You cannot get the red to overprint over the black. Red is composed of percentages of CMYK, so you cannot overprint it. The only way to overprint the red would be to convert it to spot. It should work if you do that, not sure 'cause I never tried it.

Trinity1 has a good idea with the conversion to spot. I have had to do that. Unfortunately with CMYK it can get tricky.

My only other suggestion would be to select a red color when you create the drop shadow. Try to make that color what you need right off instead of trying to overprint to acheive it. Then when it outputs to CMYK it should register to give you the color you are looking for.

Of course this is if you are outputting to CMYK. If you are outputting to Red and Black only then the spot color is the way to go.

Good point

i think if understand correctly, the effect that you are trying to achieve is where you have almost a translucence to the red so it adds a redish tinge that you can only see at certain angles ? like this ?

as people have stated before, you can only really do this with an overprinted spot colour when putting through a professional printer. on a standard home inkjet, even if you could check the simulate over print box, it would create a mix of the two colours, rather than go back and add the red over the top. you're only hope to do this is to percevere (sp?) with printing onto the paper twice. once with the black layer, once with the red layer. however as both will be cmyk, the inks will probably just settle into each other unless you dry the black out completely before hand, but i doubt that would even help. alternatively if this is what you're trying to achieve



then try playing using multiply blending modes with rgb colours and then flattening your transparencies.

>>You cannot get the red to overprint over the black. Red is composed of percentages of CMYK, so you cannot overprint it.<<

Um. No. Not true. Save that AI file as an AI with PDF compatibility and place it into ID (with Overprint Preview on) and preview the seps to verify this.

If you assign overprint to a CMYK (or spot) object it will not knockout any inks beneath it in separated output. If you have black as the bottom object, at 100%, then it will not get any 'blacker' of course, but any CMY percentages in the overprint mix will not be affected by the black.

The reason you are not getting the 'Simulate' option grayed out in the Advanced section of the print options is because this only works when you have 'Overprint Preview' on in the View menu. (Mind you, I'm very curious about the 'Stimulate' option!).

The red is a spot color...sorry...I should of mentioned that right away. Anyways...I fixed it today. I made one eps as the shadow, one eps as the red, pulled it into InDesign and zoomed up incredibaly close and overlapped myself. Then I just deleted the opposite color as I printed out the plate. I just don't see why it couldn't figure it out all by it's little ol' self. Thanks for all your suggestions!!

And yes...that's somewhat the effect I'm trying to get, but it's actually burned edges I'm creating. It's a 2 color project and I'm using the black overprinting red to give it a real burn, smoky effect. Turned out great now...well...we're printing it today...I think. If so I'll scan it in and put it on here!

i think if understand correctly, the effect that you are trying to achieve is where you have almost a translucence to the red so it adds a redish tinge that you can only see at certain angles ? like this ? [QUOTE]

Bear,
How did you get this effect? (B/w photo with red stripe) Does that red have any a transparency, or is 100% spot color?

Christy,

As I explained, you CAN do this simply by assigning the spot colour to overprint. It will separate and produce the results you want. To preview, use View/Overprint Preview. With this on, you can even print to a CMYK postscript printer for a good simulation. Are you overlapping the spot colour in AI, or hoping to bring it onto an ID page for interaction? If you tried that with just EPSs, you will not get the assigned overprinting in the AI EPS to 'interact' properly with the ID page. That's why you should place an AI (made with PDF compatability on) instead. THEN, turn on ID's Overprint Preview too. It's really not that difficult, and it works!

I did assign the spot color to overprint. I did view/overprint preview it (looked fine in that), and I did print to PS (did not work). When I would print out the seperations to PS, Rip, or laser printer the "red" spots got knocked to white.<See first image>

****Even being printed in Illy before I even pulled it into ID.****

I want to learn what I did wrong, but I don't understand what you're saying, I did everything that you are requesting to do.

The last image is how it turned out after I manually did it.

Bob you said: That is what I meant

>>I did assign the spot color to overprint. I did view/overprint preview it (looked fine in that), and I did print to PS (did not work)<<

Hang on, so the red is an image? What colour space? With transparency? Did it come in as a PSD? EPS? Linked?

I have a few other questions to ask but first: if there's no vectors, why are doing this in AI? You can create a multichannel two colour EPS in Pshop directly. Or is there something that requires AI as the source for the EPS?

But before we get into that, we should clear something else up first: is the Red 'spot' colour a Pantone colour or a CMYK spot? In other words, is the final print going to include a separate red ink or are you simulating it with a process blend? If the latter is true, and it's all raster, why preseparate the shadow/image at all? Just change the image layer to multiply, flatten to a layer and save off as a cmyk TIFF. No?

For what it's worth, if you do get it to display properly in AI, save it as an AI with PDF compatability, and place this into ID. Then, turn on overprint preview in ID, place the AI file and then use ID's Separation preview to check out the seps.

Whew! I hope we're getting somewhere! I just need to know exactly what you're working with and then I can get some more concrete answers.

Why is this so complicated?

This is not so complicated. I don't know why it is becoming that way. I've solved the issue already, but I would really like to know what went wrong. Thank you Broacher for all your help, by the way.

Here it is:

I'm in Illy CS2
I'm making a 2 color eps image. Black and Pantone Spot Red (185?) Not 4 color, not CMYK, JUST 2 COLOR Black and 1 color

It's in red. I put a stroke around it using a certain brush so it has a textured edge to it, which is also red. Then I put a black drop shadow behind it...which is in black.

But I want the red to OVERPRINT the black, thus, make a deeper, dark red. Which is what happens when you have a gradient/screen of black and print red over it...it simple really. But everytime I printed it out, it knocked out all the black where the red is and made it white.

I tryed all the things that you can read at the beginning of this thread.

Does that make sense?
Anything else you need to know?
Thanks again Broacher for you patience!