Spot color separations are often needed if you have customers on a budget and want some pizzazz but not the bigger price for four color process. Fortunately, once you learn how to use spot color, it is fairly easy and straight forward in DRAW. It is best to use the Color Docker and to stick to one Pantone palette and not jump around, even if you are used to a certain year of CorelDRAW and like the names of those colors, you are only dealing with a few letters difference on the ending. The plate maker will see lots of colors for one color if you aren't tidy. You can use the black from your normal CYMK palette for your black, do not use the RGB black, it will separate to CYMK. The seeing of a lot of plates is a big deal, your printer will have quoted you a price on artwork ready to go to press and not one they must fix for you, also they are not going to print several plates extra for mistakes you make with spot color, so you have to get it right or it is costly and aggravating.
There is no transparency when working with spot color so you have some work arounds to how to render images. You can do drop shadows and fill them with spot color, and there is a beautiful discription of how to do this on the Corel.com website. Spot Color Shadows
Start simple, just two colors, one spot color and black, and then go to print preview and choose Spot Color in your print preview pane. You will see the colors you have used and if you have done it correctly, you will just see two colors. If not, Oberon has a script that can get rid of offenging colors one at a time. It is a color replacer script and it works very well, I have only used it in 12, I assume that since their other scripts work, they are just as good in 11, and earlier. Color Replacer Script
As I said, no transparency, and you can achieve percentages of color with the slider on the color rollup. Spot color works in blends and also in gradients. But I have only gotten one spot color at a time in Contours. I have not used it for Extrusions yet. Drop Shadows can also be made using the Blend Tool, and the clever use of Power Clips can mask out areas that the blend-shadow isn't attractive for.
Of the various graphics programs out there, CorelDRAW far excells the rest in terms of Prepress and Spot Color Separation. Spot color is IMPOSSIBLE if you forget that you cannot use Lenses.
There is always a way to meet the challenge and create a design that makes the best of a limited palate.
Your local printer will love you. I know, I work for my local printer and use spot color every day. The local college graphic arts teacher calls me for advice on how to get the best out of spot color. I should get his pay!
Three color separations are about the same as two. When you have a black outline, you have to remember to spread the black in the color separations tab and this gives the pressman more leeway to get your print job printed right the first time. You can also do manual trapping, in which case you set the artwork up in layers with black being the top layer (since you are outling). The trick to this technique is that you cannot allow the computer to know about your traps or it will get rid of them, you can do this by printing only one layer at a time and turning off the printing icon on each layer as you output to the plate maker. If your printer has a good graphic artist, they will know what you have done and appreciate your effort. Not all who work at a printer are seasoned graphic artist. You may need a letter explaining why you did what you did and why it will work, etc., etc.
I was a graphic artist before computers were used for graphic arts, the method of doing the above is much like doing a manual color separations with layers of acetate and rubylith and cutting your separations by hand.
These days people think they are so cool if they use Word and MS Publisher. I spend my time fixing what won't work with a post script printer.
Fortunately, Corel has some great tools to help with the Microsoft fiascos mentioned above.
But it is beyond the scope of this topic.
Every day's a new day, "draw" on what you've learned.
Sally M. Bode
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