Spot Color Drop Shadow, is it possible?

[rpilato]

A client sent an Illustrator file supposedly containing two spot colors. It includes a white text headline with a drop shadow that is supposed to match PMS 873 and no background color. To complicate matters, a PMS 873 gradient to white object, slightly overlaps the drop shadow text. Is it possible to ouput the file as 2 spot plates so that it doesn't end up CMYK?
(It appears to be doable in InDesign if the file is completely recreated in that outstanding application.) Is it possible to create a spot color drop shadow in Illustrator 9 or 10? Thank you for whatever direction you can offer me.

[John Kallios]

You need to use workarounds to make the shadow a spot color.

Either use proxy colors or use opacity mask.

Opacity mask

Make the shadow b/w
create a rectangular fill the same size as the shadow filled with the desired spot color placed directly in back of the shadow.
Select fill and shadow and apply inverted opacity mask.

It will now separate on the correct spot plate.

John

[Mike Donahue]

Good tip John.

[rpilato]

John, Thanks for the quick reply. I tried using Cyan as the proxy color using the slider to make it 100%. There was still a slight tint of the PMS color on the screen along with the Cyan shadow. When I printed seps, I was still getting info on the Magenta and Yellow plates, although the Cyan plate did show the drop shadow effect. I'll try your Opacity Mask suggestion and hope that it will work despite the fact that the drop shadow will be overlapped by cyan to white gradient object. Again, thanks for your insights.

[rpilato]

John, I tried the opacity mask method. Sweet! Hope some others can learn from it. Two more matters: The result of the opacity mask drop shadow is a little lighter than the original drop shadow, even with opacity at 100%, and none of the tranparency options seem to darken it.
Secondly, the text/drop shadow effect bleeds left and right, but the opacity mask trick cuts the bleed at the page edges. Is there a way around this besides scaling the text? Again, thanks for your brilliant help. It's great that you know your way around Illustrator so well, but even better than you and others take the time to share your knowledge with others.

bob pilato

[Doug Katz]

Yeah. He's really good, isn't he? Knows his stuff, clear as glass in his explanations.

[John Kallios]

The result of the opacity mask drop shadow is a little lighter than the
original drop shadow

You need to first make the shadow from black ink. If you made the shadow a color, then the resulting opacity mask will give you a lighter shadow. Opacity mask uses luminosity of the mask layer to determine the percentage of the bottom layer shows through. Since color luminosity is "lighter" than black, when using a color mask you end up with a percentage of a percentage showing through.

Another reason why the shadow may appear lighter is that the shadow was process and now it is a spot color. It will only appear slightly lighter though.

Secondly, the text/drop shadow effect bleeds left and right, but the opacity
mask trick cuts the bleed at the page edges

I have not have this problem, but generally my workflow in Illustrator is always far away from the page edges. I will do some tests to see if I can replicate your issue.
How are you saving the file? Are you placing it in any other dtp application? Is the clipping only on output or does it display clipped in Illustrator.

clear as glass

Almost transparent? 8@)

BTW Doug, check out the Photoshop lounge, you have got to see this thread. Very funny link to a ping pong spoof. (at least I think so and if you have not already seen it) I still have not done the freehand blend but will do it soon. I want to do it for my edification.

John

[Doug Katz]

Hilarious!

[Jeffrey Stern]

The opacity method sounds like an interesteing approach. Just wanted some clarification.

Let's say you have a rectangular object that is PMS color #1 and you add a drop shadow to this (set to black and with or without multiply on?). Is what you're doing just copying the top object (in this case the rectangle), filling with PMS color #2 and sending to the back (and perhaps enlarging to cover the shadow area- how precise does this part need to be)?

Now you choose the top rectangle with its shadow and do you then select "make opacity mask" from transparency dialog box and then select "new opacity masks are inverted"?? Is this correct? This is the part that got me somewhat confused as I saw no change on screen.

Jeff

[Wade Zimmerman]

You have to select both the shadow and the filled rectangle then select New Opacity Mask is Inverted than select Make Opacity Mask. If you forget to select New Opacity Mask is Inverted
go to show more Palette Option and you will see a check box that says Invert just check that. Make sure both the shadow and the spot color filled rectangle are selected.

[rpilato]

John,

Thanks to the further clarification, I was able to get the shading I wanted. I am now even able to use the opacity mask method to add a spot color #1 drop shadow to spot color #2 text. As for the clipping at edges problem I mentioned, it only appeared to happen because the shadow was so light to begin with. Thanks too for the ping-pong movie. It's kind of related to this thread if you think of the characters dressed in black as opacity masks.

[John Kallios]

I am glad you found the information useful.

John