DuotTone Album Cover

**hseiken** · 01 April 2015, 11:15 PM

Still working on this (this is one element of a larger design).

I was wondering who has experience doing dutone printing and if there's any kind of xara tips in terms of designing around custom duotone colors?

So far, I've essentially set my two colors and use stained glass transparency to simulate all of the screens...is there a better way to do this?

**mwenz** · 02 April 2015, 12:56 AM

Are you are using spot colors? Which ones if so? Using Named Colors designated as a spot color will hit the plate properly as a spot. However, the printer will not know what ink to use. Have you communicated with the printer about the job?

Are any of the spot colors set to overprint?

Spot colors modified by using transparency is OK. At least with mix and stained glass transparency.

**hseiken** · 02 April 2015, 03:42 AM

Originally Posted by mwenz

Are you are using spot colors? Which ones if so? Using Named Colors designated as a spot color will hit the plate properly as a spot. However, the printer will not know what ink to use. Have you communicated with the printer about the job?

I haven't communcated anything yet as I'm still working on this, but it's more or less I wanted to know if there's any pitfalls to the process. I do want to use overprinting and have the screens interact (so turning one would be necessary).

Are any of the spot colors set to overprint?

Spot colors modified by using transparency is OK. At least with mix and stained glass transparency.

Basically I guess I'm also asking about this in terms of what to send to the printer...in terms of organizing it in xara so that the places that are overprints and places where the colors shouldn't mix are all saved into 2 separate images. I use named colors so I can play around with the everything easily, but the actual arrangement/best process to go about designing work that can be sent out in this way while your image you're working with is identical...i feel like the question i'm asking is one that cannot be explained....haha

**mwenz** · 02 April 2015, 04:04 AM

Use real Pantene spot colors or one of the other spot color models your print service like (Toyo or RAL). Else you will need to tell the printer that "MySpotColor1" is really Pantone 1234 C or some such.

Got to run. Be back with more in a while.

**mwenz** · 02 April 2015, 05:12 AM

You are not going to control lpi or screen angles. But a printer capable of printing spot colors will do so.

You will send a pdf. But which type will depend upon the printer's requirements.

Xara cannot output actual duo-toned images. So don't use any bitmaps.

Overprinting spot colors can have unforeseen consequences. So ask for a press proof. Acrobat is capable of showing this effect but not 100% accurately.

Ask the printer what output profile to use when the pdf is created.

That's about it off the top of my head. If you want, once you are closer to finishing I would be happy to look at the file and offer specific advice.

Mike

**hseiken** · 02 April 2015, 07:38 AM

Originally Posted by mwenz

That's about it off the top of my head. If you want, once you are closer to finishing I would be happy to look at the file and offer specific advice.

Mike

Thanks for the advice. When I get closer to finalizing everything (I just pulled apart every element of the image to detail them out individually then I'll probably change the layout...yadadadada)i'll update this thread with relevant images.

**hseiken** · 03 April 2015, 02:48 PM

Okay, I overhauled the idea and the image and built it from the ground up after figuring out a technique to get what I was asking out ofthis which was 'how do i get the separate plates and play with the colors at the same time?' i guess...and drawing it so that it all works without much hassle.

So i figured it out and made a demo. Essentially, you treat it like paper with white out and ink...whever you want to draw something over something else or just want to have it together without worrying about interaction with other objects and the isolation of the colors, simply create a white shape to put behind it and use stained glass and bleach for all color work on top of it with your named colors. This ensures that that when you separate them out, they're properly masked already...to separate them, you simply turn the colors you don't want to use white.

I also figured out a pretty quick way to pull photos into 2 colors with decent look to them, but I'm sure other people have their own techniques...I'll put together a tutorial if anyone wants. It's geared specifically toward taking full color images down to 2 color without making it look washed out...or that it's missing a lot of color information.

Critique welcome.

Fullsized intentional misaligned version is here, color demos are on the..um...demo.