literally any color would have no effect whatsoever on which paint can I dip my brush into. But in order for me to present a reasonable approximation of the design to the customer, the interface of the software has to provide me some means by which to "mix" a representation of Muddy Orange, using one of the program's color models (RGB or CMYK). The program doesn't have a color model based on One Shot Lettering Enamel, and even if it did, the RGB monitor could not accurately render it. The most accurate "match" would have to be a subjective judgement on my part. Color Swatches set up as Spot colors are not just for offset printing. Drawing software is used across many graphics industries. Even though, for example, the CMYK color model is based upon standardized offset printing process inks and Pantone Spot Inks are intended for offset printing, a drawing software does not accurately "match" Pantone Spot inks with the CMYK values you use to define them—which are in turn converted to RGB anyway, in order to display on your monitor. Even if "color management" (color calibration) were perfect (which it's not), you still couldn't accurately display Pantone Spot inks in Illustrator, because Illustrator's Spot Swatches do not provide for color-specific opacity. For example, screen printing spot color inks are somewhat translucent (depending partly on how thickly they are laid down), but much more opaque than offset printing spot color inks. 100% overprinting of different colored inks is a very common practice in screen printing. A most obvious example is overprinting white highlights onto darker inks or darker substrates. So suppose Illustrator did provide automatic Spot Swatch "matching" to the "nearest" colors in both Pantone's and NazDar's color books. Set up a project for screen printing, define the Spot Swatches as NazDar inks. Build your layers. Then turn on Illustrator's Overprint Preview and see that (among other things) your overprinting opaque white Spot Ink objects completely disappear. JET

JETalmage · ‎Jan 30, 2019

The subject is a long-repeating one in this forum. There are multiple threads. Did you do a search? An entirely vector-based faux halftone can be semi-automated in the standard feature set (i.e., without third-party plug-ins), given that the standard feature set includes a scripting feature (as do other program, too). But the common misconception is that real halftones consist entirely of round dots. They do not. In a process halftone, the round positive (ink) dots morph into round negative (no-ink) dots as they approach and cross the 50% tones. In other words, the white) voids in the shadow areas are round, not 4-point "stars" resulting from overlapping black circles. JET

JETalmage · ‎Jan 25, 2019

Illustrator has no provision for axonometric grids. But frankly, in the 40 years or so that I've been doing isometric drawing, both "on the board" and in software, I've never been dependent upon grids, and have never known another serious axonometric illustrator who is, either. As usually implemented, page-spanning grids are a crutch for trivial isometric drawing. Beyond the trivial, they are just cumbersome. Functionally, they try to substitute for the freely-moveable scales affixed to "head" of the track drafter mounted on an engineering drawing table in pre-computer days. It's a poor substitute. You've already alluded to one of their problems: The increments are only useful when they correspond to measures of the subject you are drawing. Another is that in axonometric drawing, you are never concerned with measuring from the page origin; you're concerned with measuring from a pre-existing point in the drawing. So such grids should always have the ability to fluidly follow the cursor, and snap the nearest major increment to snap candidates on the page. Instead, acquaint yourself with the Smart Guides feature, including its options, features, and keyboard modifiers. Set its Construction Guides to 30° angles. JET

JETalmage · ‎Jan 14, 2019

This is the way the course works - you are meant to self learn the basics about the program and then complete the assessment. The way you self-learn the basics about the program is reading its documentation, and working through the operations it describes in the process. I was just asking for some general direction as to where to start… I just gave you general direction as to where to start. You haven't been much more specific than that. That's my point. …wanting to save myself hours … Volunteers here want to save themselves hours, too. Have you read the documentation? Did you search the forum for applicable thread topics? Every suggestion posted in this thread so far is a repeat of responses I've seen in this forum for decades. Don't take offense; none is intended. But yes; adult students are expected to be able to do their own research. But that doesn't mean just going to a user forum and creating a very broad-based thread effectively asking volunteers to write a how-to book just for you, from start-to-finish, on such a broadly-stated topic as how to combine hand drawing, tracing, and "inserting digital elements" (whatever that means). Again: At least peruse the program's documentation. There, you will encounter explanations of the tools and commands for such things as drawing vector-based paths, importing raster images, and creating text (thereby doing exactly what you have asked how to do: combining those objects on the Artboard). There will be a description of the Layers palette, including using its so-called "Template" feature to lock or fade an imported sketch to facilitate tracing over a scan. Start your project. If you encounter a particular problem, search for it in the documentation. If you can't find what you need to know in the documentation, search for related topics in this forum. If you still find nothing, post a specific question in this forum in its own thread. Use screenshots to show what you have so far and explain what exactly you are struggling with. Please narrow the scope of your questions. JET

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