Photoshop Silver Tritone

M

Mash69

New Member
Hello,
I am looking for a bit of advice. I have a customer who wants to print a photo book litho using silver in a duotone or tritone. I am helping him create his images and was wondering if anybody had managed to print tritones using silver and warm grey?

I am trying to create the Photoshop duotone curves and I am having a little trouble. Obviously because silver is opaque you really only want it to be in the highlight and maybe midtones but how much silver do you use?

Any help would be gratefully received.
 
Mash69 said:
Hello,
I am looking for a bit of advice. I have a customer who wants to print a photo book litho using silver in a duotone or tritone. I am helping him create his images and was wondering if anybody had managed to print tritones using silver and warm grey?

I am trying to create the Photoshop duotone curves and I am having a little trouble. Obviously because silver is opaque you really only want it to be in the highlight and maybe midtones but how much silver do you use?

Any help would be gratefully received.
Click to expand...
You really need to talk with your print provider on this - as each will have different tolerances.

This is a must!
 
Thank you for your reply.
Unfortunately we are the printers. We are going to do a print test next week to see if the idea works.
 
Mash69 said:
Thank you for your reply.
Unfortunately we are the printers. We are going to do a print test next week to see if the idea works.
Click to expand...
Well then it's in good hands!

You are correct, metallic ink is opaque and I'd suppose for any metallic colour I wouldn't go below between 35-40% screen.
Consider and underlay colour if using non gloss stock - so it sorta seals it. Otherwise you might not get the leafing.
AQ or UV coating? Could dull the colours... maybe.
Try not to have any metallic ink the shadows - if that makes sense.

Would be interested to see how it turns out.
 
hankscorpio said:
Well then it's in good hands!

You are correct, metallic ink is opaque and I'd suppose for any metallic colour I wouldn't go below between 35-40% screen.
Consider and underlay colour if using non gloss stock - so it sorta seals it. Otherwise you might not get the leafing.
AQ or UV coating? Could dull the colours... maybe.
Try not to have any metallic ink the shadows - if that makes sense.

Would be interested to see how it turns out.
Click to expand...
Thank you that makes perfect sense. We will be printing on a silk paper and using an AQ seal. We are going to be doing a print test next week and I will be sure to let you know how it goes. Would you happen to know if that as we will be using just grey silver and black when I adjust the duotone curve should I keep a straight linear curve and just adjust depending on highlight mid tone or shadow?
 
Don't apply the seal too early - as the leafing won't have happened. Might take a bit of testing for timing.
I'd aim for the midtones and highlights. So whatever works best.
You could probably do a drawdown - or setup several tests on each sheet to see what comes out best.
 
Many eons ago I remember doing a muted mid-dark green and coppery-gold one. It’s pushing 25 years ago now, so don’t ask me any details of how, but I do know it was successful. Looked very striking. As Hankscorpio says, the metallic was kept towards highlights and out of the shadows to avoid it all getting muddy, if I remember correctly. I do remember the printers doing sheets of tests. I set up a document with the areas of gold varying.

One other job I remember doing was a solid metallic background, then printing a duotone over that. Again, a long time ago now.
 
Thank you for your reply. We are going to do a print test next week, fingers crossed. I think, as you say, keeping the metallic out of the shadow is the main thing. Thanks to you and others on the forums I am starting to get my head around it. The main bit of confusion I have is creating the tritone curve. We want the images to look natural, so no weird coloured areas and so I am thinking rather than a curve I need to create straight lines for each colour but restricting the silver to the highlight and mid tones and the to black the shadows with the grey somewhere between the other 2. Not 100% sure though.
 
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