9 Replies Latest reply: Dec 29, 2010 10:19 AM by Wade_Zimmerman RSS

    Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV

    mhossey Community Member

      I had someone ask me to design a logo, they said it would be used in print and tv. They were adament about knowing "alpha channels" Im not super familiar with them but have played around with them. Is there anything I need to do or not do with alpha channels to make sure the logo looks its best in print, and tv other than cmyk? I've also heard about spot colors but havnt played around much with them either... I should probably use them for logos as well? On the few projects I have done I have only used CMYK and made sure the logo was vector

        • 1. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
          snunicycler Community Member

          well for one, illustrator does not support alpha channels. photoshop does though. if they want to see the alpha channels i would make the logo in illustrator and then place it in photoshop (RGB). but i don't know WHY that is important to them... maybe they just want to make sure that the logo is done in RGB? but CMYK has alpha channels too... i dont know, i dont think you need to do anything special other than making it RGB

          • 2. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
            mhossey Community Member

            I wouldnt think so either, but I thought I would check....if he listed something about it maybe he has had a bad experience with it in the past. what about spot colors

            • 3. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
              [scott] CommunityMVP

              My guess would be that they heard "alpha channels" from someone at TV production who wants to be certain they aren't given a jpg o the logo or something. They probably have little clue what alpha channels actually means.

               

              As for Spot.. you can't in an RGB image. You'll simply have to indicate the appropriate callouts for the spot to RGB conversion. It's always a good idea to indicate all colors used in a logo in spot, CMYK, and RGB breakouts.

              • 4. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
                snunicycler Community Member

                sorry, forgot about that part of your question.

                i would use spot colors just because that always helps with making sure that the logo always looks the same (or as close as possible).

                • 5. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
                  mhossey Community Member

                  Awesome, thankyou.....last final thing...where are the spot colors located, and is

                  it just as simple as choosing for a palette of colors...just not so many color options

                  for the spot colors?

                   

                  Im still figuring out everything basic

                  • 6. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
                    Mike Gondek2 Community Member

                    Give them a logo in 2 formats

                     

                    .ai - (CMYK with Spots as needed) for print, and if they happen to edit in Adobe software they can do scaling effects without getting rasters

                    .psd or .tga - (RGB with a channel for transparency)

                     

                    Ask them though what bitmapped format they prefer, they may possibly ask for targa (.tga). Don't export a .tga from illustrator though as you will lose your transparency. Export form illustratror to .psd, then in photoshhop command click on the layer to select transprency, and make a channel from this and save as .tga.

                    • 7. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
                      snunicycler Community Member

                      there are a lot of spot colors but the standard in the US is Pantone. open your swatch libraries, go to color books, then choose which book you want.

                      Picture 1.png

                      i got to this by clicking on the pallete options of the swatch pallete. also, here is a neat trick to change colors to spot colors if you are in cs4 or cs5

                      • 8. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
                        Wade_Zimmerman Community Member

                        They just want the logo to have a transparent background Illustrator will be fine and supports alpha transparency.

                         

                        No problem just import the file into any video or special effect program.

                         

                        Here created in ai

                         

                        Screen shot 2010-12-29 at 12.12.10 PM.png

                         

                        imported and placed on a layer in Premiere Pro

                         

                        Screen shot 2010-12-29 at 12.56.49 PM.png

                        It inherently is on an alpha channel and only when flattening the transparency do you have to check that you are preserving the alpha transparency.

                         

                        Screen shot 2010-12-29 at 1.02.56 PM.png

                        Though you do not need to flatten the transparency for video.

                        • 9. Re: Alpha Channels, SPOT colors and TV
                          Wade_Zimmerman Community Member

                          As for the spot colors you just have to use the best rgb equivalent I would do this by eye.

                           

                          So you give them a cmyk with the actual spot colors and an rgb file for video any video editing program i know of supports ai format and has since ai was invented it is a standard and is used everyday.

                           

                          Here I save this as a cmyk with the spot color

                           

                          Screen shot 2010-12-29 at 1.12.08 PM.png

                           

                          The imported the file in PPro and placed it on the time line you can see that Premiere Pro has no problem converting on the fly to rgb.

                           

                          The color will shift to rgb as you can see but not much so if you wish you can just give them the ai file. I always recommend the .ai format

                           

                          Screen shot 2010-12-29 at 1.14.00 PM.png