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How do you set up spot colors?

The special colors available in digital printing – such as gold, silver and metallic – require separate preparation. These layers are not applied with conventional color printing but in an extra printing pass, so they have to be marked separately in the artwork.

Setting up gold, silver, white and clear varnish

If your goal is a pure, metallic-looking gold or silver surface (not a colored metallic effect), follow these steps:

  1. The element to be printed must be vector-based, and it must be placed on a separate layer, the topmost layer of the artwork.

  2. In the Swatches panel, create a new color and name it exactly: Gold, Silver, White or Clear – this is how the system recognizes that a separate printing process is needed.

  3. Set the Color Type of the new color to Spot Color.

  4. Under Color Mode, the composition of the color should be: CMYK: 0 / 100 / 0 / 0. This is needed for technical identification – it does not indicate the actual color shade.

Preparing metallic colors (a combination of color + metallic effect)

Metallic colors differ from gold/silver in that here the glossy, shimmering end result comes from the combination of a color layer and a gold or silver base layer.

Here is how to prepare the file for this:

  1. The metallic element you want to print must also be vector-based, and it must be placed on a separate layer, the topmost layer of the artwork.

  2. Create a CMYK color of your choice (in the Swatches panel); this will be the “color” top layer. Important: the metallic sheen shows up less on very dark colors, so it's better to choose lighter tones.

  3. In addition, create one more color in the Swatches panel:

    • Name it Gold or Silver.

    • Set the Color Type to Spot Color.

    • Color Mode: CMYK: 0 / 100 / 0 / 0.

  4. The gold/silver layer should appear with overprint under the color layer – you can set this in the Attributes panel for the relevant objects (by turning on Overprint Fill).

Check before exporting

  • In the final PDF file, the spot colors must remain spot colors, so don't convert them to CMYK during export.

Before printing, we recommend running a preflight check (e.g. with Acrobat Pro or in the InDesign Preflight panel) to make sure every spot color and layer is included correctly.

Általános szabály: mindig vektoros grafika!

A speciális nyomtatási rétegek kizárólag vektoros felületeken működnek megfelelően. Ez azt jelenti, hogy a nyomtatni kívánt arany vagy ezüst elemeket ne bitmapként (pl. JPG vagy PNG formátumban) illeszd be, hanem alakítsd őket vektoros formává – például Illustratorral rajzolt alakzatként vagy szövegként.

Az előkészítéshez használj Adobe Illustrator vagy InDesign szoftvert, mert ezek biztosítják a szükséges réteg- és színkezelési lehetőségeket.