Need advice on art I received

[1964GN]

We have a 24 pc one color w/halftones (front and back) that needs to be printed on Tuesday. The customer (and alleged artist) sent the art in AI. The problem is it's all white with clipping paths etc galore making it difficult to change it to black for output.

My first thought was to just export to PS, invert, convert to bitmap, print the film and be done with it but I thought this would be a good "learning moment" for me.

My skills with IA are limited but getting better. The design is solid type in the center, a 10% striped burst with a short gradient of 10% to 0% at the end of each burst stripe, and a 15% splatter.

My real question here is how to get the different elements to where they are easy to edit, or just convert to different levels of black in AI.

Based on this limited info do you have any advice?

[Lizard]

Something like that is usually much quicker in photoshop. I would first try to put a black background, save at desired print size then open in photoshop.

[1964GN]

I've done that and then inverted it, just wonder if there is an easy way to deal with it in AI

[Command-Z]

The first thing you should try is select all then EDIT - Edit Colors - Invert Colors

The clipping paths and any blends or gradients could cause a problem, though, as AI doesn't always recognize them as invertable objects.

So you might try OBJECT - Flatten Transparency first, then invert.

Still might not work, but those are the steps I'd take. Any more steps than that won't make it worth it. Just export as PSD 300 dpi with a black background and work with it in Photoshop.

[1964GN]

Thanks for the tips... much appreciated!

[Dottonedan]

It would also help you if we were able to get a look at the art file...and see what we would do. Stuff might be slightly different than whats been addressed so far, but it's covered pretty well.


I'm wondering if you have any raster images (or even vector converted to raster) placed in there with clipping mask's added. I see that a lot these days. Thats the stuff that will need to be approached differently. Lets say you don't even have Photoshop as an option, there are ways to handle stuff like that in Illy.

[1964GN]

I didn't bring the files home with me but I'll post it tomorrow. I didn't dig into the file that deep but it's very possible there were raster images in there.

I too am seeing a lot of this kind of vector art coming in but most of it has been easy to deal with in PS... I figured it was time I start learning how to deal with it in AI