When you're working with just two colors, it can seem like you have a very limited
palette to work with. Here, I've created a gradient that goes
from a spot color to black. But you can see how anemic it looks and
it's sort of grayed out in the middle. Let's take a look at separations, an
this'll give you a better idea of what's going on.
When I go to Window > Output > Separations Preview, and then turn ns.
I get a truer look at what's going to print and it's still not good enough.
If I turn off the 187 you can see that the black starts at 100% at the top and
it fades off to the bottom. And then the red, the 187, is doing the opposite.
So, as they fade out, it gets very weak in the middle of this gradient.
So to strengthen this and to make a much more attractive gradient, I'm going to
use a great feature in InDesign called Mixed Ink Swatches.
In the Swatches panel- Go to the Panel menu, and I choose this, New Mixed Ink Swatch.
What this lets me do is combine a spot color and a process color, or several
spots and several process colors. And this can be a great way to extend at
least the illusion that you have a larger spectrum to work with in a two-color job.
So this'll just be my black plus 187, and I'm going to add 100% of my 187 To 100%
black, and you can see here that I could have less then 100%, and keep this in the
back of your mind. When you're working on jobs that involve
spot colors, especially if you're working on a two color job, this can make it look
like you have more crayons to work with. So I'm going to click OK, you can see
that new little icon there that tells me that this is a Mixed Ink Swatch.
And now, I'm going to use that to modify my gradient.
So, instead of having just black all by itself for this stop, I'm going to change
that so that it uses that black plus 187. And immediately you can see the change in
that gradient. I'll click okay.
And anytime you're using spot colors, it's always a good idea to double check-
By going into separations preview an turning on separations, because that
turns on overprint preview. An we already know that we just have two
colors, but keep that in mind to, even if you aren't going to wake up that
Separations panel. Up under View, and it's the first item so
it's easy to overlook, Overprint Preview gives you a truer rendition of color onscreen.
And especially, if you're using blending modes or anything like that with spot
colors, again, it gives you a truer rendition of what you're doing and you
have a better idea of how this is going to print.
So in the future, when you're working on two-colored jobs and it seems to you that
you're very limited in your range. Remember this, you can create mixed ink
colors and you can greatly extend, what you can do in that project.