April, 2007
This tutorial is going to show you how to take an actual sample of a three color envelope and set it up as an electronic file with spot colors. We will work with both Photoshop and InDesign. This process has been used for solid colors only and is not really recommended for artwork with screens. Tutorial Includes project files.
1. The first thing we will need to do is to scan the actual sample with Photoshop at 300dpi or higher. Save this file.
2. You will notice that there are three solid colors on this envelope. We have red, blue and black. For this tutorial we will be using PMS 185 for the red and reflex blue for the blue. We need to break down the scan into parts so that they can be brought back into InDesign and have the colors applied.
3. First with the Magic Wand Tool (W) select the red star.
4. Make sure that the Foreground color is white and the Background color is black. Hitting "D" and then "X" will change whatever colors are there to what you need.
5. Hit delete to change the selected star to black.
6. Now we need to erase all the rest of the art leaving just the black star. Right click with the mouse to bring up the option Select Inverse. This will cause your selection to change to everything but the black star.
7. Change the Foreground color so it is now black and the Background is white. Easiest way to do this is to hit "D".
8. Hit delete and the rest of the art will disappear.
9. Next you will need to save this art as a bitmap tif file. First you will need to change it to greyscale by going under Edit – Mode – Greyscale.
10. Then you can change it to bitmap but doing the same thing but choosing Bitmap this time.
11. You will see a window pop up. Make sure your bitmap is at least 300 dpi. If it is not then you will need to rescan the original at a dpi of at least 300.
12. Once the file is a bitmap you can save the file as a tif. To help yourself out later it is best to name the file what part of the original artwork it is. I chose to name it RedStar.tif Once saved you can close this file.
13. Now you will need to reopen the original scanned file. This is why I had you save it right after scanning. It is easier than trying to go back through the history. However, it is possible to do it that way.
14. Following the same process we used with the red star, we will do the same with the blue stars.
15. Selecting them, changing them to black and deleting everything else around them.
16. You will also need to save this art the same way as the red star. First going to greyscale and then bitmap. It is best to name this file bluestars.tif
17. I have chosen not to do the same process with the text because it will look better to typeset it in InDesign.
18. Now we will switch over to InDesign.
19. In InDesign, open the EnvelopeTemplate.indt file from the "source files" folder.
20. Now we need to Place (Ctrl-E) our original scan so that we can line up where the pieces of our separated artwork need to go.
21. Next we will duplicate the existing box. To do this we will do a Move (Ctrl-Shift-M). We aren’t actually moving the box but instead copying it. In the Move window you will keep all measurements at 0 and click on Copy instead of Ok. This creates another box right on top of the existing one.
22. Now we will Place one of our separated pieces into that new box. This time we will pull in the first of our two tif files. The first one shown is the red star tif file. When you hit ok you will see a black star appear over top the red one that was there from the original scan.
23. We will need to change this star to red but first we must open the swatch pallet and add the color swatches PMS 185 and Reflex Blue. To open the Swatch pallet you can find it under Windows – Swatches (F5).
24. Once the swatches pallet is open you will click on the little circle with the arrow head in it to bring up the options. There you will choose New Color Swatch. This will bring up another window.
25. Within this new window you will need to change some of the options. First change Color Type to Spot and then change Color Mode to PANTONE solid uncoated. You can choose to work with coated if the stock is but most envelope work is done with uncoated colors. Next you will type in 185 in the Pantone field. This will slide the list and highlight that particular color. Once 185 is highlighted you can hit Add. This adds the color to the swatch pallet. We will also need to add Reflex Blue. The easiest way to bring that color up is to type in 072 and then scroll down one. Unfortunately typing in Reflex Blue does not bring it up. Once that is highlighted you can hit Add or Ok. Add is so you keep the New Color Swatch window open but Ok adds the color and then closes the window.
26. You can now see the two Pantone colors are listed in the Swatches Pallet.
27. Now we need to apply the color to the artwork we have placed. You will need to use the Direct Selection Tool (A).
28. With that tool, click on the box where you placed the black star. You will see a different color outline box appear. This is the box around your art.
29. With that selected you will then need to click on the color you wish to apply. You will notice the black swatch is highlighted at this time. Click on the Pantone 185 U color and you will see the star change to red.
30. The next series of steps are a repeat of what you did to bring in the black star. Follow steps 21 & 22 but this time place the bluestars.tif file.
31. Then using the same process as steps 27 through 29 you will apply the Reflex Blue color to those black stars.
32. I have reset the text using a text box overlaying the text from the original scan and s you can see we have successfully recreated the artwork from our original scan.
33. It’s important though that we don’t forget to delete the box with the original scan in it. We don’t want more artwork there than what is really necessary. By holding down our Control key and using our mouse to click on the box, we can get to the under lying box. Each time you Ctrl-mouse click you move one box lower. So in this case we have to do it three times to get to our original scans box. Once we think we have it, it is a good idea to use the arrow keys to verify we have the right one selected. As you can see below I have moved the original scan down below the new art we have set up. Once you know you have the original art selected you can hit delete to get rid of it.
34. As you can see we have taken an original sample of multi-colored art and recreated it as an electronic file that can now be separated easily for spot color printing.
Download the original source files from this tutorial in Zip format Here
Copyright (c) 2007, Jacob Van Ness, All Rights Reserved
