Enlarge

Spot Colors and Duotones: Spot colors are a less expensive alternative to 4 color process printing, using as few as two inks in the printing process. The colors can be blended and applied to images in the printing process to create a duotone. Adobe Photoshop's GUI has made "duotone" a household term; convert the picture to grayscale, select duotone mode, and apply the selected ink colors to the two channels. On-screen, it's a simple process. In practice, working with spot colors and duotones with any predictability requires an intimate understanding of the printing process. CreateSource has over fifteen years of experience in the print industry and guarantees quality spot color print jobs.

Generally a "hard" high contrast curve is applied to the darkest color - usually black - to build deep shadows and accentuate highlights. The second color is a lower contrast curve that carries the mid tones and gives the duotone the beautiful color cast. Too much of either and the image reverts to the same tonal range as you would get out of a typical halftone.

In other areas of the printing, the two colors can stand alone for a color accent or as tinted overprints on each other, providing a wider range of color than just two.

The project above is a video cover printed on coated stock using black and red from an original airbrush illustration on frosted acetate. Note how some areas of the illustration are solid red, which the edging of the stained glass is a light tint of both the black and red.