Prepare a color chart for metallic printing
Do you have a machine capable of printing with "Metallic silver" ink ? Here's how to create color swatches with metallic colors with Coraye.
Last updated
Do you have a machine capable of printing with "Metallic silver" ink ? Here's how to create color swatches with metallic colors with Coraye.
Last updated
For the purposes of this tutorial, we used an Epson SC-S80600 printer using 9 inks + 1 "Metallic Silver" ink to "metallic" the colors.
The exercise consists of creating a metallic PANTONE C color chart
For nesting and printing we used the RIP Caldera v14
This first step is described in the chapter "Preparing to print and cut a color chart":
Once the swatch is generated, import it into Illustrator. We have created a 45 pages color chart in A4 size, containing 60 PANTONE Colors per page.
Duplicate the main layer
Rename both layers, then deselect the main layer we named "Swatch Book" We are going to work only on the layer that we named "Metal".
The first step is to create a new "Metal" shade defined in spot color.
Link to help you create a new shade in Illustrator: https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/using-creating-swatches.html
It is important to define this shade in spot color
The CMYK value with 50% black will only be used for display and will not allow you to manage the amount of Metallic ink.
When the shade is created, a window will appear that will allow you to define the percentage of metallic ink: In our case, the value to obtain the desired rendering is 50%.
Since we don't want to "metallize" the texts, we will remove them from the "Metal" layer To do this, select all the texts with the option: Select > Object > All text objects
Delete selected texts
There are only the objects that you want to "metallize"
To select the areas on which we will apply the Silver Metal ink, we will use the "magic wand" tool with a tolerance set to 100%
Select one of the patches with the "magic wand" tool Once all the patches have been selected, assign the "Metal" shade.
All gray "Metal" patches will correspond to "metallic" areas In our example, all the color patches and the Coraye logos will be metallic.
To allow mixing of the "Metallic Silver" ink with the other inks, it is necessary to print in overprint mode. To do this, you have to select the two layers (Swatch Book and Metal) Display the "Attributes" window and check "Overprint Fill"
o display the "Object Option" window in Illustrator: Tab: Windows > Output > Attributes
When you are going to display the pdf of the color chart, by default you will display the first layer (except if you simulate the overprint). If you want to display the colored patches rather than the gray patches, position the "Swatch Book" layer at the top.
Now all you have to do is print your color chart with your favorite RIP.
Make sure the spot colors used in your pdf document are defined in your RIP's spot color table.
