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1. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
rob day Feb 17, 2014 12:32 PM (in response to Evil Lair)I have a print project with a spot white ink on a second page and it would be handy to quickly compare things to be sure everything is lining up,
What are you trying to line up? Is the spot white object on page 2 supposed to underprint an object on page 1—page 2 is acting like a spot separation plate?
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2. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Evil Lair Feb 17, 2014 2:31 PM (in response to rob day)That is correct, the 2nd page is the manually created spot plate for the white ink with a combination of Indesign & psd elements. Not that I expect anything to be wrong, but it would be reassuring to have a way to double check nothing got adjusted on one page and not the other.
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3. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
P Spier Feb 17, 2014 2:33 PM (in response to Evil Lair)Why aren't you using a second layer on the same page instead of a second page?
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4. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Joel Cherney Feb 17, 2014 2:37 PM (in response to Evil Lair)I don't know how to build your document correctly - I make really boring forms for a living but I do know of this InDesign Secrets post that describes a way to visually diff two InDesign documents. I recall a Javascript that did something really similar - but I didn't keep links to either one, because I just open two docs and control-tab between 'em really fast. It's a lazy man's blink comparator.
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5. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
sandeecohen Feb 17, 2014 2:44 PM (in response to Evil Lair)Evil,
Peter has asked the right question.
A spot white color should be on the same page as the rest of the text.
However, if you are having trouble seeing the spot white, you can change the appearance of the color of Paper so that it is dark enough for your spot white to be seen.
However, I assume that this is actually a separate swatch defined as a spot color.
You're not just using Paper are you?
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6. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
David W. Goodrich Feb 17, 2014 2:49 PM (in response to Joel Cherney)I wrote'em both down: InDesignSecrets Podcast 116 and its link to Kasyans’ blog post and link to his CompareTwoDocuments script. But I, too, tend to be lazy about this.
David
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7. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
P Spier Feb 17, 2014 2:54 PM (in response to sandeecohen)As a followup, I presume, as Rob has said, that you need the spot white to underprint. I would accomplish this by putting al the spot white objects on a single layer behind everything else, and SET ALL OF THESE OBJECTS TO OVERPRINT (bucause ID doesn't do an underprint). During the desing phase, your other objects will **** out your white stuff, but when you are done you can simply change the stacking order to move the white objects layer to the top, then your plates should separate correctly.
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8. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Evil Lair Feb 17, 2014 4:51 PM (in response to Evil Lair)Thanks for all the help, I think Peter has it right and I should be doing it in layers instead of pages. This will be a white ink underprint on a foil paper, with regular CMYK on top. I tried setting up a new layer above my 2 CMYK layers with the white objects, and associated psd set to multiply, and can just turn it on/off when I need it. I think that will work great. I don't have any spot colors to define the white, just going greyscale.
The InDesign Secrets suggestion from Joel is pretty neat though, I keep forgetting you can get Inception-like on your InDesign documents like that.
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9. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
rob day Feb 17, 2014 5:49 PM (in response to Evil Lair)I tried setting up a new layer above my 2 CMYK layers with the white objects, and associated psd set to multiply, and can just turn it on/off when I need it. I think that will work great. I don't have any spot colors to define the white, just going greyscale.
If all you want is white ink underprinting a CMYK image, you can make a white spot color, fill the image frame with it, and set the image to Multiply—don't need a spot color layer or a duplicate object to keep track of.
So here I have the frame selected and filled with spot white and my cursor is showing White Ink printing at 100%:
The image is set to multiply and when I turn off CMYK in Separation Preview you can see the white spot separation:
You or the printer can then print the White Ink spot along with the CMYK separations:
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10. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Evil Lair Feb 17, 2014 5:55 PM (in response to rob day)I'm afraid my layout is a bit more complicated than that, with InDesign text/objects knocking out parts of the psd image to create space for the white. For example a paragraph of text will only be visible as white ink on the foil paper, knocking out part of a background pattern in the CMYK portion.
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11. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
rob day Feb 18, 2014 4:30 AM (in response to Evil Lair)For example a paragraph of text will only be visible as white ink on the foil paper, knocking out part of a background pattern in the CMYK portion.
Here I've given my spot white a 96|0|0 lab definition so you can always see it.
Also, Peter mentioned that there's no "underprint" feature in ID, but there are Mixed Inks. In this example I've made a 50|50|0|0 CMYK swatch and a 50|50|0|0 + 100spot Mixed Ink swatch, which effectively creates an under print of white.
With the spot color turned off you can see It's knocking out CMYK:
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12. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Evil Lair Feb 18, 2014 7:21 AM (in response to rob day)Now that is slick. I've been using InDesign since 1.5 but just never do anything fancy like mixed inks before. My CMYK psd has an alternate spot white ink version as well, but I think using this method I can simplify even further.
So my layers look like this currently:
1 Spot white ink (plain greyscale version of everything, with white ink layout psd version set to multiply)
2 CMYK InDesign elements
3 CMYK layout psd
Going forward it can be this now, where I can flip between the CMYK and white ink psd layers as needed:
1 CMYK InDesign elements (with spot white mixed ink)
2 CMYK layout psd
3 white ink layout psd
One hitch I discovered is I have a linked .ai UPC code (plain 100% black) with a white underprint box to keep it readable, when I turn to the spot white separation the black UPC code graphic is knocking out the white when it should be solid.
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13. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
P Spier Feb 18, 2014 7:31 AM (in response to Evil Lair)You can set that to overprint by selecting it and opening the Attributes panel.
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14. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
rob day Feb 18, 2014 8:01 AM (in response to Evil Lair)Going forward it can be this now, where I can flip between the CMYK and white ink psd layers as needed:
1 CMYK InDesign elements (with spot white mixed ink)
2 CMYK layout psd
3 white ink layout psd
You can't use a spot color in a layer in Photoshop, it has to be set up as a Spot Channel. So if you want to avoid the Multiply method I described, you can add a white Spot Channel to the PSD and get rid of layer 3. So here I've added a spot channel with the same "White Ink" name I'm using in ID:
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15. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Evil Lair Feb 18, 2014 9:40 AM (in response to rob day)That worked the treat, the spot white channel in photoshop showed right up in InDesign so I don't need separate files/layers.
I still have a few issues:
I can't change the overprint of the UPC graphic. Either selecting the enclosing box or direct selecting the graphic, all of the overprint options are greyed out. I have a line of black ISBN text in InDesign just above the UPC that correctly gets filled in by the white ink box behind both, but the UPC won't disappear.
How would I export a pdf of just the spot white? I would need it to show the client, as well in case the printer needs it separate.
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16. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
rob day Feb 18, 2014 9:51 AM (in response to Evil Lair)but the UPC won't disappear.
You'll have to open it in Illustrator and set it to overprint there.
You can't export individual separation plates, you'll have to print separation(s) to a postscript file and use Distiller to generate the plate.
For the printer you should be able to export a PDF/X which will include the CMYK plus spot plate. They'll be able to print 5-color separations from the composite file. You just have to communicate that it's there.
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18. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Evil Lair Feb 18, 2014 1:04 PM (in response to rob day)Setting the UPC to overprint in Illustrator solved that one, awesome.
And now the *sad trombone*. Being able to easily output a pdf of the white ink from InDesign with the same exact page dimensions and placement as the CMYK, that someone can easily flip back and forth, is more important for me than any savings from streamlining the document setup. I will likely need to have 3 pdf versions of the same document (which will go through multiple iterations): a mockup, the CMYK and white ink for the client. Anything involving taking a trip to Distiller is going to change page dimensions and placement inside the document page, plus its more work than just doing it the way I was originally.
Still, I learned some neat things from all the great help, I really appreciate it.
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19. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
rob day Feb 18, 2014 1:40 PM (in response to Evil Lair)Anything involving taking a trip to Distiller is going to change page dimensions and placement inside the document page...
that someone can easily flip back and forth
You mean your client is sophistcated enough to want to check separations, but they don't have AcrobatPro? In AcrobatPro all you have to do is toggle Process Colors on and of in Overprint Preview
Distilling won't change the page dimensions, just include crops or reg marks.
Message was edited by: Rob Day
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20. Re: "Onion skin" compare two pages?
Evil Lair Feb 18, 2014 3:20 PM (in response to rob day)It's a bit complicated but my client is in another country halfway across the globe and don't speak English, and expecting them to understand just the concept of multiple pages in a pdf is a bit of a stretch. Plus this is recreating something they've already done before, so the path of least resistance is to present everything as simple and consistant as possible.














