phantasmCS  |  D e s i g n e r  |  S t u d i o
The essential Adobe Illustrator® color plugin range

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The Phantasm CS family of tools is designed specifically for Adobe Illustrator® and integrates perfectly for a seamless experience when adjusting, controlling or checking color in your documents.

Tools work with all embedded objects including vector shapes, text and images. Each function seamlessly integrates with all features present in Illustrator including standard gradients, meshes, filters and effects.

Quick links

• Product range
• Filters and live Effects color adjustment
• Creativity with Duotones and vector Halftones
• Color checking and separations
• In-line embedded image editing
• Automating your workflow

Phantasm CS is available in three levels; Phantasm CS, Phantasm CS Designer and Phantasm CS Studio. For an overview of the features available in each edition, please refer to the feature matrix. For a more detailed list of features, please look at the feature list page.

For further insight into the Phantasm CS range, it is advised that you try before you buy. Simply download the Trial version today. You can also discover all details by referring to the full user manual.

All the color control tools you come to expect of a professional design package can now be found in Adobe Illustrator® thanks to the Phantasm CS range. Add the ability to adjust colors by Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Curves, Levels and more. Each tool has a familiar user interface and the major tools allow settings exchange with Adobe Photoshop®.

Each tool adjusts color to a professional level catering for RGB and CMYK documents and handling any spot colors correctly. By applying the color change as a live Effect, it is possible to adjust, combine, re-stack and remove any changes at any stage of the design process.

Advanced options available on all relevant filters and effects gives professionals the ability to ensure exact print-ready results. Options include "Safe CMYK" ensuring ink levels comply with document color settings, overprint removal, rich to pure black conversions, and more.

With the introduction of Phantasm CS Designer and Phantasm CS Studio, new filters and effects have been introduced to provide additional creativity options.

Whereas standard color-adjustment tools such Curves and Levels don't fundamentally alter the artwork, simply the colors, the Duotone and Halftone filters and effects reconstruct the artwork to produce wonderful results. Duotones (which also refer to monotone, tritone and quadtone) are most commonly found in Adobe Photoshop®; it is now available natively in Illustrator with the ability to modify all embedded objects including vector, text and images whilst maintaining all vector/bitmap attributes. Allowing a mix of process and spot colors, the resultant artwork is high quality commercial print-ready.

The Halftone filter/effect produces a range of stunning vector-based results, from standard dot types to custom Illustrator Symbols-based creations. Faithful to the original artwork (RGB or CMYK including spot colors), the level of adjustments possible ensures creative freedom. A range of example Halftones may be seen on the Halftone resources page.

Phantasm CS Studio provides the ultimate color checking toolset; an essential collection of native tools for anyone who readies artwork for publishing and print. A new Output Preview group of tools, comprising Quick Separations, Overprint Preview and Ink Coverage give immediate feedback on the technical construction of the color in a CMYK document.

Quick Separations uses a familiar interface to allow users to quickly and easily view all inks present in the document, including all process colors (CMYK) and any spot colors. Channels may be viewed in process/spot groups, individually and in any combination the user chooses. The non-destructive process separates all artwork including linked/placed objects.

Overprint Preview gives users very quick reference to which visible objects have overprint set. Any issues which arrise from overprinted objects can typically be fixed using the advanced options available in most filters and effects.

Ink Coverage gives an invaluable and unique overview of the total ink coverage throughout the document. Four user-defined levels then visually alert the user to which areas are likely to cause over-saturation for any given substrate used in the print process.

The full Separations system is a high-end tool which actually separates all artwork in a document (except linked EPS DCS files - functionality of which can now be found in the native Photoshop format). The resultant new document can then be examined using the Phantasm CS Studio Separations palette allowing interactive panning and zooming within the document. The "release" function then permits the separations to be taken apart or even modified without limit. This tool is ideal for not only the conventional print market who may wish to examine any artwork fully, but also textile designers, sign writers and the like who wish to produce fully separated documents which can then be processed further. There are also many creative possibilities for designers who wish to fully experiment with what is possible.

A free script written by Nathaniel V Kelso is also available from the script resources page which allows fully separated PDF files to be generated. This gives the advantage that even those with Acrobat Reader can show and hide each ink used in a document.

Please note: Full Separations of artwork with spot colors is limited using Adobe Illustrator® CS and CS2 due to technical limitations of these versions. This limitation does not apply to Quick Separations.

Unique to Phantasm CS Studio is the ability to in-line edit any embedded image (raster artwork) in an external package such as Adobe Photoshop® and then update any changes directly back within the Illustrator document.

The process is very simple: (1) Select the image to edit, (2) Choose Edit -> Edit Image within Illustrator, (3) the image will automatically appear in your chosen image editor - edit the image as you desire and save the file, and finally, (4) select Edit -> Update Image within Illustrator once more. The image embedded within the Illustrator document will then automatically display all changes including color mode changes (including Photoshop multi-ink images), altered resolution and addition/removal of the masking channel.

Supporting all image color modes catered for with Illustrator CS, CS2 and CS3, including alpha masks, it provides a method to undertake changes in artwork provided by clients. It also allows all artwork to be embedded, safe in the knowledge that modifications are still possible at a later date. As embedded images can be fully color-adjusted using Phantasm CS's tools, it allows even greater productivity from a single design package.

To cater for extended work-flows, it is possible to assign all Filters to Illustrator Actions. Settings such as Overprint control are all applied faithfully; one great example of how this may be used is to create an Action to automatically correct all Overprint White objects.