Spot UV
Spot UV is a print finishing effect used mainly on business cards, colour brochures, printed folders etc. to highlight certain parts of the artwork such as logos or photographs.
The effect is to make the treated artwork much more reflective than the surrounding artwork. Where the main product has been matt-laminated then highlighting key areas in a gloss laminate really does create a superb, professional effect.
An ink well is reserved on the press for filling with the UV varnish and many presses now have this 'in-line' making the task much quicker and more accurate.
Preparing artwork for the UV process.
The UV plate is treated as a single (spot) colour and setting up the artwork is, in most cases, very easy to do. Accuracy is key.
We're quite happy to do the UV preparation for you however, should you wish to do this yourself then the following shows a couple of examples:
A basic spot UV used on photographs. The following artwork could be a business card, full colour brochure or folder etc.
In this example I've used a basic business card shape and the 2 photographs will have the UV treatment. (I've left in the magenta line around the outside of the card for clarity).
In this instance, if the 2 photographs are sat in picture boxes, then it's simply a case of cutting away the photograph and leaving empty boxes behind in the exact same position.
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All that we need to do is fill the 2 empty picture boxes with the colour black, remove anything else (text for instance) that does not require UV and we are then left with the following:
Remember, the magenta card outline will be removed before the printing stage so it's very important the original crop marks (corner marks) are left in place. This will allow the press operator to position the UV plate with 100% accuracy.
The above image can now be saved as a separate file e.g. business_card_UV_plate.eps and supplied with the original business card artwork.
When working with vectored eps files UV plates are very easy to create as all parts of the artwork is easily selectable.
In the Lion Head image below the designer may for some reason not want part of the head and mane UV treated as shown by the arrows.
In the graphics program the parts would be removed, (remembering to keep the all-important crop marks in place) to leave this:
As with our very first example, it's now simply a case of converting the remaining artwork to black as shown below:
Don't forget to remove the magenta outline, if you're using one, before sending to print.
Sometimes you may have a more complicated image that is only available as a hi-res jpeg or tiff file.
In these cases you'll probably need to load the image into Photoshop and create clipping paths, (where you draw around the image with a pen tool), or you may be lucky and be able to simply erase the parts not required for UV. It all depends on the image.
Hope this helps!
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If you have any doubts at all about the suitability of your artwork then please email across a copy and one of us will take a look and let you know if it's suitable or not. Either way, we'll do our best to help where we can.
If you'd like to receive a quotation, or simply request some sample UV treated cards then please get in touch either by filling out this short enquiry form below, or telephoning us on the number shown below.
Don't forget, spot UV effects can be used on other products, not just business cards. |
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Telephone: 01635 255 552
