Transparencies, Spot Colors, and Gradients in Illustrator

[D-Frag]

Ahhh the lovely world of printing. Anyone have any useful links to sites that explain the difference in spot colors, transparencies, gradients and how to convert them over to be used in 4 color offset? Or if you are wise in these ways and feel like helping me out....my initial question is how to convert gradients over when done with a logo design. Another words if you go and look up the definetion of raster vs vector in the resources section, you will see on the Ford Logo that it has hundreds of small lines to make up a gradient, how do you get your gradient to convert over like that?? Im sure its something easy but ive always wondered how to do that.

Thirdly, how do i save a transparency in Illustrator for use in printing? Is it just flatten transparency? and what if that doesn't fix my problem...what is the next step....rasterize? ugh...super confused, got to much going on, need some training wheels for Illustrator....anyone care to hold my hand?



censored by the all mighty gods of reality. (http://www.broadjam.com/songtracking/playsonghifi.asp?songID=70045&play_file=6353_70045 &sessionID=AD25B69960314533A78B9AE267360C5E&sessio nINDEX=5525)

[Kool]

Wow sorry I missed this yesterday. I always just double click the swatch and change from a spot to a process color. As far as transparancies,, I don't do anything special about saving them. Sometimes I will get that warning but I have never had any actual problems. If you need additional help D-Frag let me know because this is what I do.

http://home.comcast.net/~rnick9/KoolsSig.gif

'I used to be with it. But then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me.' Abraham Simpson

[defjoe]

Or you can select all and go up to Filter>Colors>covert to CMYK

that should do the trick.

I have heard of some printers having trouble with tranparencies... but it's really nothing on your end.

'I will become the most powerful Jedi ever!'

[3howards]

could you be more specific about transparencies? i used to work at a printshop and never ran into this issue

[Mickey]

I was told by my printer to stay far far away from transpariencies in Illy 10 and CS, He said they don't work. Could this just be his preproduction flow or is it a normal accurance?

http://home.wi.rr.com/mygraphics/konceptcreative.jpg

[3howards]

i know the ai10 (cs) has some issues with many things. i've stuck with adobe versions just before cs because there are just too many issues as whole with production.

now, i've never used transparencies for print work so i have no idea what's going on with that. and like i said before, never ran into that at my previous job. of course, i left before adobe cs was released.

[Jason Fraker]

I am fortunate enough to have a print vendor with a GREAT prepress department, and I just do the best I can and send it to them. They always bring me a matchprint, or color keys or both to make sure everything's perfect. They even run a densitometer on a 2 spot color Business Card run.

My advise: take it as far as you can, and then leave it to the experts, that's what they do for a living. You're a designer, so being a prepress master is not necessarily a job requirement.

-Jason

99% of what passes for music these days, SILENCE is more compelling1

[D-Frag]

Hey Jason, thanks alot for your comments (and everyone else too) and I love your sig man, i haven't listened to the radio in yrs. Anyways this is why I was inquiring, when and if I finish this logo im working on, it is very possible that it will be using transparencies in the design. With that said, I want to make sure that no matter where my client goes after I give him the CD, that he will be able to get his stuff done. Now here is my transparency problem, evertime I try and save it has the warning symbol in the bottom telling me that work needs to be flattened. I have done all the stuff listed above, and even done the flatten>transparency, but nothing seems to work, if your wondering go look at my logo design in the issues thread, the second one down has a transparency, and I can't save that file as a pdf.



censored by the all mighty gods of reality. (http://www.broadjam.com/songtracking/playsonghifi.asp?songID=70045&play_file=6353_70045 &sessionID=AD25B69960314533A78B9AE267360C5E&sessio nINDEX=5525)

[3howards]

okay, i took a look at the logo and one thing puzzles me, why transparencies? it doesn't need anything more than simple opacity changes. that would definitely eliminate your problems.

[Kool]

I get that warning all the time. Just ignore it. I have never had a problem.

http://home.comcast.net/~rnick9/KoolsSig.gif

'I used to be with it. But then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me.' Abraham Simpson

[D-Frag]

ahhh gotcha, okay thanks everyone, not gonna worry about it!!



censored by the all mighty gods of reality. (http://www.broadjam.com/songtracking/playsonghifi.asp?songID=70045&play_file=6353_70045 &sessionID=AD25B69960314533A78B9AE267360C5E&sessio nINDEX=5525)