Spot color channels from Photoshop to Illustrator

[dimicel1]

When I create a design using Photoshop CS3, save channels as spot colors and place into Illustrator CS2, it works great. But when I am working in Illustrator CS3 the spot colors are tranparent so if I put it on any color background besides white, you can hardly see the image. I can still edit the spot colors in Illustrator, so I know that Illustrator recognizes that the are there. Its almost like the opacity has been changed... but it is at 100%. Does anybody know what the problem is? Is there a setting in Illustrator CS3 that I need to change?

[DesignVHL]

Don't use Transparencies with Spot colors, use tint percentages instead. That might fix your problem...

[dimicel1]

There are no transparencies in the art... what are tint percentages?

[Silence04]

make sure the photoshop file you are placing has a white background and is not transparent.
I believe that is something that changed from Illy CS2 to CS3

[DesignVHL]

the spot colors are tranparent so if I put it on any color background besides white...

Well now I'm confused. :p

When you click on your spot color in illustrator, you can pull up the color palette, and change the TINT percentage...that means that instead of 100% full color being printed, only a percentage of that ink is laid down. So, 50% black would be a grey tone, and 50% of say Pantone Red 206 will give you a pinkish tone. :)

[dimicel1]

Ya I think I confused you sorry. Basically what I am trying to do is spot color separations in photoshop and bring the image into illustrator so that I can work on the design more in Illustrator. When I am done with the photoshop part of the design, there are only spot channels. The layer in Photoshop has a transparent background with nothing in it so when you bring it into illustrator the only part of the design that you see are the spot channels. This way I can use the same spot colors that I had in the original photoshop design in illustrator. Before when I would do this (in cs2) it would work great and I could put the design on different bacgrounds in illustrator. But now when I put it on a different background besides white you can hardly see it. If I put it on a black background it pretty much dissapears. I hope that makes more sense.

[dimicel1]

Oh, and the tint percentages are all the way up

[dimicel1]

make sure the photoshop file you are placing has a white background and is not transparent.
I believe that is something that changed from Illy CS2 to CS3

That didn't work, I changed the layer to a white background, but I need the background to be transparent so that I can put stuff behind the design in illustrator. So I made a new spot channel and changed it to white, but it still just made a big white square behind the design, and the overall design was still transparent.

[DesignVHL]

I would just create paths from each spot color channel and export to illy and put it all together in there....you'd be done with it by now. :)

[Silence04]

I'm still a little confused on what are you trying to achieve...

couple tips that might help:
- make sure Overprint Preview is turned on in illustrator
- a placed photoshop file in illustrator can't be set to "overprint" via Attributes Pallet
- Placing a photoshop file with a transparent background into illustrator on top of vector artwork doesn't mean it will "overprint" the vector artwork (even though it may look like it is on screen)
- to trick illustrator into overprinting a placed photoshop file, set the vector artwork to overprint and put on top of the placed photoshop file. (you should make the printer aware of what you are trying to achieve before sending artwork this way)
- when all else fails, create a separate file that only contains the overprinting plate and create your other file as if it was there.

[dimicel1]

the only problem with that is that if there is that I still want it to look like a photograph when I bring it into illustrator. I still don't understand why it used to work with illustrator cs2 but now it wont.

[dimicel1]

- make sure Overprint Preview is turned on in illustrator


Do you mean where it says "Preserve Appearance of Overprints" in the preferences menu? That is already turned on.
As far as what I am trying to do. I am doing t-shirt designs with this technique, so I have to have the colors separated in photoshop already, before I can do what I need to do with the design in Illustrator. Then I output the films from Illustrator. It used to work great before Illustrator CS3 came along.

[longboy]

In your channels palette (in Photoshop), what are the opacities of the ink spot channels? I think the default might be 50%, you can double-click the spot color channel and change it to 100. Might be worth a try-

[dimicel1]

In your channels palette (in Photoshop), what are the opacities of the ink spot channels? I think the default might be 50%, you can double-click the spot color channel and change it to 100. Might be worth a try-
It is up to 100%

[Silence04]

Do you mean where it says "Preserve Appearance of Overprints" in the preferences menu? That is already turned on.
As far as what I am trying to do. I am doing t-shirt designs with this technique, so I have to have the colors separated in photoshop already, before I can do what I need to do with the design in Illustrator. Then I output the films from Illustrator. It used to work great before Illustrator CS3 came along.

It's under View/Overprint Preview.

[dimicel1]

Pixel Preview works in CS2, but neither Overprint Preview nor Pixel Preview works in CS3.