What is metallic foil printing and how do I set it up?

Metallic foil printing puts a silver foil layer under your full-color (CMYK) artwork. Wherever the foil is, your colors print on top of it and pick up a metallic shine, so one design can have foil in many colors at once instead of a single gold or silver.

Setting up your files

You need two files:

1. Your normal CMYK artwork.
2. A foil mask file that shows where the foil goes.

In the mask file:

• Use 100% black (C0 M0 Y0 K100) where you want foil.
• Use white where you don't want foil.
• Make it exactly the same size and position as your artwork, bleed included, so the two line up.
• Build it as vector art in Illustrator, CorelDRAW or a similar program for clean edges.

For example, to make a logo shine, draw that logo in solid black in the mask file and leave the rest of the mask white. Upload the two files separately and name them clearly, like "card-front.pdf" and "card-front-foil.pdf".

Tips for the best result

• Lighter colors shine more. Dark colors on top of the foil cover most of the metallic effect.
• Plain silver: foil under a white (unprinted) area gives you plain silver.
• Richer silver: add at least 15% K over the foil area for a deeper silver.
• Small text: avoid very thin lines and tiny text. Sans-serif fonts at 12pt or larger work best.

Avoiding a white halo

Where foil sits right next to printed color, a thin white line can show between them. To prevent it, expand the foil shapes in your mask by about 1pt so they overlap the printed color slightly, and fill any knocked-out areas with color instead of leaving them white.