Removing a color for printing to a tinted medium.

[TheIntruder]

I have a strange experiment I'm having some difficulty wrapping my head around. I'm a pro at Photoshop, but this goes outside of anything it was designed to do.

The issue is I have an image I want to output onto an VERY LIGHT orange (pastel peach, almost) paper for reproduction. I don't want to print the orange on a white paper and the paper has a unique texture. Just... go with me here.

I know that ink out on my IRIS will mix with the underlying paper tint. If I know the color value or Pantone of the paper color, is there a way to process an image so that I "remove that orange" from the colors in my image so that once printed, the mix of the colors is in most places near the original image?

I know that anything of a lighter tone will not show up (since white is expected to be transparent or no ink) and that things lacking a component of the color of the medium will be off.

Does this make sense? I've tried playing with a fill layer in Photoshop, and setting it to Difference and inverting the product, but it's still not right.

Please help if you can.

[pixelzombie]

yes, i've done this before but in my case it was grey aluminum..if you know the values of your paper you can make a curves adjustment layer and "subtract" those values from your image...

[TheIntruder]

Can you please explain a little more? I think I understand where you are going, and that would work with a neutral grey, but will that work with a color/tint, and how?

[pixelzombie]

say for example your paper is similar to PMS9280 which is c-4 m-9 y-6, you could make a curve that would subtract those values from your image...

[Walt_]

pixelzombie may well be onto something... yet it sounds like an adjustment like Curves would allow one to change the given color, rather than isolating it for exclusion from printing.

much of this suggestion may well be dependent upon the actual content of your image... have you tried Select > Color Range? I just tried it on the image I had open at the moment, this method of selection always requires a bit of trial and error with the Fuzziness Slider settings but selecting the color range and simply making a Mask might just do the trick for you

[wk12]

considering that the tinted paper stock is of an even tone and color. You could try making a digital photo of the paper stock under even lighting (assuming all equipment is colour calibrated) in photoshop inverse the color of the paper and use that color as the fill in a 'photo filter' adjustment layer. Not sure if it would muddy the highlights though. if it does you could try a luminance mask and mask off the highlights. Hope this helps

[0lBaldy]

Take your design to a Press/Screen print shop where they have white ink

if you must print with your inkjet maybe their graphics department could isolate and register the graphic and lay down just a white undercoat of the entire graphic onto your paper, with an ink that will be compatible with your translutant inks when you do your own run with your printer..

If it were me I think I would consider farming the job out to a press/screen printer to print anything other than a solid contrasting color on colored paper..
the inks need white for a background to look good and not muddy... and no amout of tweeking is going to create white in photoshop

[SilvaFox]

You could soft proof it by composing your image on a base of light orange, set everything to multiply and try to adjust for the paper.

Just remember, there will be no neutrals. Your "whites" on this piece will be orange.

Good luck