I don’t know if this is the best answer, but rather than let the topic sink…
I would just make the type on a layer and fake it for approval. Just trash the layer or make a separate file for final output.
There may be a better answer but I never work with spot channels so I don’t know.
You will also have to knock the type out of the Black channel (by filling the type with white) but you will also need to trap the type.
Can you not save the Duotone image as a DCS2; place in a page layout program like InDesign and insert the type in that document?
Ann, if that’s a viable way for Kristi (setting type elsewhere), why DCS2? Why not PSD or PDF? Wouldn’t these more "modern" and more convenient formats be the better choice for that duotone? I’ve been under the recent impression that the (inferior) DCS format remains only necessary for the (equally inferior) Quark, no? In fact, PSD or PDF could go into AICS as well.
Build your job in CMYK where as, for example, Cyan is the spot color. That way, you can have editable vector text along with all the benefits of layers and masks.
no DCS required.
And yes, Adobe needs to, at some point in my life time, address spot processing in PS and market the damn thing.
I’d agree with Ann that it might be more efficient to place the type in a page layout program.
If you must keep this as a multichannel PS file it ought to display correctly, though. The type should be in the PMS 876 channel. With the type as an area selection you should then delete out of the black channel, and it ought to display correctly with the pms876 and no black showing through. To my knowledge this is uneditable: I don’t believe you can use layers in multichannel mode, so once you’ve placed your type and deleted it from the black channel it’s that way forever. You could always make copies of your channels (for "backup"), but you’d need to delete extra channels for final output.
It would be nice if you could work up the file, and all the other files that go along with it, using proxy color, like Cyan and Black, then use ink manager in ID to alias Cyan to the proper spot color and use that setup just for color laser printing or PDFing, then revert to Cyan and Black for the actual production printouts.
….at least until there is complete support for spot colors (ie layers) in Photoshop
<< if that’s a viable way for Kristi (setting type elsewhere), why DCS2? Why not PSD or PDF?>>
This would depend on whether she has InDesign or is still saddled with QXP.
Placing the Duotone directly into InDesign; setting the Type to print in the Pantone color; and Exporting to a PDF would do it for her.
Then all that she has to do is to send the PDF for "approval".
