Gradiant Mesh

[Stephen_Halley@adobeforums.com]

Using Illustrator 9 I have created a simple cone shape, using the gradient mesh icon, I have filled the area with two spot colours,
saving as an eps, then bringing into Quark 4.1. The spot colour appear in the colour palette but do not separate when printed through the RIP.
I have tried various options i.e. back saving to an earier version, also going to object-expand which resulted in the job separating through the rip but showing two blank pages. Please can anyone advise

[Dee Holmes]

I can try this tomorrow morning from work if you can wait. (I don't have a postscript printer at home.)

You can't back save, since gradient meshes were new to AI9.
Correct me if I'm wrong people.

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

Gradient Mesh as Spot Colors I don't think that is going to work!

[Dee Holmes]

How come, Wade.

[John_Kallios@adobeforums.com]

1 color spot gradient meshes retain correct separations. 2 spot color meshes do not. The mixing of the colors yields process colors.

Workaround,

Dupe the mesh and color the first mesh as spot 1 and the 2nd mesh as spot 2. Set the top mesh to either multiply or overprint. The resulting superimposed image will separate correctly.

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

That might not be as simple as John made that out to be first gradient mesh objects have a white background and when you flatten them they become process and then they are not transparent and therefore setting them to multiply is difficult since they do not support transparency and of course overprint then would not be helpful either.

When you expand the transparency you will now have a non native object and that is even less helpful.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding something but I am sure John has one of those great tricks of his I don't get?

[Scott_Weichert@adobeforums.com]

Meshes were introduced in v8 on the Mac.

I'd follow John's suggestion, he knows his stuff. :)

Be aware when setting up a mesh with a spot color all mesh points must be that spot color. In other words, use a range of 100% and 0% of your spot color. Do not use 100% of your color and white. Using white will result in improper separations again.

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

Scott did you try this?:)

Well if Scot and John say that this work then by all means have fun Stephen!

:)

[John_Kallios@adobeforums.com]

Wade

When you flatten ANY spot color in Illustrator, (using the flatten transparency command) it becomes process. (except in CS when the preserve spot is checked)

Now for the great trick in producing a flat file that preserves the spot color.

File>save as> Illustrator eps.

Eps is a flat format (extra data is written that only Illustrator uses when it reopens these eps files for full edittability) so when placed into Xpress, Xpress sees a flat file that will separate correctly.

Now the question for you Wade, did you try it?

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

I tried it again I can in fact get it to display properly in AI CS with Multiply I guess I did not have all the points select in the object. However I got only process colors in the print dialog when I selected Separation Host based.

It also did not display as an over print when Overprint Preview was selected.

If Stephen can follow your and get the correct results with his gradient mesh then that is all that matters.

Have a nice even John? BTW did you try this with a Gradient Mesh?

[John_Kallios@adobeforums.com]

Follow this walkthrough if you are interested.

1 Create rectangle fille with pms 185.

2 Select and Copy

3 With the rectangle still selected, create gradient mesh with appearance to center.

4 Paste in front (the original fill element in the clipboard, not the newly created mesh) and change the fill to pms 286.

5 Select the 286 fill and create gradient mesh with appearance to edge.

6 Select both meshes and option shift drag to the right to duplicate the meshes side by side.

7 Select the left 286 mesh and select it to multiply. (make sure to select the whole mesh and not just a point. use selection tool or group selection tool)

8 Select the right 286 mesh and set the attribute to overprint (make sure to select the whole mesh and not just a point. use selection tool or group selection tool)

9 Turn on overprint preview

10 Print out seps.

Hey, what do you know. A 2 color spot mesh.

Oh, yep, I have tried it. Actually, tried is not the proper term since I have used it in production many times.

Stephen

Warning about a bug in Illustrator 10 and below. (really 9 and 10) When transparency is introduced and the file is saved to eps, the overprint attribute is not honored in terms of overprinting external elements when placed into a dtp application. The overprint will be honored internally. So, the safest method to use is overprint attribute rather than multiply. I prefer using multiply because I am aware of the dangers and I prefer correct screen preview without being in overprint preview.

[LRK@adobeforums.com]

I just followed John's technique and it seems to work for me. My printer is not working but I printed to a PostScript File, Distilled it to PDF and then Previewed the Separations in Acrobat.

Here are a couple of screen shots of the separations.

[LRK@adobeforums.com]

In the past I remember coming up with another technique that seemed to work for me. After breakfast I may try to see if I can do it again.

Linda

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

You see Stephen now there is something you can have fun with instead of ice in the winter.

I'm not likely to ever need this but obviously there are people who do.

And why this work around is necessary is beyond me and another example why spot color mode only would be very helpful.

BTW I seldom ever use spot colors for final out put. I just noticed that a great many people have this problem and the solution is clear to me even if it is not to you, John.

Stephen I hope John last post is more helpful than his first post.

But I was wondering what you feel about having to go through this work around?

[LRK@adobeforums.com]

Wade:

I agree that there is a need for better spot color support with gradients.

I believe that the Gradient Mesh should be improved to support spot color separation without jumping through hoops. I also believe there should be a way to convert a Gradient Mesh back to a normal outlined object.

Even a normal gradient that is filled with Spot Colors, when expanded, looses the spot color definitions. This should be improved as well.

I just tried the technique that I though I used on a past client's gradient logo for spot color output, but now it doesn't seem to work... either that or I've forgotten something. I was using Illustrator 8 at that time. I was sure that I expanded a gradient logo with the spot colors in tack... but I can't seem to duplicate it.

[Wade_Zimmerman@adobeforums.com]

A little bit on the non productive side to have to do all of this stuff especially for the designer whose job is to create artwork and layouts and no be some sort of technical wiz.

We really don't want the prepress community controlling how things are designed
and having this control over what is spot color, spot color and process and rgb should be just a matter of fact procedure rather than a whole field.

I thin the idea that a designer should even have to know that much about prepress is
kind of on the silly side. All the technical knowledge is not going to make a designer good or bad.

The principals of what you are designing are important to know, even though that is not essential either.

For instance the doctor that fixed my hand is very talented and has artistic ability
and he taught himself Illustrator in a weekend and managed to do some excellent drawings but he had a real complaint about AI in that not only was it it not intuitive
it was incredibly mystifying.

This was what the doctor was able to accomplish in a weekend having just installed AI.

Hands <http://mysite.verizon.net/wzphoto/Huber.jpg>

Now you can't tell me that someone like this doesn't have talent and is no less professional than someone who can't draw and create art as well as this just because that person has more exposure to resources for printing. The doctor is not expected to know and should not have to know all this nonsense. It should be simple and easy to create and output, Simple!