Benefit from the amazing white ink capabilities of Mimaki's inkjet printer range and create designs featuring white vignettes and gradations.

Download a PDF here, or follow the guide below.

Create your gradation in Adobe Illustrator

1. Draw a rectangle using the Rectangle tool.
2. Choose a CMYK make-up of colour for the gradation (not RGB).

For a full spot colour replacement you must choose 100% of any colour and 1% for the remaining three. See Pic 1. This will not denote the output colour!

3. Drag and drop this colour into the ‘Swatches Palette’ and then into the right hand side of the ‘Gradient Slider’.
4. Set the gradation intensity using the diamond at the top of the ‘Gradient Slider’ bar.
5. Click ‘File’ and then ‘Print’. Select the printer you would like to send the image to. Select ‘Graphics’ in the dialogue box and make sure that the ‘Compatible Gradient and Gradient Mesh Printing’ is left un-checked. See Pic 2.

6. Select ‘Print’ and this should now drop into Rasterlink.

Set the colour replacement in RasterLink Pro

1. Open/Edit the gradation job in Rasterlink Pro
2. Set size and position in the ‘Image Edit’ window.
3. Select the profile, pass rate, print direction and special colourset in ‘Print Condition’. See Pic 3.

4. Within ‘Colour Edit’, select ‘Colour Replacement’, add a new name and click the ‘Gradation’ tab. Click on the image preview (to the right of the screen) and you should see the ‘Output Upper & Lower Limits’ can now be set. (This will only become available if the image is recognised as an Image and not an Illustration) See Pic 4.

5. Set the ‘Upper Limit’ to 100% on both the white channels and the ‘Lower Limit’ to 0% for a complete fade. (These limits can be set to whatever colour mix you would like should you wish to add colour to the gradation).
6. Click ‘Setup’ then ‘Update’ and you should be ready to print.