Spot color also has a lot of pitfalls!

How to solve the printing color difference? The easiest and most brutal way is to use spot colors.

However, I must tell you cruelly, do not spend the money to use spot colors and everything will be fine.

In the actual printing process, spot color also has a lot of pits, only to avoid these pits, in order not to spend money in vain.

Before entering today's [spot color avoidance guide], let's clarify when it is recommended to use spot colors.

1️⃣ in the time of doing process representation, is the need to use spot colors to distinguish;

2️⃣ due to the CMYK color gamut being small, not all colors can be expressed when;

3️⃣ want to show high-grade time;

4️⃣ the entire print is only one or two colors.

Next, let's take a look at where the pit of the spot color is.

Spot color overprinting

As spot color is generally the case with 100% of the net, that is, the ink is adjusted out of what color, printed out is what color, the color will not be false.

Under normal circumstances, the first printed spot color, and then printed 4 colors, before the printing house published, they are in order to prevent inaccurate overprinting, produce the situation of revealing white, will be in the spot color block edge and then add 0.1 ~ 0.2mm stroke to do overprinting, so operation, is to not produce white edge, and so fine overprinting, do not look carefully, it is not visible, but the density of the substrate to be high.

↑ A toothpaste brand is printed with a dedicated red and green color.

Like the following, red is a spot color, that is, the spot color is overprinted on four colors must be sure to communicate with the printer, first print four colors, then printed the spot color, the order is different, and the effect is not the same.

File processing also needs the designers to pay attention to the point, in the design of spot colors, please do not add other translucent effects, or gradient colors on top.

For a simple example, I used C100, M100, Y0, and K0 color blocks to do the base color, add the C100 color block on top, and then the left picture of the base color to do the spot color, the right side of the same, or four colors, there is no difference in the computer ↓

However, once taken to print, this will happen ↓

Why is this?

I put the spot color simulation into the printing version, you will see that when you do transparency, the spot color version of the corresponding place on the corresponding reduction in transparency, which makes spot color printing and computer display not match. 5

Dark black and metallic spot colors, the effect of adding shadows on top is very inconspicuous, in the design of the time, pay attention to it.

Add external light effect on the spot color, this can be done, but sometimes the file is not obvious or the printer output is careless, this time you must instruct the printer to have this effect, and print out the range, which is not as large as your computer to see.

If you are not sure what the printing effect is like, put the overprint preview to tick (Note: only in CMYK mode, you can turn it on).

🔘 Spot color difference

Yes, spot color is also a color difference, if you have a large amount, or turn the single frequency is relatively high, you can talk to the printer, and let him go to the ink factory to deploy the color you want so that each batch of spot color will be accurate.

If you print so many thousands of sheets each time, and still have half a year to place a single, the printer's master will help you adjust this spot color every time you print, it will certainly be color differences, after all, is manually adjusted, it is difficult to be adjusted accurately, even if you take the last print, even if the printing master has a ratio table, he is not sure can be adjusted, this time, you can only compromise, as similar as possible.

Quantity discrimination

Printing is the more you print, the more stable, you print 1000 copies, take the first and last, and the color deviation is not a little, but if you print more than 10,000 copies, for every 1000 take one out to see, you will find that the back of the thousands of copies, the color is very close.

Color absorption

In PS to absorb the color of the picture, and in AI to absorb the color of the picture, the value is not the same, even in AI, you embed the picture and do not embed the picture, absorbing the color is not the same.

So, you need a four-color color matching manual, if you have a real sample, take the manual and the real sample to compare, no real sample, use the color you absorb, find that color in the manual, and then compare your monitor, although not very accurate, it is better than you mess with the color.