# Separating gradients in Illustrator



## RSpill (Sep 3, 2010)

Hi Everyone,

I have a client that submitted some artwork and needs me to separate it. I'm still fairly new to screen printing and separations. The artwork contains a fairly complex gradient, and he needs the entire design separated into 5 separate color plates (and exported as PDF's) the plates would be green, blue, gold, pink and white. I have no idea how to accomplish this to where each color would be on it's own PDF. 

Hopefully I'm describing this right. I attached the image for reference.

If anyone can help me out I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks!
Ryan


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## kevinjh (Nov 13, 2010)

If you own Photoshop, then you might want to take it into there and separate the channels by spot colors. Once they are separated then you can save them as .pdf files.

If you are real handy then you could reset the type in Illustrator (they are just basic fonts) and then re-create the ribbon and construct your own gradients.

Just some thoughts on it!


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## RSpill (Sep 3, 2010)

Hi,

Thanks for the advise. I have the vector art of the ribbon and text already in illustrator. I just don't know too much about the production side of this, especially doing this type of thing in PS. I'll try to find some tutorials online or something. Thanks!


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## PositiveDave (Dec 1, 2008)

Are the colours within the Illustrator design already in spot colours, if so , good, more likely it's been designed as a CMYK or RGB image and will need redrawing to make sense in AI.
It might be easier to separate in PS, into spot colour channels.
Look at this: http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so...fCp2V4uV SJ4YKLQ&sig2=l_zee22KFEBS9MX0ckt6aQ


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## Unik Ink (Nov 21, 2006)

If the client has Illustrator and he used spot color swatches while designing, then the file is already separated and he can print the positives directly from Illustrator. A white underbase would need to be made, but it would be easy for this design. If he needs the plates in .pdf, you can import and separate in Photoshop, or you make them in Illustrator by:
1. take everything that is red, change to black. Change all other colors to white. Save as .pdf
2. repeat for every other color.
3. for white, change every color to black. Choke if needed. Save as .pdf.
3. make sure you have registration marks before saving as .pdf.


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## RSpill (Sep 3, 2010)

yea, I already have the original artwork in illustrator, just don't know how to separate it into separate PDF's. Do you know where I can find a good tutorial on separating these in PS?Thanks!


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