Working with client supplied files and white ink

[NZOC]

Hi all,

Fairly new to the prepress end of printing, have been in the finishing side for 20+ years.

We are running a Fujifilm Acuity 4006 flatbed.

When we receive a file from a client (PDF usually) if white is needed to be printed on the file it is usually either black or magenta on the file or white with the background in black.

What is the easiest way to get the file to print white where needed without disrupting other printed colours or printing the background (for example a file with a black background and white lettering will print the white but will also print the black, not necessary if printing on black material)?

We currently don't have file editing software but are working on getting Adobe Illustrator. We do however have Caldera RIP. What's the best way to describe to a client how we need the file supplied (in layman's terms)?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

I’d recommend Acrobat Pro + PitStop Pro rather than Adobe Illustrator if most of your files are PDF.

Layman’s terms? Presuming professional software and operators… Please supply areas that require white printed ink to be setup as a named spot colour, set to overprint and stacked or layered above all other objects.


Stephen Marsh

 

[NZOC]

I’d recommend Acrobat Pro + PitStop Pro rather than Adobe Illustrator if most of your files are PDF.

Layman’s terms? Presuming professional software and operators… Please supply areas that require white printed ink to be setup as a named spot colour, set to overprint and stacked or layered above all other objects.


Stephen Marsh

Thanks Stephen. Yes, professional software but not professional operators lol.

 

[NZOC]

I’d recommend Acrobat Pro + PitStop Pro rather than Adobe Illustrator if most of your files are PDF.

Layman’s terms? Presuming professional software and operators… Please supply areas that require white printed ink to be setup as a named spot colour, set to overprint and stacked or layered above all other objects.


Stephen Marsh

Oh, and the Adobe Illustrator is paid for now. Was recommended to us from the machine supplier. Looks like it will do the job.

 

[tlotzer]

If the fonts are not embedded in the pdf or contains only a subset of the font, you won't be able to make some corrections in Illustrator. The fonts will be missing. With Pitstop, you can do magic. I use it everyday. Worth its weight in gold.

 

[Seeking Knowledge]

What Rip are you using? With Most Rips you can select to add white under, or over for that matter, by selecting there. For example put white under all CMYK data. The only time it gets weird is if you have a ® or something like that. Adding white at the Rip will add it under the Black Circle and the Black R but it will not fill in the voided area.

SK

 

[abc]

Regarding opening PDF files in Illustrator...
I have this on speed dial it comes up so often
And I quote..


Adobe Illustrator is not, repeat is not, repeat yet again is not a general purpose PDF editor!!!!!

(To be honest, I do understand why some people think to the contrary. Some very misguided Adobe marketing folks over ten years ago wrongly trumpeted the alleged "fact" that PDF was Adobe Illustrator's native file format. In fact it isn't and never was. Illustrator's native file format is buried as private data inside what looks like a PDF file!!!)

The only PDF files that Adobe Illustrator can safely edit are PDF files that are created by the save as PDF feature of a version of Adobe Illustrator equal or less than the version you are editing with and the "preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities" option was checked when the PDF file was created. When such PDF files are created, two copies of the content are put into the PDF file - the first copy is PDF content and the second content is "private Illustrator data" which represents the content as processed in Illustrator including layer information, swatches, group information, etc. When you open a PDF file in Adobe Illustrator, an attempt is made to find that private Illustrator data. That is what is safely opened in Illustrator. If that private Illustrator data does not exist, Adobe Illustrator attempts to interpret the PDF data and convert it into equivalent Illustrator objects. Not all PDF objects are part of the Illustrator imaging model and there are some incompatibilities. For example, with the exception of linked placed objects, every graphical object in a PDF file must be in the same color space. Thus, if your non-Illustrator PDF file has multiple color spaces, it will converted to only one color space. Folks, that is a very lossy operation! Likewise, character encodings may change and may be corrupted. And some objects in your non-Illustrator PDF may be significantly modified in ways you may not find acceptable and/or discarded.

Bottom line ... in an emergency, use of Illustrator to modify or extract PDF content may work, but it is definitely not something that is valid use in a generalized PDF print publishing workflow for examining or otherwise editing a PDF file. And if you ignore this advise, you will get what you justly deserve.

- Dov

https://printplanet.com/forum/prepress-and-workflow/adobe/6028-opening-pdfs-in-illustrator

BTW - that's Dov Isaacs, Principal Scientist at Adobe (he's on the board, he'll probably be along in a minute.)

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Look into your Caldera RIP for auto white ink generation settings, above and beyond what client’s may or may not setup in their files.

The Color-Logic system can auto create white ink for VDP work, however I’m not sure if this is also the case for non VDP work.

http://www.color-logic.com/SpecialFX/vdp.html

Some videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFMjeZKkRjE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf3hraWyqeE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n31vO3lwLYI


Stephen Marsh

 

[semi-tech]

I always figured you'd just use 0% of a color rather than white anything. White tended to overprint . . .

 

[Chasfinch]

we had an acuity 1600 with the caldera RIP there were a couple of ways to setup white ink.