Setting up a tricky 3-color print job!!!

[venomize]

OK, I have what I think is a tricky 3-color print job to set up. It's for a music CD screen.

Here is an image demonstrating what I want to do:

http://digitalarson.net/disctest.jpg

As you can see there is a skull with 2 swords. Everything outside the swords, I want to print using 2 colors, black & white. Inside the swords (demonstrated by the blue lines), I want to use only black & red ink. In other words, the blades will be knockout, using the reflective part of the CD... the white portions will actually be reflective.

How would I go about setting this up, should I use alpha channels, clipping paths, or what? Any help would be most appreciated, thanks!!!

 

[blueark]

For a start, use Photoshop (use a multichannel mode defining a black, white and red channel). When it's seperated, your printer will create 3 plates. They will print the white first (probably), and it will only cover the areas defined in that channel, leaving the rest reflective. The black & red are then printed over this.

If you want to do something similar in Illustrator (remember, it's better for vector art, not raster), create three spot colors. Draw the (spot) white area, and place the black and red images over this. You may need to play around with transparancy effects or overprinting to get the results you need.

 

[venomize]

Thanks for the tip!