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Graphics related


Artworks black
ArtWorks overprint in black
Black and white photos
Flipping pictures
Printing rotated text in drawfiles

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Q :– When I use an overprint (lets say black on cyan) in Artworks, and put this in Ovation things won't work as an overprint anymore because Artworks black is set to Cyan, Magenta, Yellow in Ovation.... Why does not black remain black???
There's a horrible catch... this is that you load a CMYK image, i.e. an ArtWorks file, but you have the image processing options set to RGB, and so it converts to RGB, and then back to CMYK, which of course spoils things. Set the correct image processing mode, and you should have no problems. You have to watch this point. It does work as long as processing is set to CMYK (and the AW colours must be CMYK). You'd also be well advised to have Ovation Pro 2.49 or later.

As to spots this was a problem in the older versions. In the later ones, if you tick 'use spots' on the processing window and create a colour in Ovation Pro with exactly the same name as the spot in the AW file then spots will carry over.

This may well be caused by having colour correction set in Choices-Colour. The CMYK images only appear to separate as CMYK if 'No Correction' is set. This can be a big problem if there is an RGB bitmap in the document that does need colour correction when separating to CMYK as you have to use an Imagesetter Colour Table.

The 'No Correction' setting refers to the curves which are used to convert RGB to CMYK. Question for you is why RGB to CMYK would affect CMYK images, and the answer can only be if you've got RGB image processing set on one.

Q :– I have just converted an advert that was in Publisher+, to OP v2.50. The main graphic and logos, etc., are an Artworks file, with some items in overprinted black. A bitmap is placed behind (and shows through the 'gaps'. OP's text is used in the foreground as overprint black in front of part of the AW graphic (a graduated fill). The problem is that OP's text overprints all right, but the overprint stuff in the AW file does not.
Set the definition of Black in the ArtWorks file to be a Spot colour. Set its application to 'Overprint' Make sure you redefine Black before setting Overprint.

Once in OP set OP's Black to be spot. Then import artwork and use Picture.Process option to get to Process dialogue box. Tick 'Use spots'. That should do what you need (all described in Acorn Publisher 5-1).

Q :– Is it possible to command an imported single colour (black) ArtWorks file to overprint in black? At present it knocks out the underlying colour frame. As the ArtWorks file has fine lines this could present registration problems when printed in a 4 colour process.
If you set the black in the ArtWorks file to be a spot colour and its application to the artwork in question to Overprint, then import into a frame in Ovation Pro, you can use the Process window from within the Picture menu to switch on 'Use spots' and the black in the imported ArtWorks file will NOT knock out any underlying colours. The spot black and any other black still seems to fall entirely on the black separation.

When you use the 'use spots' feature, the attributes of the Ovation Pro colour whose name matches the named colour in the ArtWorks file get taken over.

Q :– I've been loading black and white photos into a document and they look OK on screen. But when I view the colour separations, I see that there is information on the CMY separations as well as the black. In fact, the black separation seems to lack tonal gradation. This suggests that the colour separations assume that four colour process will be used. Unfortunately I will be using black plus a spot colour, and need the photos just on black. Is there a setting which I have missed which prevents anything appearing on the CMY separations?
To solve the problem you have to select 'No Correction' in the General Preferences -> colour settings.

One point to consider is what image processing mode is set for the picture. By default Ovation Pro uses RGB which involves conversion to RGB space and then back to CMYK.

Secondly the 'curves' which are used to convert from RGB to CMYK do mix colours onto the CMY plates. They're designed to do that. Solution there then is to use colour choices to switch them off.

Finally one workaround that springs to mind is to enable duotoning (Picture... Process...) between black and white, but of course to have these two colours defined in CMYK space - pure K values. The picture should be in sprite format

The specific question is quite interesting because it is about greyscale. I think Ovation Pro knows nothing about GS images, it just applies the same rules as for RGB ones.

If you change aspect to a negative number in a picture frame e.g. 100 to -100 the image is flipped over horizontally.

There is a problem with printing Draw files which contain text, particularly if they're rotated - the text will often vanish. In order to cure this problem, David Pilling has written a very handy module which you can stick in your boot sequence and then forget. It's FontFix version 0.01, and you can grab it from the free software page at David's Web site. The URL of the file is:

http://www.davidpilling.com/fix.zip

Note that this fixes the problems for all applications, not just Ovation Pro.


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