OK, heres my problem...
Several years ago I temped at a big corporate company as design assistant. They had started a line of leaflets especially aimed at wealthy customers and the creative director decided to use a special metallic effect on the covers.
I was shown how to set the document up and although it was probably nearly five years since I used this process, I'm sure I still have it spot on.
The process was, to make a mono version of your image, take it into InDesign/Quark, and use a metallic fill (so that it colours the background. This makes the softer blacks of the image also appear quite metallic.
One thing I was not completely certain about was using a tint of a metallic pantone. The colours we used back then were quite pale shades of gold that I'm sure must have been tints as there aren't any shades that light in the metallic swatches. I have had a look around on forums and the general consensus seems to be that tints of metallics are fine to be printed.
However, the brochure I am working on will be pretty expensive to print, even a sample - so getting the effect wrong would be a bit of a disaster.
So far, I'm not sure my printers understand the effect I'm trying to achieve and they seem to think the only way to go about it would be to print a solid layer of the metallic pantone, then print the image on top. I have a few problems with this process - The image is quite intricately detailed and getting rid of the white background in order to make it a transparent layer against the metallic will be a complete nightmare and take ages to get perfect. Also - the other designer at my company, who is always so sure of himself, seems to think you can't print tints of metallic... I still think he is wrong, especially as there seems to be a lot of people in forums that say otherwise.
Should the printers be able to do the effect I am after? Does anyone know if this process has a technical name that I can use in order for the printers to understand what I'm looking for? Is the method I have been using to set up the document the best way for the printers and can anyone reassure me that metallic tints are possible to print? Any metallic golds/bronzes even close to what I wanted to use are way to dark against the black image.
Any advise would be hugely appreciated. I was under the impression that everyone understood the effect I was aiming for till last week and now I only have 4 days to get it ready to go to print :icon_crying:
Several years ago I temped at a big corporate company as design assistant. They had started a line of leaflets especially aimed at wealthy customers and the creative director decided to use a special metallic effect on the covers.
I was shown how to set the document up and although it was probably nearly five years since I used this process, I'm sure I still have it spot on.
The process was, to make a mono version of your image, take it into InDesign/Quark, and use a metallic fill (so that it colours the background. This makes the softer blacks of the image also appear quite metallic.
One thing I was not completely certain about was using a tint of a metallic pantone. The colours we used back then were quite pale shades of gold that I'm sure must have been tints as there aren't any shades that light in the metallic swatches. I have had a look around on forums and the general consensus seems to be that tints of metallics are fine to be printed.
However, the brochure I am working on will be pretty expensive to print, even a sample - so getting the effect wrong would be a bit of a disaster.
So far, I'm not sure my printers understand the effect I'm trying to achieve and they seem to think the only way to go about it would be to print a solid layer of the metallic pantone, then print the image on top. I have a few problems with this process - The image is quite intricately detailed and getting rid of the white background in order to make it a transparent layer against the metallic will be a complete nightmare and take ages to get perfect. Also - the other designer at my company, who is always so sure of himself, seems to think you can't print tints of metallic... I still think he is wrong, especially as there seems to be a lot of people in forums that say otherwise.
Should the printers be able to do the effect I am after? Does anyone know if this process has a technical name that I can use in order for the printers to understand what I'm looking for? Is the method I have been using to set up the document the best way for the printers and can anyone reassure me that metallic tints are possible to print? Any metallic golds/bronzes even close to what I wanted to use are way to dark against the black image.
Any advise would be hugely appreciated. I was under the impression that everyone understood the effect I was aiming for till last week and now I only have 4 days to get it ready to go to print :icon_crying:
