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Artwork Setup - White Ink

White ink is actually a 5th ink colour that we can print in addition to CMYK, but only on paper stocks that are not white (you won't see white-on-white). If your preferred paper stock option is either "Special - Black Matte" or "Special - Kraft Matte", and you want white ink, you'll need to set your artwork as follows:

  • Any art you want printed in white ink must be vectors / outlines only (no images, jpegs, bitmaps etc.), and should be merged into solid shapes (not overlapping).
  • Any art you want printed in white ink must have its fill and/or stroke set as a separate spot colour, specifically named "White ink". That spot colour must be 100% magenta, meaning it will appear as pink on your computer screen. We use this magenta/pink simply so that we can visually see your artwork on screen. When printing, we replace this magenta/pink spot colour with white ink. To make this work correctly, simply:
    1. In either Illustrator or InDesign, open the swatch window.
    2. Click the swatch windows option dropdown and select "new colour swatch"
    3. In the new swatch window, change settings to match the image below and hit ok.
    4. Apply this swatch to the fill and / or stroke of all elements you want us to print in white ink. 

Cost

White ink is included in the price of both "Kraft Matte" and "Black Matte" stock options for any product that offers those stocks, as is black ink, and full colour. You don't need to incorporate white ink into your design if you don't want to.

Note:

  • We do not offer overprinting of CMYK on top of white ink via Carbon8 Express. For this reason, do not overlap any other colours on top of, or underneath objects set to be printed in "White ink". That means on Black Matte stock, the only available colours are black ink, or white ink. On Kraft Matte, you may have black ink, colours (which will be affected by the brown stock underneath), or white ink. Contact us direct if you'd like something special.
  • If you're ordering a portfolio with Kraft Matte or Black Matte covers, then these front and back sheets of paper will be the only ones that can have white ink, not on any internal pages. That's because all internal pages of all portfolios will be printed on white paper, and you won't see white ink on white paper. 

Feel free to get in contact if you have any further questions on white ink.