Color Foils

My parents used often the expression, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”.  When it comes to art for specialty foils for the LT5C, this expression is especially true.

LT5C Final Print-Color Foils

You may find this post about using various unique materials and white with the LT5C of interest.

If you have requirements to print foils, Kraft or other unique materials, the LT5C is your best option.  Let me tell you more about a recent request from a company with this requirement.

Original Foil Print File

To start this process, a company sent us the pdf file above to print.   As I understand, they send this art to a third-party printer currently; however, they need to move this production in-house given all their SKU’s.

Preprinted Foil Labels

Reviewing their preprinted labels, we noticed a light grey, matte finish, background with blue and gold foils. Given the customer’s requirements for spot foil colors, we needed to find a way to replicate this look on a light grey background.

Although I’m not a pressman, I think the printer used some type of analog press plus foil stamping to achieve both blue and gold foils on the same label. Perhaps they used one of those very expensive presses, but for sure, the printer was not an “on-demand option”.

Original Art-LT5C Printed Without White

To start the process, Tony Molina, Graphic Artist for Color Label Solutions, thought the best way to replicate the preprinted label was to use a neutral, high gloss, silver foil.  The Afinia LT5C has the ability to print on all sorts of different media, especially foil media. Tony printed the PDF art file supplied by the customer without any of the white print options available on the LT5C.  But the result was not very good. According to Tony, “the high gloss silver foil color showed through the entire label; making the colors somewhat dull or washed out. Everything was shiny and reflective.  The words “NEW” and “1.5 GRAM” came out silver and not white as they appeared in the pdf file.  Not what the customer wanted.”

Original Art-Printed With White

One of the options you have on the LT5C is to add white to the background of the entire label. Using this option, all the colors appeared matte and dull.  Again, not what was desired by the customer.

So, in Tony’s opinion, “To get a nice blue and gold foil effect, he needed to redesign the art in a way that takes advantage of the high gloss, silver foil media background as well the white printing capability of the LT5C.  Using Adobe Illustrator, I was able to accomplish the desired results.”

Here is a summary of how Tony built the art file in Illustrator and used the capabilities of the Afinia LT5C 4-COLOR+White Label printer to achieve the requirements of our customer.

White Layer

First Tony created a layer and assigned the “SpotColor_White” background element covering the entire label except where the foil colors were desired.  Tony chose a “Peach” color as shown on the palette figure below.

White Layer

Next he created another layer, copied the same background white element and pasted it in place, and assigned a light gray color to it. He set the light gray color to overprint the white.

White and Grey Layers

The white with the grey layer on top, moved slightly to show both layers.

White And Grey Layers

The grey on top of the white layer (Peach Color) shows up as a darker red in the Illustrator file.

Background Layers With Elements

With the background layers finished, Tony added the other design elements without any background.  This method enables Tony to “TRAP” the blue and yellow colors to the background. 

"Trapped" Colors

Using this method, the blue and yellow colors will print directly onto the high gloss silver, producing the desired blue and gold foil effects required by the customer.

Final White Text

With the background and other elements completed, Tony added the final White text (NEW & 1.5 GRAM) indicated in the Peach Color.  In the top right of the picture above, you can see the list of layers Tony used to recreate the art necessary to print the desired output on the LT5C.

By using a solid, opaque, light gray background with white under print, he created the contrast allowing the blue and yellow colors to become “blue foil” and “gold foil”. 

Final Foil Print Output

Once the art was completed, Tony saved the Illustrator file as a PDF X1-a Standard pdf file.  Then, he configured the LT5C Postcript driver to print with the option “APPLICATION SPECIFIC”; meaning the designated white color elements will print behind a particular color to make the colors pop.  Plus, the white color can be used as an element as part of the overall label design.

To help graphic artists design with white, Afinia has released a design suggestion on using white. I encourage you to review this information before creating or using the LT5C to print any files with white.

Once the “ART FILE” was configured correctly, Tony was able to achieve the desired finished label using the LT5C with high gloss silver foil media.

Blue/Yellow Foils Upclose

See it here:

Tony says, “After being able to understand how “WHITE” in your design really works, the LT5C was able to represent very closely the print made from an expensive label press using most probably specific PMS inks.  The fact that we can replicate this print output using a digital printer with a silver foil label is impressive; especially given the requirement for a foil look for cyan and gold/yellow.”

With a knowledgeable graphic artist, silver foil and the LT5C, you can create great looking, color foil labels.  If you want to use various color foil labels on your products, contact us.  We’ll help you get started printing high quality labels yourself.

Guy Mikel

855-962-7670

info@colorlabelsolutions.com