call your printer they are all diferent

Just make sure that the metallic is spected as spot not process everywhere in your document-- including Illy files, Quark, Indesign ect. Make sure the spot color is called the same thing in each program you use. For example--Pantone 875 C, Pantone 875 CV, Pantone 875 CVC. Call them the same. Output color seperated lasers to see how it seperates, after all that's what printers do--seperate! Trapping is the issue with printers and metallics. Do not trap it, let the printers do that. As rockem stated, give them a call about it. If they say you should trap it--find another printer!!

sorry, but what is trapping? i can't get ahold of the printer right now but in the meantime i have placed all the metallic object on a separate layer in illustrator.

yep better let your printer take care of that, even if there is a charge, it can be a little tricky understanding it right away, basically how inks overprint each other, and avoid gaps. Look it up on google and learn about it. I remember it really confused me the first time I heard about it.

It still gives me a headache.

Trapping is when two colors butt together. Since the colors are seperated by the printer, each unit on an offset press holds one color, for example a 5 color press has 5 units, each unit has its own color--cyan, magenta, yellow, Black and a spot color. Since the paper has to pass each unit to get a color laid down, there's that possibility that gaps may appear between where the colors touch. That is were trapping comes in. If no other color touches your metallic color then trapping may not be a issue. But there maybe issues with your 4/c process colors. This is something that a decent printer should take care of.

thanks for the help! made a bit more sense.

Talk to the printer, they said all i have to do is identify which area will be printed in metallic. I am assuming that i just have to set the area that will printed in the metallic color with the pantone number given to me and they can figure out from there?

That should do it. If you can output seperated lasers that would work also. This will show you if your file is setup correctly. Or a composite laser and indicate the spot color.

thanks jimking

No offense to the poster intended but it still amazes me how little most "print designers" know about trapping considering how crucial it is for outputting good print plates.

To add to the other advice, the first place I worked did stickers and other social expressions stuff. Whenever we created a file that needed 4 color plus spots we separated the spots into Illy files (rather than keeping them in photoshop, and actually, we used Freehand).

We made the path(s) in photoshop (pen tool or selection) and exported each path layer to a separate illy file. If you do this, it is imparative that each file is set up with the same dimensions, and there is nothing on the pasteboard, and you snap EVERYTHING to center (according to your crop marks) so that it all lines up properly.

We were using Quark, so the photoshop file and the illy files were all brought into quark in identical bounding boxes, duplicated one atop the other, and then centered each in its respective box. We kept the CMYK layer on the bottom, so you could see if things lined up correctly (ours had to be precise to within a 64th of an inch).

P.S. this works well when incorporating varnishes as well, and has stunning results.

Also, depending on the order that the colors go down on the press, the printer may want to put the metallic down first and have the process inks spread to the metallic...or choke. Don't hear much of trap and choke anymore so learn what you can about the terms, but leave the actuality of trapping to your printer, as has been said above.

none taken but isn't this the same thing as a print designer asking web designers questions? even the simple ones?

I know nada about web design! Nobody can ever know too much, hence the question mark on the keyboard is always close at hand (or pinky)!