by
Greg Hatem
Special
to Digital Media Designer
http://www.alap.com
[Editor's
note: This week we have a bonus tutorial supplied to us by the
good folks at A
Lowly Apprentice Productions (ALAP). ALAP is a software developer
that makes plugins for both QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. We
hope to feature more of their know-how in the coming months. This
week we're presenting a tutorial for QuarkXPress, since most of
our previous tutorials have been fairly heavily geared toward
InDesign. Our tutorial involves ALAP's product ImagePort and Adobe
Photoshop. ImagePort is an XTension for QuarkXPress that provides
additional functionality for native Photoshop files within Quark,
including the ability to preserve Photoshop layers. Look for future
installments covering important tips for print production using
both applications. —Dave]
Printing
a varnish plate from QuarkXPress for images that require masked
areas can easily be accomplished using the XTension ImagePort.
This will demonstrate how to setup and print varnish plates.
 Create
varnish plates as channels
This can be accomplished in Photoshop by painting within an
alpha channel or by saving a selection as an alpha channel.
To saving a selection as an alpha channel, Option click on
the Save Selection as Channel icon found at the bottom of
the channels palette. Set Color Indicates: to Selected Areas.
The area(s) defined in the alpha channel specify what is to
be varnished.
In this example, two alpha channels were created in a CMYK
Photoshop image and named Gloss Varnish and Dull Varnish. |
|
 Set
alpha channel to Spot Color
In Photoshop, assign each alpha channel as a Spot Color
in the Channel Options dialog,
The
Channel Options dialog can be accessed from the Channels
Palette by double clicking on the alpha channel created
in the previous step.
Here
we specify that the alpha channel named Gloss Varnish is
set to be a Spot Color.
|
 Save
the CMYK image as a Photoshop .psd file
Save your image in Photoshop as a Photoshop native format
file. Note: Be sure that "Spot Colors" is checked.
This will ensure that the saved image will contain the necessary
information to be used by ImagePort. |
| Go
to Page 1, 2, Complete,
Home |
