Overprint and Knock-out issues

Submitted by jHouse on Mon, 2008-07-21 14:51.

Member's Forum

I'm having some issues with a printer, regarding drop shadows.
The print is coming out knocked out so the shadows look more like glows. He reckons its a problem my end, but I don't know how - or if its even possible - to change knock-out settings in inDesign. I've never had any problems with this before.

Anyone know?
Also, is there a way of doing the same thing in Photoshop or Illustrator?

Thanks

Jack

Hard one to direct you through...

Submitted by caoimghgin on Mon, 2008-07-21 16:14.

The only way to give you some direction is to have you create PDFs of your documents and examine the plates on screen in Acrobat Professional. Use Advanced --> Output preview to bring up a dialog which allows you to turn off/on CMYK plates. Experiment a little and then use Acrobat to give feedback.

The problem with giving directions here is that drop shadows can be raster or vector and created in many different ways and applications. If you are still having problems, give us more info on the drop shadow and we can probably help.

1) How was the drop shadow created, which application?
2) What elements do the drop shadows fall on? Vector solid background in InDesign? Other raster/vector files imported into InDesign?

Good luck.

What kind of file are you

Submitted by pokie on Mon, 2008-07-21 17:22.

What kind of file are you sending them? Some earlier versions of PDF do not support transparencies.

Create a pdf/x-1a. It

Submitted by natobasso on Mon, 2008-07-21 19:44.

Create a pdf/x-1a. It flattens transparencies during ripping:
http://cache.search.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=flatten+transparency+in+pdf+file&fr=moz2&u=www.adobe.com/designcenter/acrobat/articles/acr7ip_prntwrkflw/acr7ip_prntwrkflw053107.pdf&w=flatten+flattening+transparency+pdf+file+files&d=JiM6hi72Q_LX&icp=1&.intl=us

And in 4C printing I wouldn't imagine you'd need to "Knock Out" your K shadows?
def: "Knockout: A space left in a document for the later insertion of some form of graphic image. The term knockout is also used to refer to “white type” or, in other words, type that prints as a reverse, or, in fact, does not really print at all, allowing the color of the page to show through a background in the shape of type."

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Powerpoint is not a design application

Nato:

Submitted by jHouse on Tue, 2008-07-22 08:54.

"type (or other object/effect) that prints as a reverse, or, in fact, does not really print at all, allowing the color of the page to show through a background in the shape of type." This is exactly what's happening with the shadows. My shadows are basically white, and in my case on a cyan background. So it looks rubbish.

I've figured it out though, its in appearance of black in indy and I just need to tick overprint.

Hmmm. Never had this issue before.

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probably because most

Submitted by gwells on Tue, 2008-07-22 12:33.

probably because most printers take care of trapping, overprinting, knockouts, etc for you.

OOOPPPSS NEVER MIND!

Submitted by ireid on Tue, 2008-07-22 12:46.

I See it in the settings. :)

You should post a screen shot of the Pref Pane in InDesign.

"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda

I am confused. . .

Submitted by ireid on Tue, 2008-07-22 12:44.

How does the 'Appearance of black' check box impact the actually RIPPING of overprint black from InDesign?

"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda

So you meant Overprint, not

Submitted by natobasso on Tue, 2008-07-22 15:33.

So you meant Overprint, not Knockout, right?

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Powerpoint is not a design application

Semantics. He meant

Submitted by mbennett2 on Tue, 2008-07-22 16:34.

Semantics. He meant knockout. His shadow was knocking out and that was the problem. Clicked overprint and it is fixed.

No, I was just confused. It

Submitted by natobasso on Tue, 2008-07-22 17:35.

No, I was just confused. It sounded like his problem was just that he set his shadows to Overprint...

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Powerpoint is not a design application

Right!

Submitted by ireid on Tue, 2008-07-22 18:14.

He DIDN'T Set his shadow to overprint and it knocked out the cyan underneath.

I am STILL confused as to HOW in seting up a PDF FAW you can SET a 'drop shadow' (which is BASICALLY a transparency effect) to overprint in INDesign?

"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda

I would imagine it is

Submitted by mbennett2 on Wed, 2008-07-23 21:20.

I would imagine it is because Illustrator is notoriously bad at handling transparency when dealing with postscript. It has gotten better, but to this day, I try to avoid effects in illustrator from having it bite me in the past.

Drop shadows are essentially gradients with one of the colors being transparency. If InDesign interpreted the drop shadow as a solid image (think flattened tiff), it would knock out the area behind it, unless set to overprint. Sometimes these things happen when we go from Illustrator to InDesign to a pdf.

Ok buuut

Submitted by ireid on Thu, 2008-07-24 10:45.

Where in InDesign do you go to SET the drop shadow to Over print? And wouldn't it be better IF you just used a rich black for the drop shadow?

"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda

You set it in Illustrator.

Submitted by mbennett2 on Thu, 2008-07-24 15:27.

You set it in Illustrator. That is where the drop shadow was built. This is essentially a communication problem between Illustrator and InDesign.

The idea behind using rich black is to build a color that is darker (richer) than 100%K. If you used a rich black and then screened it back to make a drop shadow, it would be a nightmare. I personally rarely use a drop shadow that is more than 20% of black. Rich black would sort of defeat the purpose of a subtle drop shadow.

Oh Ok. BUUUUT

Submitted by ireid on Thu, 2008-07-24 15:36.

In this case didn't he do the drop shadow in InDesign?

"Try not, Do! or do not, there is no try."
-Yoda

"I've figured it out though,

Submitted by mbennett2 on Thu, 2008-07-24 16:35.

"I've figured it out though, its in appearance of black in indy and I just need to tick overprint."

My mistake. I read Indy as Illy and based my answers upon that. In InDesign, I would assume he went through Object>Effects which opens a dialog that includes overprint options. Doh.

Wow

Submitted by jHouse on Tue, 2008-08-05 08:11.

Cheers guys for all the posts!!

Well, I'm still having issues! Sometimes the shadow appears deep and and a rich black, but sometimes it appears almost white like a glow!???!

The Overprint tick box, from my understanding, surely wouldn't change appearance on the screen, as this is merely what happens on the press and you can't recreate that on screen....or can you??

Hmmm. It's kinda annoying cos it really doesn't look right!

Cheers if anyone has any more ideas!

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