proof in ai with grayscale design

[balloonguy]

Is there an easy way to show what a grayscale image will look like when printed in white ink on a dark substrate? Inverting the colors never works for me if there are any shades.
Thanks,
matt

[blue moon]

if you have the art in Photoshop, use the place command and set it on top of the blue background. Then go to the transparency and select "Isolate blending".
If you have everything setup correctly (turn off the layer eyeball and turn on the RGB in the channels) it will show as it prints. Your seps should be in channels and the art in layers.

pierre
 

[balloonguy]

Thanks for the response. I don't know much about ps. Where is the "transparency"?

[blue moon]

Thanks for the response. I don't know much about ps. Where is the "transparency"?

transparency is in Illustrator. Go to "Windows" to open it up if you don't have it on the side with other tools.

pierre

[Sbrem]

Here's a trick we use; open the grayscale in photoshop, and convert to bitmap, and when you do choose the halftone option, set it at 40 or 50 lpi, or whatever you prefer, then raise the output resolution to 1200 ppi (much cleaner dots) and save it as a .tif in bitmap mode. Then, place it in Illustrator, and since it's a bitmap, you can make it any color you have in your pallet, though in this case, white. Put the colored background behind it, and your golden. Save as a pdf or jpeg to send out the proof, and your customer gets a nice clean picture of what it will really look like, dots and all.

Steve