Printing an Undercoat

Only available for printers with special inks such as white, gloss, or silver.

If you want to print an extra coating which is not defined in an image, for example a white undercoat (to increase the opacity of images on transparent or metallic foil) or a finishing varnish layer, you can add a customizable coating channel on the Channels page. This way, it is not required to add a spot color channel to the original image. The coating functionality is available for CMYK images and PDF/PS files.

  1. Create and open a job in the Manual Job Manager.
  2. Job > Printer Settings > Printer: Select a printer with a special ink such as white or varnish.
  3. Select a Calibration Set that supports the inks needed to print the image.
  4. Printer Settings > Print Layers: Define the print order and activate the layers you want to print (see "Printing Multiple Layers with Special Inks").
    (Please note that you first need to define the Layer (e.g. White) to be able to define the corresponding coating channel on the Channels page.)
  5. Image > Color Management > Channels: Activate the option Add Coating Channel.
  6. Choose a coating Mode and Intensity.
  7. Define the coating by picking an option from the Color list.
    (Choose a predefined spot color from a spot color database, define a custom spot color by value, or, if you are using an MX profile with white information, select mx white from the list.)
  8. Click Print to print the job.


Adding a customizable coating channel in the Manual Job Manager.

The top image (1) will be printed without coating.

The bottom image (2) will be printed with a coating. The mode Full Frame is used. As you can see, all originally transparent areas are shown as white areas in the preview area, to visualize the white undercoat.

Coating mode Full Frame.

Coated Area Description
Full Frame The dimensions of the coated area are determined by the full image frame, including paper tint area, image label, and control strip. Use this feature if you want to print an undercoat or a finishing varnish layer.
Only Non-Transparent Areas The coating is printed only behind non-transparent objects. You can use this feature, for example, if you want to increase the opacity of the image when printing on a transparent foil, preserving the transparent areas of the image.

You can define the intensity of the coating in percent. Depending on the Color you selected for the coating channel, the intensity can also depend on the spot color settings, as described in the following.

  • Pure ink: An Intensity of 100% means the highest density of the ink within technical limitations. (The White color, for example is handled as a white spot color with C0, M0, Y0, K0 and an area coverage of 100%.)
  • Special inks from spot color databases (db3): An Intensity of 100% means the highest density of an ink as defined in the Special Inks settings and the highest density of CMYK as defined by the 100% fulcrum in the spot color database. For example, if a white spot color in a spot color database is set to 50% and this spot color is printed as undercoat with an Intensity of 50%, the printed white ink coverage will be 25%.
  • Custom spot color defined in Manual Job Manager: An Intensity of 100% means the highest density as defined by the Tonal value in %.