White...

[monq]

Hi all. I am sure that this is probably one of the most stupid questions in these very forums, so apologies in advance!

I am trying to create a project in 4 pantone colours. One of them is a blue background, in which I want to add some transparent white lines on top to create some sort of "security" grid.

Once this goes to print: how does white affect a pantone colour? Does it simply reduce the tint of that pantone? It's always been my understanding that white is lack of any colour for CMYK - but how this translate to an offset print is a different matter...

Thanks!

[Stephen Marsh]

Can I presume that the final effect would be a solid spot colour background with a screened tint of the same spot colour over the top, or perhaps a full reverse out if not a tint? I personally would not put a transparent (reduced opacity or blend mode) white object over the spot colour to create the effect if the same result would be created using a tint of the same colour.

Stephen Marsh

[Lukas Engqvist]

Or do you want to print a white pantone ontop of a blue pantone. The pantone colour "Transparent white" used in some Pantone recipies is essentially varnish. Printing white pantone on black envelopes you may find you need to run it through the press several times, or add a little silver to obtain an opaque effect.
So what is the nature of the security? White can be paper or a spot colour, if spot colour perhapps you may want to have them overprint.

If you want to view your plates use the separation preview.

[monq]

Hi Lukas, essentially - I do not want to add any extra plates to our artwork. The original legacy design that I am using has CMYK (images) plus a series of Pantones. This is a problem for some suppliers, so I am trying to convert everything to Pantone colours (essentially - I want to finish with 4 Pantone colours instead of CMYK + Pantone colours).

Adding an extra white would mean going up to 5 - so if there is a way of creating these lines without adding more Pantone colours it would be great (I am assuming that another way would simply be adding those lines as tints of the original base Pantone?).

Regards,
David

[MacTwidget]

This may be a stupid question...
What is the color of the stock that it will be running on?

[monq]

Hi Mac - I think I have found a solution already, but thanks anyway. I am creating some packaging; each one of the boxes that I am creating has a specific pantone colour as background (i.e. Reflex Blue etc). Each one of these elements requires some drawings on top.

I have already applied those drawings as the same colour (i.e. Reflex Blue), but as a tint, which means that they stand out against the backround in the same manner than a white with transparency would work...

So yeah - managed to get the way forward. Thanks all for your help

[rich apollo]

monq,
Typically "white" is the paper. I have run opaque white, but only when printing on foil or clear plastic. The opaque white in those instances provides a white background on which to print the process, or spot, colors.

[monq]

Thanks Rich. My main concern is understanding how everything would apply in offset printing - aka, if I use Pantone XXX, and some elements in a 60% tint of Pantone XXX, I am assuming that there will not be screening, but everything will be 100% solid ink?

And the same applies to white: what happens IF I add transparent white elements on top of Pantone XXX - will this convert to screen CMYK, or only tints of that pantone will be printed?

Thanks

[rich apollo]

Thanks Rich. My main concern is understanding how everything would apply in offset printing - aka, if I use Pantone XXX, and some elements in a 60% tint of Pantone XXX, I am assuming that there will not be screening, but everything will be 100% solid ink?

No. There would be screening. Anything other than a solid 100% is screened. Different tints require larger or smaller dots, or the dots occurring in greater or smaller quantities. Gordo has some very nice illustrations of screening on his website.

And the same applies to white: what happens IF I add transparent white elements on top of Pantone XXX - will this convert to screen CMYK, or only tints of that pantone will be printed?

If you're talking about, for example, in Illustrator placing a white element with a transparency effect applied to it over an element colored in Pantone XXX you can get either CMYK or a screen of the Pantone. It depends entirely on how the file is dealt with. Using "white" on the computer usually does not mean that you are adding another ink. Adobe (or actually Aldus) did a good thing by changing "white" to "paper" in the palettes.

As Lukas said earlier in the thread, transparent white ink is actually not white at all. Ink has two primary components: pigment and vehicle. The pigment is the portion that contributes the color, and is typically derived from some ground mineral. The vehicle is the solution in which the pigment is suspended. Transparent white ink is unpigmented vehicle. It is used to dilute an ink mix - a bit like adding more water to your lemonade - or more club soda to your Mojito - or...

[Correct Color]

My main concern is understanding how everything would apply in offset printing - aka, if I use Pantone XXX, and some elements in a 60% tint of Pantone XXX, I am assuming that there will not be screening, but everything will be 100% solid ink?

That's not correct. If you're printing with four PMS colors, then each of those colors is an inked-up printing unit and a plate. If you want some percentage of one of those colors and you want to create it by cutting the ink, then for each instance you do that, you've created another ink color--needing another unit and another plate. Also, that color would likely be another PMS color. if you look at a PMS book, you'll see that most colors have a base formula and then a progression from dark to light that's achieved by adding black or transparent base to that formula.

So, if you specify 60% of PMS Whatever, you're going to get a 60% screen of PMS whatever.

As far a white goes, it's unclear to me what you're trying to achieve. If you're trying to achieve paper while, just reverse those areas out. If you're trying to achieve an effect, then--as has been said here, you'll need to use opaque white, or just screen back your PMS colors to achieve your effect. Transparent white isn't going to do anything for you but maybe change the reflectiveness of the areas where you apply it. And on a lot of uncoated stocks, it would likely be very difficult to see at all.

So, again, unless you're printing on some type of material that's already a color and you want to hide that color with white, then just reverse your white areas out of your PMS colors. And if you are printing on a darker media, you'd still want to reverse your white areas out so you're printing white directly on the media. And if that's the case, you'll probably want to give it a double bump, meaning you're now at a 6 color job.


Mike Adams
Correct Color