File Set Up Guide

01

Open Your File

Start by creating or opening your file in InDesign. For this example, the finished trim size of the document will be 5.5 inches wide by 8.5 inches tall. We will need a minimum of 0.125 inch bleed.

Your Margins can be any size, however, a good tip would be to set your Margins (or ruler guides once the file is open) to 0.0625 inch. This size is the minimum amount of space FOIL3D™ and SculptedUV™ can be from the edge of the page.

Learn more about why and other best practices by clicking the button.

Best Practices

Prepare Your Layers

This example file will include the following enhancements:

Gold Foil
Silver Foil
SculptedUV (SUV for short)

Artwork for each enhancement will need to be separated onto its own layer, with any base artwork (printing CMYK) left separate as well. The names for these layers do not matter for printing, so long as they are organized in a way you can differentiate them from each other.

Create Your Spot Color

For this example, vector artwork has been placed onto its designated layer. This process applies to any vector artwork within InDesign, including text, shapes, and lines.

The next step is to create the required Spot color. Find the hamburger menu in the "Swatches" panel, and select "New Color Swatch..."

In the "New Color Swatch" window, name your spot color "Scodix". Double-check that the spelling is correct, and the "S" is capitalized. This is a vital step in order for the press to read your files accurately.

Ensure the "Color Type" is set to "Spot", and "Color Mode" is set to "CMYK".

Your CMYK values should be as follows:

C: 50
M: 100
Y: 0
K: 0

Now that your image is placed and the correct color, you may find it hard to see the rest of your layers since an opaque image has been used.

To solve this, find the "Effects" window and set the image to "Multiply".

Note: This will not affect the final export of your layers as the "Scodix" spot color will still be readable within the exported PDFs.

Spot Color Images

For some files, there may be instances where the intended foil or SUV enhancement does not come in the form of a vector. In it's place, an image must be used.

For this example, the bottle's condensation is quite detailed and will be left as a raster image. However, we still need to make sure this image is using our new "Scodix" spot color.

To achieve this, we need to make sure the file is saved out as a grayscale JPEG. The method in which this is done does not matter, so long as the end result is the same. For this example, Photoshop was used.

Place your image onto its intended layer. Using the "Direct Selection" tool, select the image and apply your spot color.

Attention!

Images and gradients can NOT be sculpted. Your artwork will need to be completely opaque with no gray tones. A quick way to do this is to adjust your curves similar to the example shown.

Alternatively, you can download our quick Photoshop Actions. These work best for adding texture to photographs. TIP: Invert your photographs before applying the actions. The actions read the shadows. By inverting, you will essentially be applying the filter to the "highlights" of the photo.

Download Actions

Export Your Files

Once all of your enhancement layers are finalized, it's time to save out your files.

Make sure only one of your layers is visible at a time, then go to File > Adobe PDF Presets and then saveas High Quality Print. In the Marks and Bleeds tab, make sure you have "Crop Marks" checked, and your bleed settings are set to 0.125". If you set up the bleed correctly in your file, you can also check "Use Document Bleed Settings".

Don't forget to save out your base artwork layer normally, with all other layers hidden.

For this example, the final exported files should be as follows:

FOIL3D_InDesign_GOLD FOIL.pdf
FOIL3D_InDesign_SILVER FOIL.pdf
FOIL3D_InDesign_SUV.pdf
FOIL3D_InDesign_Base.pdf

That's It!

Once these steps have been completed, you should be left with something that looks like this.