Quote from: ratintrap on January 27, 2012, 07:06:45 PM

Quote from: DigitalCrapShoveler on January 27, 2012, 08:57:12 AMI will do almost anything to avoid using the pen tool.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I guess I just need more practice.  :undecided:

I did 3 months on a stationery catalogue - cutting out ballpoint pens. Thousands of the suckers. 180-200 per shift.  Every day for 3 months.  As practice with the pen tool I can recommend it.

Quote from: Joe on January 30, 2012, 03:01:17 PMBack in the good old days I longed for the previous good old days. 5 years from now these will be the good old days.

Now I'm depressed . . .

I'd go with the server side option: assign a different spot Pantone colour to each of the CMYK channels.  If the job is to be run on Litho you don't even have to do that, just put different ink in the ducts.  Like for instance metallic Silver in the cyan duct, etc.  Job done.

Hey Ratintrap

It all depends on the background . . .

Scenario 1 - Easy
If it's different from the bits you want to keep, the easiest+quickest way is to use the magic wand.  If necessary edit the selection with Quickmask.  If the background is only different enough for this method in one channel, make the selection in that channel and then turn on the other channels before you delete the BG.

If you get a hard edge then Expand / Shrink your selection 1px then Feather 1px. 

Scenario 2 - Hard
Forget the Lassoo Tools, if all else fails zoom right in and use the Pen Tool to draw out your selection.  It's time consuming but with practice you will get quicker and it is the best method most of the time.  With some pics you will still need to Expand/Shrink+Feather your selection.

Scenario 3 - Impossible
As we all know, nothing is impossible in Repro, so if you have something that looks impossible try using the Background Eraser Tool.  You will need to play around with the settings, but this thing works like science fiction.  You control-select the colour(s) you want to get rid of, then change the brush to a bigger one and just wipe away the background, leaving the forground.  I used this tool to separate a bicycle - with a wire basket - from its background and it was laugh-out-loud impressive.

There, y'see - I told my boss it was the Cylons and he didn't believe me . . .

OK, I'll be the first to say it . . .

my New Years resolution is 72dpi  :smiley:

I've been using Quark since version 1.0 (install disk was a single floppy).  Early days, each upgrade was eagerly anticipated.  Version 4, doubts started to creep in, went back to 3.5.2.  Each upgrade after that was bought, installed and abandoned in favour of 3.5.2 until I think 6.2 which was necessary for multiple languages.  Around about that time InDesign came out and since then all my own work has been done in ID.  Anyone sending QX files has been politely asked to resend as PDFs.  If they don't work my response is long on commiseration and short on advice.  Real world we use stuff that works properly.

This has happened to me more than once.  Are you on a Mac or PC?