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Colorizing gradient shields in MDTv1 |
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 All Forums >> [Digital Juice Products] >> Print and Photoshop Products >> Colorizing gradient shields in MDTv1 | Page: [1] |
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deano2222 Posts: 1667 Joined: 1/11/2007 From: Cincinnati OH Status: offline
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I recently had the occasion to work with a gradient shield from the new cool Motion Designers Toolkit (V1) and wanted to change the grayscale gradient fills to PMS spot colors. It looked like it was going to be a daylong project selection a fill, then selecting all with the same fill and stroke, then changing it. Then locking the newly changed ones and going to the next in line. It looks like some of the gradient fills in the cover design of the MDTv1 box have been changed to a color. Is there a short cut in Illustrator for making black a PMS color? Is this (and shaping text for the banners) something that could be a tutorial? Thanks. _____________________________ dean |
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Colorizing gradient shields in MDTv1 - 
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Jacdaw Posts: 192 Joined: 5/5/2003 Status: offline
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Dean, Were you trying to assign multiple spot colors to one shield or just one spot Pantone color for the entire shield? Jacqui (in reply to deano2222) |
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deano2222 Posts: 1667 Joined: 1/11/2007 From: Cincinnati OH Status: offline
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Thanks for your timely reply Jacqui! I was trying to make the black turn into a PMS spot (i.e. a dark red). I know I have the option of just imagining the black plate being printed with red ink, but clients want a mock up of what their products will look like before signing off. I do a fair share of art separations for the screen printing industry and was hoping for a faster way to convert the gradients rather than selecting each and every part of the image. (FYI: as I finished one of my efforts and tried to save the image, I got a warning that some areas used a transparent fill which Illustrator said would cause an error with outputting spot colors.) I doubt I'd ever have the art go from a PMS color to a PMS white, since I'd likely select all and convert the entire fills to white for an underprint of the PMS color. I'd also be interested in knowing how you would go about shaping text in Illustrator so that the text would fit into one of the scrolling banners. I can do it, but am not sure I am doing it the right way. The once was a program call Typestyler that would do the task in no time, but it is not available for Mac OSX. I stillh ave an old OS9 machine that I can fire up, but I so want to get the old thing off my desk, Typestyler is the ONLY reason it is still there.) BeLight makes a program that approaches the functionality of Typestyler, but still has a long way to go to replace it. Thanks for your input Jacqui, I appreciate your great tutorials and your reply to my query. Edited for spelling corrections < Message edited by deano2222 -- 6/10/2009 9:21:00 AM > _____________________________ dean (in reply to Jacdaw) |
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Jacdaw Posts: 192 Joined: 5/5/2003 Status: offline
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I will do some research and get back to you today with some ideas. Jacqui (in reply to deano2222) |
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Jacdaw Posts: 192 Joined: 5/5/2003 Status: offline
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Hi Dean, Sorry to take so long to get back to you. It took me a while to figure out how to do the colorizing in Illustrator but I found it! At least I found it in CS3 Illustrator. Not sure how long the feature has been around. Take a look at the attached screenshot. In it you can see that there is a selection in the Edit Menu called Edit Colors. Under that selection you can choose to Recolor with a Preset for a 1 color job (or 2 or 3). Once you enter the requestor, you can choose what color to use ... either from a swatch library or any one of the industry standard color books such as Pantone Solid Coated, etc. To access these, click on the little icon at the bottom that I have circled in blue. I havent played around with this much but it looks like you can have a lot of control over where the color gets applied and how. I don't use Illustrator a lot so you will probably get more out of this tool than I could. Let me know if this tool is available in your Illustrator version and if it works out for what you need. Jacqui (in reply to Jacdaw) |
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Jacdaw Posts: 192 Joined: 5/5/2003 Status: offline
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Oops... forgot to attach the screenshot. Here it is. Thumbnail Image   Attachment (1)
(in reply to Jacdaw) |
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Jacdaw Posts: 192 Joined: 5/5/2003 Status: offline
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For the text warped to banners and ribbons, I will try to work on a tutorial for you in the near future. I believe there is an envelope distort in Illustrator which would work and there is also the same kind of Warp tool that Photoshop has, but I will investigate further. Jacqui (in reply to Jacdaw) |
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mptribe Posts: 4459 Joined: 7/10/2007 From: Sanford, FL Status: offline
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Jacqui has once again gone above and beyond. Great Job!
_____________________________ Marc (in reply to Jacdaw) |
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deano2222 Posts: 1667 Joined: 1/11/2007 From: Cincinnati OH Status: offline
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Wow... I will look at my CS2 to see if there is an EDIT COLORS feature. AWESOME... if not, I will have to upgrade. having that kind of functionality would be perfect for what I need. YES, Jacqui has gone well above and beyond. THANKS. (On the subject of the warped text for banners, I use the envelopes regularly but they seem to be a bit cumbersome. I was just wpndering if you know of a better way, especially for the banners that are irregular. Thanks again!!!! _____________________________ dean (in reply to mptribe) |
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deano2222 Posts: 1667 Joined: 1/11/2007 From: Cincinnati OH Status: offline
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Looks like I need to upgrade. Finally, a real feature that makes me WANT to upgrade. My CS2 doesn't seem to have this ability, but then again, I haven't had time to teally look closely. If anybody knows how to do this in CS2, it would be great to hear from you. That means I will have fewer dollars to buy JUICE. UUuuuugh.
_____________________________ dean (in reply to deano2222) |
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Jacdaw Posts: 192 Joined: 5/5/2003 Status: offline
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Dean, A quick update on this question. I have been doing some research in Illustrator for some upcoming tutorials and I came across a new way to colorize gradient shields and banners with a single Pantone color. It is something that should work in all versions of Illustrator. Here is what you need to do: 1. Open the .ai file in Illustrator. Select All and Group (Ctrl-G or Command- G). 2. Copy the group (Edit/Copy or Ctrl_C/Command C). 3. Paste in Front of original Group (Ctrl-F/Command-F) 4. Select your Pantone Color Swatch in the Swatches Palette. This should fill the entire group with that solid color. (If some objects still maintain gradient fills, try selecting no fill color and then selecting the Pantone Color for fill.) 5. With top group still selected, go to the Transparency Palette and select the Color blending mode instead of Normal from the dropdown menu. This should act to colorize the grey gradient objects below with the Pantone shade. You can group the two object groups together then so they dont come out of alignment when you move and scale. Hope that helps, Jacqui (in reply to deano2222) |
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deano2222 Posts: 1667 Joined: 1/11/2007 From: Cincinnati OH Status: offline
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Jacqui, Thanks for staying with this quest. I have been crazy busy and am now working from home. Unfortunately, I did not bring a gradient file home with me, although I did keep a pen and ink drawing. Your technique works great with the black and white file and I can see how it will work with the gradient file as well. I still think the CS4 feature might be the best way to go since the big question can only be answered when I am at work with my printer. That big question is: when printing outputs, will the black areas print black and only the colored areas print with the PMS color assigned (knocking out the black) so that the two separate for screen printing? Of course, with the pen and ink drawing in Illustrator, I can easily colorize the black outlines and the white fills by simply selecting one and then selecting "same file and stroke" for editing the colors. The gradient file will be much more challenging. To be continued... Thumbnail Image  Attachment (1)
_____________________________ dean (in reply to Jacdaw) |
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Jacdaw Posts: 192 Joined: 5/5/2003 Status: offline
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Dean, Yeah, I think you will need to do some test separations in Illustrator to see if this will work. For visualization purposes this will work, but I am not sure how Illustrator translates the Color blending mode to the shapes below. I suspect its a question of setting the correct knockout/overprint settings but I am not sure. An eon ago, I used to work at a sportswear company where we did a lot of T-Shirt and baseball cap designs so I know how tricky it can be to get those screenprinting layers right. Good luck, Jacqui (in reply to deano2222) |
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