How to trap a gradient screen

[Kim_Lucich@adobeforums.com]

I have PMS 110 lettering in a gradient from 64% to 100% on a solid black background. How on earth do I trap this? If I save it as an EPS and place it in Quark, will it automatically trap it by default?

Could I get away with adding a stroke in PMS 110 at 64% and overprinting the stroke?

Thanks for your advice in advance.

Kim

[Just_A_Mac_Guy@adobeforums.com]

Actually if it is to go on a solid black background, you might want to make the stroke black and overprint that. Quark will not trap eps's at all so if you do not have InRip trapping in your workflow or must perform manually trapping for other reasons, it is best to do it in the illustration.

Gradients however pose a more complex problem when you are not on a solid colour background. If the bkg is an even colour or tint, you can overprint a stroke of that colour. If the eps will cross another gradient or photo, your overprinting area should follow the gradient. Easiest what I have found is to duplicate the gradient object, make it a little bigger, {ie.. the size of spread you require}, set it to overprint and move it behind the original object which is still knock out. The gradients might not match exactly, you can fiddle with it if needed, but the spread should be slight and hidden in the overprinting anyway.

This of course assumes you are dealing with spot colours or lets say 100m/100y on a 20c/100k bkg where a trap is needed.

You can use the "overprint preview" to check your traps before saving.

[David_Piercy@adobeforums.com]

Try
1. Outline the text and make it a compound path
2. Offset path on the text objects - say 0.25mm
3. Set the bigger shape to overprint

Use overprint preview to check if its ok.

[Kim_Lucich@adobeforums.com]

Thank you guys!