Trapping Metallic Inks

[mjansen]

I have been in the offset printing business for a number of years and when ever we hire someone new they seem to have there own way of trapping metallic inks to 4/c or PMS colors. I was wondering what other printers do when setting there files up for press and even how they run them on press would be very helpful to me.

Thanks for your help

 

[hansman]

Probably because it depends on the company preferences that they worked for.
Ink rotation etc etc.
I usually let the metallic stay sharp & spread or shrink the other colors in to it

 

[nhprinter]

Probably because it depends on the company preferences that they worked for.
Ink rotation etc etc.
I usually let the metallic stay sharp & spread or shrink the other colors in to it

As far as I'm concerned this is the ONLY way it should be done. Metallics are OPAGUE inks they belong on top of transparent inks.

 

[hansman]

I had a light green metallic that I actually had to shrink in to the other color (black type)

 

[beermonster]

it can depend on if you have UV presses or not

since we print on card only we have to have some spread/choke to allow for board movement - usually minimum about .15 then let the metallic spread as it naturally does

end of the day its a job by job thing - no UV presses here

 

[rich apollo]

I've had success spreading all colors into the metallic and running the metallic last down. As was stated earlier, metallics are opaque.

 

[KWilliams]

We half trap our metallics, as they tend to spread naturally. We choke metallics (gold/silver) with everything but black. Black will be a case by case basis depending on artwork and ink rotation.

 

[naplajoie2000]

Depends on the ink rotation. We lay our metallic first and on the web metallics are not truly opaque. We generally trap out .003 on web and .015 on sheetfed. But, that depends on the subject and the rotation. There are a lot of times that the subject is fine type, and we will trap out to help hold the detail. It always depends on subject. We use Esko Packedge and can play with trap on a individual item basis.

 

[catman]

Ads and silos

Ads and silos

I've always done minimal trapping with metallics because they have a slight natural spread.
I also assume the metiallic will be printed last although some people do print it first, with risk of hickeys.

Siloing hair against a metallics is a PITA in photoshop because you need to invert the silo mask and mask both the metallic and 4c.

alan

 

[Lukas Engqvist]

I'd go with cat, minimal, if any and metalics last so they don't go dull.

 

[Vee]

Choke into Met. Lay down Met. last.
That's always been the rule of thumb for me. Although, as mentioned above every piece has it's individual needs, and may need to be handled differently to produce good results.