Trap issue

[cnemec]

Hello All,
I am new to CTP for about a year, I work in an in-plant shop and I have a dilemma.
Here's what I am doing:
I am working in Adobe Illus CS2, I am adding color vector artwork over .tif images. I then save my file as a PDF. I then open my PDF to send to the plating dept. We are using a Presstek Vector 52 for plate output with the Momentum RIP.
When I roam my file the trapping of my vector is terrible. In one instance (my first so far in a year of use) I have yellow text (converted to outlines) that traps the wrong direction, and gets obliterated. it is very small text, about 4.5 pt size. we are using .003" trap. prints from my laser and Epson proofer correctly....
What am I doing wrong here?
Anxiously awaiting a response<
Connie

 

[Wolfie]

I'm not familiar with that RIP, but outlined text & regular text trap differentially.
Try using text that's not outlined and see if you have the same problem.
Also look for a trapping option on your RIP about bitmaps trapping into artwork.
Or if there's a small text size limit, which will reduce the trapping on small text irrespective of your default trap setting.

 

[cnemec]

Our film house we used to do business with managed to output it on to film ok.... I am sure it has something to do with our RIP and not my art... but Then again I could be wrong

 

[cnemec]

ok, here is what it is looking like....

 

[hansman]

hi Connie,
Looks like you need to find the trap prefs on your rip & change the settings.
I am not sure of your rip but some of the rips base the trapping on a standard value for raster images (%C-M-Y-K). Try putting heavier numbers in there & check the result.

 

[PDL]

Since you seem to be working in Adobe Illustrator maybe you should take a look at EskoArtworks DeskPack Tools for Ai. These include both automatic and interactive tools that do your trapping in Ai. Thus you can know while still working in Ai exactly how your traps look, and have complete editing control of those traps way before they are sent to rip and/or output.

You will however have to upgrade to at least CS3. More info can be found here, EskoArtwork: Trapping made easy. You can even try it before you buy it, for free. Just download the trial software from the same site. Call us at EskoArtwork if you have any questions.

 

[marktonk]

Another option would be Prinect Trap Editor. This is evolved from the worlds first native PDF trapping engine, Supertrap. Being that it traps PDF, you are not limited to a program, it will trap any native PDF. You can also set up hot folders for batch trapping or individually trap documents or a page. The traps are editable and we have been trapping transparency for over two and one half years now. It can be purchased as a standalone product or bundled with other PDF tools as part of PDF Toolbox.

http://http://www.heidelberg.com/www/html/en/content/products/prinect/prepress/prinect_pdf_toolbox


Regards,

Mark

 

[david]

Trapping Yellow to Images

Trapping Yellow to Images

Most trapping programs will have a special case yellow option to always trap yellow text into image data regardless of other image trap settings. This is the standard setting for I-Trap which will work with your Momentum Rip. I would recommend that you check the image trap settings for this.

David Lewis
I-Trap In-Rip and Interactive Trapping

 

[John W]

Simple trapping in Illy

Simple trapping in Illy

Or you could just trap the thing in Illustrator by stroking the yellow text with yellow set to overprint while the fill is set to K/O. Or you could offset path or stroke the yellow text if in outline mode. As long as your Rip honors overprint it should work perfectly!

 

[rich apollo]

I would guess that your trapping preferences are set to always spread CT elements.

 

[prepressing]

Try changing your trap preferences from CENTER to AUTOMATIC. Also check your color settings within your page setup to see if those are set correctly. If you are using a Momentum RIP you are using a Harlequin RIP with probably TrapProLite or TrapPro (depends on the version of the RIP) and the trapping you purchased. All v.7 and later Harlequin RIPs used TrapPro. Just check your trap preferences and color preferences within your page setup. If it does not fix then an upgrade for the RIP may be in order.

 

[MJNC]

trapping text

trapping text

Hi!
David and John are right! In the images you supplied, the trapped background is spreading into the text. Your best bet is to do it manually, with an overprint stroke on the letters that has the same color value as the letters themselves. Don’t forget to overprint the stroke; and set its value to 2x the value of the actual trap (Illustrator will split the stroke inside/outside of the outline of the shape.)
Best of Luck!
Also, most of the time when text prints in the middle of an image, the text is black, or really dark. So when the CT spreads into it, you won’t notice. When the CT is darker than the text, you will always have this problem. Maybe its worth it to make a new set of trapping params, if you’re doing it on the fly.
Peace to the PrintPlanet!
_mjnc