designbymyself

How overprinted colors mix depends on the type of colors and ink you are mixing and the types of objects you are overprinting. For example, an object that uses a CMYK color overprints differently from an object that uses a spot color. Bitmaps also overprint differently from vector objects. You can preview a simulation of how overprinted colors will mix by using the Enhanced with overprints viewing mode. Some variation between the preview and the printed version may occur, depending on the printer you use.

When you are ready to print, you can choose to preserve overprint settings if you want to trap objects in a document, or if you want to mix the overlapping colors for effect. You can also choose to knock out the overprinted areas so that only the top color is visible. If you want to print a proof version of the file, you can simulate overprints. Simulating overprints rasterizes the file and it prints using process colors only.

You can set a group of objects to overprint. You can overprint bitmaps; or each vector object’s fill, or outline, or both. You can also overprint specific color separations and specify in which order they will print, as well as whether you want to overprint graphics, or text, or both.

The two methods for color trapping automatically are always overprinting black and auto-spreading. Always overprinting black creates a color trap by causing any object that contains 95% black or more to overprint any underlying objects. This option is useful for artwork containing a lot of black text, but it should be used with caution on artwork with a high graphics content. You can adjust the threshold, if the service bureau recommends a black threshold value other than 95%.