Ink Percentage Analysis

[BlacknTan]

Good morning...is there a plug-in for Adobe Illustrator that will detail ink coverage, both percentage and square footage? I've used InkQuest from Astute Graphics, however when analyzing corrugate cartons, the values can fluctuate widely, depending on the various die cuts.

Thanks!

 

[Stephen Marsh]

There may be something from Esko, however saving the file as a PDF and using Acrobat Pro and Enfocus PitStop Pro would be my preference.

Keep in mind that the amount of white space around the job will skew the reported ink area/coverage.


Stephen Marsh

 

[BlacknTan]

Thank you Stephen...I'm not familiar with any plug-ins from Esko that account for percentages, but I can reach out to our rep and see what they have to say. I'll look into PitStop Pro and see if there's a trial I can download. That might be my best option, however I do agree that the white area will skew my results. I'll check out EnFocus...thanks!

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Attached are some screen caps of samples.

Note that one version has more white space than the other….


Stephen Marsh

 

[BlacknTan]

Amazing how the size of the artboard and the cutouts affect the percentages of ink coverage. Is PitStop Pro smart enough to ignore masked areas in the ink analysis? Say if the masked artwork bled off the artboard, or was overlapping adjoining panels?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

All methods that I am aware of that check total ink use take into account the blank canvas/artboard area, so I am guessing that the formula requires a bounding area of some sort vs. the object area. The larger the bounding area the less ink reported, which may be misleading and why I mentioned this in my OP as some may not be aware of this.

PitStop’s ink reports are smart enough to only report on the ink/area of the “visible” masked shape, so a 100x100mm mask of a 200x100mm spot colour object will only report as 1000mm2 (100 x 100mm as the final masked size, not the actual object which is 200x100mm). I am presuming that overlapping panels may skew things a bit, one would need to use a pathfinder type function to join them, however if the overlap was small then this would not be too big a deal.


Stephen Marsh

 

[BlacknTan]

Thank you Stephen. This looks like a better solution than what I'm working with now. I'll give this a shot and try some comparisons. Much thanks!!!

 

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Deskpack has the ability to calculate ink percentages and can be found in the Viewer tab. Will calculate on Trim box or Media Box. Coverage is calculated as a percentage as well as square millimetres. Hope this helps