- [Voiceover] In this movie, I'll show you how to work
with and troubleshoot spot colors.
And as you may recall, spot colors are premixed inks
that do not separate to the process components
cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.
And so in the case of this logo,
we're looking at a total of three spot colors
and nothing more.
They all come to us from the Pantone library
and there's something that says you have
to work with Pantone
but Pantone is the closest thing there is
to an international industry standard.
And so just so you're familiar
with what's going on here,
the blue is set in Pantone 285,
the greenish color is Pantone 325,
and then the text is set in Pantone Black 6.
Now as you can see, I've got my separations preview panel
up on screen.
And if you're not seeing yours,
then you can go to the window menu
and choose the separations preview command.
Problem is, I'm not seeing my inks
and that's because I'm working inside
of an RGB document.
Now there's nothing that says that you have
to work in CMYK just because you're commercially
reproducing a document.
In fact, it makes no difference whatsoever
where spot colors are concerned
because, after all, these spot colors exist independently
of CMYK, RGB, or any other color model.
However, we're not gonna be able to populate
the separations preview panel in RGB
so I'll go up to the file menu,
choose Document Color Mode,
and then choose CMYK color.
And now you'll see your inks listed here inside the panel.
Now my case I can only see the cyan, magenta,
yellow, and black inks
and that's because my panel's not tall enough.
So I'll go ahead and stretch it open
like so and now you can see the various spot colors.
In order to gain access to them,
I'll turn on the Overprint Preview checkbox
and I want you to notice how one
of the inks disappeared and that's because
I have this checkbox turned on Show Used Spot Colors Only.
If you turn that checkbox off,
then you'll bring up unused spot colors as well.
That's not really what I wanted however
so I'll go ahead and turn that checkbox back on.
Now note, if I turn off each one of the Pantone colors here
and just leave CMYK turned on
I'm not gonna see anything
because I'm not taking advantage of the CMYK inks
inside of this document.
Now that's not always going to be the case,
you can mix spot colors along with CMYK inks if you like,
it just so happens I have not done this
inside this particular document.
Alright so I'm gonna ahead and turn off CMYK,
at least, I'd like to.
Problem is, I can't turn it off
when nothing else is turned on.
So I'll just go ahead and turn on Pantone Black 6 C
and you can see that brings back the text.
Then I'll turn off CMYK because after all,
it's not making any difference here.
And now I'll turn on Pantone 285
and I want you to notice something.
Where these very thin lines around these edges right here
and that is the genuine problem, by the way.
And we have a similar problem associated
with the Pantone 325 plate.
I'll go ahead and turn it on
and then turn the blue plate 285
off and now notice we have this thin line
over here on the right-hand side
and we also have another thin line,
it's a little bit shorter,
over here on the left-hand side.
And so to take care of that,
what I'm gonna do is press Control+0
or Command+0 on a Mac to zoom out
and I'll go ahead and turn Pantone 285 back on.
And then I'll just go ahead and marquis this path
and the problem, by the way,
if I twirl open this solid color layer,
here inside the layers panel,
I've got a clipping group right there.
And notice that that group contains a big blue shape
right there that's clipping the greenish shape.
And while that's generally a great way to work,
it's not serving our needs in this case
so I'm gonna press the backspace key
or the delete key on a Mac
in order to get rid of that logo
and then I'll turn on the base shapes layer right here
which contains my original path outlines.
Problem is, I can't see as darn thing
and that's because I have CMYK turned off
so I'll go ahead and turn it back on
and that way I can see these shapes
that are currently set in black.
And then I'll just go ahead and marquis 'em like so
and then I'll duplicate these shapes by pressing the ALT key
or the Option key on a Mac
and I'll drag that purple square
up to the solid colors layer like so
and then I'll turn off the base shapes layer
in order to protect it.
Alright now, if you're working along with me,
just go ahead and click off the path to deselect them
and then click on the rings,
notice they're represented by a compound path,
and then Shift+click on the big circle.
Now what we wanna do is divide these paths apart
using a pathfinder operation.
And so, just to reduce the screen clutter a little bit here,
I'm gonna grab the Separations Preview tab
and I'm gonna drag it and drop it into this group
down here at the bottom of this column of icons.
So as you can see, I've gone ahead grouped the panel
with the actions and links panel.
Of course, you can go your own way on that.
Then, I'll go up to the Window menu
and choose the PathFinder command
to bring up the PathFinder panel.
Now what you wanna do, just keep things as tidy as possible,
go ahead and click on that fly out menu icon
and choose PathFinder Options
to bring up the PathFinder Options panel
and then turn on both of the checkboxes
both Remove Redundant Points
and Divide and Outline Will Remove Unpainted Artwork.
Then, click Okay.
And that's just going to help get rid of the clutter.
Next, you wanna divide these paths apart
by clicking on the first icon in the second row
which is the Divide Operation.
So just go ahead and click on it,
that'll bust up the paths.
Then you'll wanna go up to the Object menu
and choose the Ungroup command
or you can press Control Shift+G
or Command Shift+G on the Mac.
Alright, now what you wanna do is click
off the paths once again to deselect them.
Select this path right there, this bottom one
and then go ahead and click on the first swatch
up here in the control panel and change it to Pantone 325.
Then what we wanna do is marquis these paths right there
because, as you can see, there's a few of them.
And just to get a sense of what's going on here
I'll just drag these guys apart
so you can see that things are busted up pretty good there.
Alright, now I'll press Control+Z
or Command+Z on a Mac to undo that movement
and I'll just go ahead and marquis these paths right here.
And then I'll Shift+click on these remaining path outlines.
This guy down here and this one
over on the left-hand side as well,
just to make sure they're all selected.
And then, I'll click on the first icon
in the first row of the PathFinder panel,
which represents the Unite Operation.
That'll go ahead and fuse all those paths together.
And then I'll change its fill color
by clicking one the first swatch
over here in the control panel
and changing it to Pantone 285 C.
Alright now what I wanna do is subtract the rocket
from both of these shapes
so I'll go ahead and click on the rocket
and notice that it's a dynamic compound shape.
I wanna go ahead and fuse it into a single path outline
and you can do that by, once again,
going to the PathFinder panel
and clicking on the Expand button.
Now, go up to the Edit menu and choose the Copy command
or you can press Control+C
or Command+C on the Mac
and then Shift+click on this greenish path,
add it to the selection, and click on the second icon
on the first row here inside the PathFinder panel
which is Minus Front.
And that'll go ahead and subtract away that rocket.
And now I'll just go ahead and combine these guys together.
I'll go up to the Object menu and choose Compound Path
and choose Make because, after all,
they share the exact same fill attributes.
Alright now click in the big blue shape here
and I'll go to the View menu and choose Paste in Front
or you can press Control+F, or Command+F on a Mac
in order to paste that copy of the rocket.
And then Shift+Click on the big blue path
and click on the Minus Front icon once again
or you can press that keyboard shortcut
of Control+4 or Command+4 on a Mac,
which repeats the last PathFinder operation
and we end up with this effect here.
Alright now, just to make sure everything's working the way
it's supposed to, go ahead and bring back
the Separations Preview panel.
You can turn off CMYK if you want
but then go ahead and turn off Pantone 325
and notice now we no longer have those faint outlines.
And the same goes, by the way,
if you were to turn on 325 and turned off 285.
And I'll go ahead and click off that path to deselect it.
And you can see that we no longer have this edge
over here on the right-hand side or
on the left side of the planet.
Alright, now press Control+0, Command+0 on a Mac,
to zoom out and I'll go ahead and turn Pantone 285 back on.
Somehow, I managed to turn on the yellow ink.
I don't want that so I'll just go ahead and turn it off.
And that is how you work with premixed spot colors
and how you troubleshoot your artwork to make sure
that you're getting the exact effect you're looking for.