Bold, bright and ever so cheery, introducing our new Fluoro Pink ink! Fluoro Pink is a layer of vivid fluorescent pink ink that can be printed either as a standalone finish or combined with overprinted colour to create a variety of eye-catching effects. Unlike CMYK pinks (which are created by mixing other colours), Fluoro Pink is a dedicated ink that delivers a brighter, more vibrant print finish.
With it being a special ink, your artwork will also need to have a special set up in order for our press to know what should be in a Fluoro Pink and what should be in CMYK. This guide will help you prepare your artwork to achieve exactly that.
Things You Should Know
In order to print Fluoro Pink, your artwork must be supplied with a spot colour indicating where you would like the fluorescent pink to be applied.
This tends to require specialised software in order to work into your design. Because of this, we strongly recommend having access to the Adobe Creative Suite in order to add the necessary spot colour.
We also require artwork to be supplied as a PDF / AI / PSD file.
For the best results, we advise preparing artwork for fluoro pink as a vector. This ensures the fullest coverage is achieved when printing, especially when overprinting, and gives you greater control over how the pink is used.
Fluorescent inks are naturally more vibrant, but can look different on screen than in print
How to add standalone Fluorescent Pink to your artwork using Adobe Illustrator or InDesign
- Open your artwork in Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign.
- Open the swatches panel and create a new swatch with the following settings:
- Swatch Name – FL Pink
- Please note: The swatch name is also case sensitive.
- Colour Type – Spot Color
- Colour Mode – CMYK. 0C, 100M, 0Y, 0K
- Apply this swatch to all the components you would like printed in fluorescent pink
- Save the artwork as a PDF.
How to add standalone Fluorescent Pink to your artwork using Adobe Photoshop
- Open your artwork in Adobe Photoshop
- Make a selection of all the artwork you would like to be in fluorescent pink
- Select the ‘channels’ tab, and then select the hamburger menu to the right of the panel with further options. Click ‘New Spot Channel’.
- In the dialog box, enter the name as ‘FL Pink’ – case sensitive. For the ink characteristics, have the colour as C 0 – M 100 – Y – 0 – K0 and select OK.
- Ensure that the elements you would like in Fluoro Pink are no longer visible in the CMYK channels.
- Save the artwork as a PDF.
Overprinting with CMYK & Fluro Pink
Hopefully, you’ve got your hands on one of our Fluoro Pink sample packs. If not, what are you waiting for? Get one now!
The pack contains a colour chart with various overprints that we feel work well with Fluoro Pink, allowing you to create vivid oranges or purples which cannot be achieved in conventional CMYK. When overprinting CMYK over Fluoro Pink, we would advise referring to the crossfold colour chart in our sample pack to give you an idea of various CMYK makeups which work well.
How to overprint CMYK over Fluorescent Pink using Adobe Illustrator or InDesign
- Open your artwork in Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign.
- Open the swatches panel and create a new swatch with the following settings:
- Swatch Name – FL Pink
- Please note: The swatch name is also case sensitive.
- Colour Type – Spot Color
- Colour Mode – CMYK. 0C, 100M, 0Y, 0K
- Swatch Name – FL Pink
- Apply this swatch to the artwork you would like in Fluoro pink.
- Select the artwork you would like to overprint over Fluoro pink. Ensure this is on the top-most layer in your artwork.
- Go to Window → Attributes for Illustrator or Window → Output for InDesign.
- Tick Overprint Fill (and Overprint Stroke if needed)
- To check the overprints, go to ‘View → Overprint Preview’. This should show the areas of your design which will overprint CMYK over fluoro pink.
- Save the artwork as a PDF.
FAQS
How do I know if I’ve added the spot colours properly?
First, double-check that your spot colours are named correctly. Spot colour names are case-sensitive, and even a small typo can prevent the colour from registering correctly on press.
If you’re overprinting CMYK onto Fluoro Pink, make sure overprint is enabled on the relevant CMYK elements. Without overprint enabled, elements higher in the object order will knock out anything beneath them instead.
If you have access to Adobe Acrobat, we’d advise opening your artwork PDFs in Acrobat and viewing them using the Output Preview mode (which is found in the ‘Print Production’ tab). If applied correctly, you should see a list of spot colours in the separations list. You can also toggle these on and off to check overprints.
What else should I be aware of when overprinting?
It’s worth considering that overprinting CMYK over fluoro pink can affect the finished result and screens can provide fairly ambiguous representations of how Fluoro Pink can appear. We would advise ordering test prints if you are unsure.
For a more subtle effect, you can reduce the opacity of Fluoro Pink. This can work well for softer backgrounds or layered textures and gradients.
I’m having trouble preparing my artwork, can you assist?
Absolutely! We’re more than happy to check over any artwork before an order is placed to confirm the Fluoro Pink is correctly prepared. If you’re having some trouble adding this to your artwork, on occasion, this may be something our artworking team can repair on your behalf.
If you’re having trouble preparing your artwork for fluoro pink printing, or you would like us to check any over your artwork prior to placing an order, please do drop us an email and a member of our artworking team will be more than happy to assist – artwork@print.work
