[CREATE] What is a tint?

[Louis Desjardins]

2008/6/7 Olivier BERTEN <olivier.berten at gmail.com>:

>  This is a question for the printing professionals in the list.
>

>  What is a tint of ABC (technically speaking)?
>
- ink ABC printed at x%
>

Right. What happens when you ask the application to produce such a tint is
it sends to the imagesetter or platesetter the instruction to produce a
screen at the given percentage. On press, this will result in printed dots,
large or small, to produce a darker or a lighter tint. The ink itself is
alsways printed at 100% on each dot and the mix between the unprinted
portion and the printed portion on the paper fools the human eyes and makes
it believe there is a tint of that ink.

 - x% ink ABC melt with (100-x)% of white ink
>
> - x% ink ABC melt with (100-x)% of transparent varnish
>
> - ???
>
>
>  Is it used in printing or only in paint?
>

If one is going to use white ink into an ink mix, this applies to spot
colors such as Pantone. It's basically to obtain a specific color for a
specific plate.

>
>
> Subsidiary question: How do current graphic softwares deal with white ink?
> Which ones allow you to define a paper color/texture other than white and
> are able to simulate white ink (vs CMYK "white")?
>

If one wants to print white over a dark colored paper (for the sake of this
explanation), then we need a specific plate for this color, as for any other
color. On the press, the pressman will introduce white ink and this ink will
be applied to the paper in the exact same way any other ink would. This also
applies to spot varnish (the term spot here means like for any other ink
that you determine precisely where varnish will be applied, as opposed to
"press varnish" that will cover indistinctively all the surface of the
sheet).

To produce such a plate out of the application, you need to create a
specific color for white and this has to be at 100% if you want a "solid"
white. In this case, of course, CMYK all set to 0% will not result in a
white plate. It will result in no information on each plate.

Now, to simulate this on screen and on proofs, you'll have to create a color
for your paper. The white elements of your layout will be set to white
(regular white, no info on plates, all set to 0%). But beware. This will be
ok for screen and printed proofs on a white paper — where your actual
colored paper will be simulated by the paper color you've created — and
where the white ink will be simulated by the whiteness of the paper (that 0%
color). On press it's going to be a total different thing and you'll need 1)
NOT to print that simulation of the color of the paper (not output that
plate, actually, because there is no need for it) and 2) create that
specific white at 100% — the lightest possible color set as a spot color (no
CMYK here) can be used for this as I doubt one can set an opaque white at
100% in a DTP app because white requires always 0%... Remember that the name
on the plate have no effect on the ink choosen for print. It's only an
indication for the pressman. The real ink is the one that is put on press.

HTH

Louis



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