contones, spots and colour seps

[grap41]

Hi,

Here's an interesting little problem...

Dump a bitmap into a new canvas, create a couple of spot colours and use them to contone the bitmap.

Now print the colour seps and what do you get, zilch!!

Is this a problem, a known limitation, or is it me?

Cheers,

Richard

[grap41]

Hi,

Here's an interesting little problem...

Dump a bitmap into a new canvas, create a couple of spot colours and use them to contone the bitmap.

Now print the colour seps and what do you get, zilch!!

Is this a problem, a known limitation, or is it me?

Cheers,

Richard

[grap41]

Okay, I'll follow up my own post! I see a few people have read it there are no replies [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]

Can anyone reproduce this? I've done further tests with different printer drivers (Linotronic) and got different results but all wrong. By worng I mean either nothing at all or the wrong objects on the separations. I've also just sent examples to support@.xara.com.

If anyone from Xara is listening, is this known about and fixed for the next release?

The print options for spot colours and separations are there they just don't seem to work - at least not on my setup.

Thanks,

Richard

[Sean Sedwards]

Apologies for not replying sooner.

For output purposes, all bitmaps are treated as RGB and are converted to CMYK at the printer. As far as X is concerned, contoning has merely altered the RGB values of the bitmap, not created a two colour object. Your bitmap will therefore appear on the standard CMYK plates.

If you want to create just two plates, contone the image using two colours from C, M, Y & K. Seps are printed black, so it makes no difference, however the colours may not be treated equally and you may need to experiment.

Regards - Sean

[Sean Sedwards]

I've discovered it's quite safe to use C, M or Y, but black is treated as 'dark white' and appears on all the plates.

Regards - Sean

[grap41]

Hi Sean,

Excellent, thanks for that! It works fine with the test I've just done. Not too good on the eyes though when viewing the on screen version, however it does solve my immediate problem of getting the colour seps out correctly.

However it does mean there is a fundamental problem with the output of Xara. I've had people say its only really for web graphics so I expect too much but that seems a bit of a cop out really.

C'mon Xara, how difficult can it be to sort this out? (...says the non-programmer!)

Cheers,

Richard

[Mark Goodall]

As Sean says even spot colour contone bitmaps are treated as RGB rather than tints of colour. As a result they do not separate correctly to a spot plate. This unfortunately will not be fixed in Xara X 1.0c.
We will fix in later versions.

Mark Goodall Xara Ltd

[Klaus Nordby]

Mark Goodal: "Xara X 1.0c."

And WHEN is this much-needed version coming?

K