Spot colours on aluminium can and Label

[lister]

right, hopefully this makes sense.

We are printing a spot green flooded onto a can which we want to show some of the aluminium through, so no opaque white under the green.

All the artwork is in illustrator, we have random black images across the can, almost like a pattern. then we have a label which is dark brown pantone on top of a white label to keep the brown brown. There is some type on the label which is green, this has to be the green/Aluminium showing through. But we have the white label and under that the images and the then the green/Aluminium.

Im not sure how best to set this up., please see the rough screen shot here

MobileMe Gallery

cheers

lister

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Do you also additionally use Esko or other packaging software, or only Adobe Illustrator?

Is this an extruded can printed on the "3D" surface, like an aluminium soft drink can...or is this being printed "flat" on metal which is then welded into a cylinder like an aerosol can? This will affect your trapping, as the first is "anti trapping" hold/keep aways for every colour, while the second is traditional spreads/chokes.

Back to the original question, I would use a compound path of the label area and the label text, that is filled with print white and set to overprint. This would be set on a layer above all other art/layers.


Sincerely,

Stephen Marsh

 

[lister]

i think its more like aerosol can. we have a flat guide and its a deodorant bottle printed in china. So to show the the green text (Metallic green) through the label you would colour it white with an overprint? The label is brown with the green metallic type.

thanks

 

[Stephen Marsh]

A flat print welded can is much simpler. Extruded cans like soft drink with both bare substrate and print white are something else altogether.

The print white could also be under the brown label, with the brown label overprinting. It does not really matter for the final seps, however for "clean" artwork having the white underneath would probably be best.

Does the background black image pattern also have white, or is it black only over the green background (direct on the substrate).

It is simpler to show you with a file, I will knock something together shortly.

EDIT: See attached Illus PDF, with Acrobat layers. Inspect in Acrobat Pro with the output preview or in Illustrator.

P.S. One does not really need the compound path, the green text could be left as text rather than paths, it would be set to knock out. The important thing is that the print white knocks a hole into the green and that the brown overprints the print white.


Best,

Stephen Marsh

 

[lister]

Hi Stephen, thanks for the pdf, I had a look in illustrator. Just a quick one. Why do you use 2 Browns one overprinting the other? Yeah, the images are standard PSDs (So i'll have to do some work on these, maybe greyscale tiffs) scattered across the design. At the moment just black only..

http://www.twistedjunkie.eclipse.co.uk/images/metal-can-images.pdf

Thanks for your help so far... really appreciate it!

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Hi Stephen, thanks for the pdf, I had a look in illustrator. Just a quick one. Why do you use 2 Browns one overprinting the other? Yeah, the images are standard PSDs (So i'll have to do some work on these, maybe greyscale tiffs) scattered across the design. At the moment just black only..

http://www.twistedjunkie.eclipse.co.uk/images/metal-can-images.pdf

Thanks for your help so far... really appreciate it!

That was a mistake, there should only be one overprint brown compound element in the file I (think that I copied/pasted in front at one point to use the elements for the print white).

Stephen Marsh