Piggybacking on the multi-color PDFs we were generating for our last Intrigue project, there was a new challenge awaiting. Our latest catalog has a specification for 2 extra “colors” as well – though they are not actually colors, rather they are extra “plates”.
There will be a spot varnish plate as well as a “glossy” plate. By printing with both varnish and glossy coatings, the product images will really pop out from the printed page. It creates a very high-end look and people see the extra quality immediately.
We were successful in generating proper (and standard compliant) PDFs for the previous book. This time around, we need to approach things a little differently. Because the varnish and gloss plates are not actual colors, it’s necessary to convince Quark and Photoshop that we will be using colors anyway.
There are a number of schools of thought on how to go about doing this. I did a bit of research on this challenge and found some very insightful information. But the one thing I could not find is the reason for why it has to be so complicated in the first place! There should be a way to tell Quark (v7 and earlier) and Photoshop (CS3 and earlier) that you want to create a spot varnish and/or glossy plate. It should be more straightforward than it currently is. Sure, you can easily make a spot channel in a photoshop file but not one specifically for non-ink “colors” like varnish and glossy coatings. I really don’t know if the newest versions of these programs (or InDesign) accommodate this or not. But it’s irrelevant since we need to solve the problem with the tools we have on hand.
In a nutshell, the way to build the plates is to mask out the objects that should be coated, from the objects that should not. The way we’re doing this project, one plate will be an inverse of the other (if all goes well). So now what? Well, here is where the fun begins. To make this work, each object that is intended to be coated must be filled with the extra “color” at 100% and set to overprint with that “color”. This is key because failure to set the overprint correctly may lead to accidental “knock out” of images. Without going into too much technical detail or jargon, this would be considered “bad“!
It would be nice if there was a way to “copy” the clipping path of an object in a Quark layout and have it fill with just a solid color, while removing the image it’s attached to. If there is a way, I’d like to know what it is, but so far, I have not discovered a method to do this. As a workaround, we will run a Photoshop script that will fill all of the images with this same “color” and reimport them back into Quark, on a separate, second layer. By maintaining consistency between all programs and files, it averts the disaster of even more “colors” being accidentally introduced into the project. I’m not sure how many projects have more than six colors but it can’t be inexpensive!
We’re getting close to wrapping up the project. It will be very interesting to see how this all plays out. I’m eager to see the final product. Hopefully our planning will prove to be “spot on” (pun intended)!