Separation Studio - Tips, Tricks, Questions?

[mimosatexas]

edit: I put this in the wrong subforum because I'm dumb.  Can you move it Frog?  Thanks!

I am trying out Separation Studio after trying T-seps and Ultraseps and being mostly unimpressed, and so far I REALLY like certain things about it over the photoshop plugins.  Specifically the fact that you can quickly and easily create a custom ink palette before opening and sepping your image, then adjust the individual ink colors after the seps have run if needed, so if you have spots that are pantone colors you can sep fades and blends elsewhere using those specific colors (and add others as needed).  Pretty great feature, especially for someone like me who is limited to six screens including base and highlight white and black if necessary.  In other words, a lot of my jobs are limited to 3 or 4 "colors" and if one or two of those are used as a spot, the other separation softwares fail miserably at adjusting to that limitation and I have to spend a bunch of time testing crap in photoshop and on press.

I want to get as much out of the trial as possible, and had two specific questions right off the bat:

1. Is there a way to adjust the strength of the saturation and desaturation tools beyond the small drop down menu?  They seem to have a set strength which works fine on areas with specific concentrations of a color that fit their predefined ranges, but in gradients or complex areas, it fails pretty hard.  I can always adjust this in photoshop after the fact, but if I can do it in SS I would like to know how.

2. Can anyone shed some light on the generate black features?  I have googled and watched a few videos and read a few tutorials, and these features are mostly glossed over.

Any other tips or tricks that make the software more effective from those of you who use it often are also appreciated.  I'm not looking for a one click solution, just a way to save time doing the menial bullshit so I can spend my time masking and adjusting instead of clicking the same buttons and making after the fact adjustments to my palettes.  Thanks!

[jvanick]

you can use the tools on the left (lassos, box, that drop of ink looking thing) to selectively saturate and desaturate specific parts of your image... I always forget that they're there, but sometimes they really help.

I too like the fact that you can use any ink pallet...

another cool feature, is setting the 'ground' color (color of shirt)... gildan publishes the pantone colors for their shirts, so you can use the shirt color in the art itself.

on the generate black features, I'd love to hear about better info on how to use them as well... it seems a lot of times, we use the skeletal black image.

I've also been playing around with using sepstudio to do my seperations, and then use discharge ink for each screen to avoid the underbase layer.. depending on the art, sometimes it works really well.

here's one we printed today that was sep'd using sepstudio:  5 screens total...


(The blueish tones are intentional and the shirt color (metro blue) was chosen by the customer to pull everything together), came out quite nicely.

[mimosatexas]

nice print!  I understand the drop/saturation tool, but I was wondering if there was a way to adjust it's power.  In photoshop for example, I can grab the dodge or burn tool, set it to 5% or 10% and make minor saturation adjustments, but it seems like the strength in SepStudio is always the same.  I guess using lasso and adjusting high low percentages with it are probably the best way available if you can't adjust the strength of the brush, or just using photoshop.

Can you explain how you adjust art for discharge using the program?  I understand dropping the base white, but do you bump/flatten the top white to compensate when your art contains pastels/light hues?

[starchild]

In SS the saturation and desaturation brushes gives you the option to target highlights, midtones and shadow areas but.. Here's the thing, because separation is in it's very nature, removing information from an image, there is only so much saturation you can add to the already subtracted info..

If you wish to add back info to a color channel that you feel should not have been assigned to another color channel, then first find the missing info in one of the other color channel, duplicate it, use the eraser tool and remove the info you do not need, then use the apply to channel function to move the modified duplicated channel info to the channel that is missing the info.. Whew..

For example I you think that an area in the red channel should not have been sepd to the yellow channel, then duplicate the yellow, erase the parts you don't need then apply it to the red.. Remember to desaturate the original yellow area where you moved the info from.

Also don't just depend on the visuals to make things optimal.. The vue rite swatches on the right is the heavy lifter of this program.. Use it to view the ink deposit density that will be printed onto the shirt.. You may find yourself desaturating more often than saturating.

The claim is the higher the res of the image the better the image would sep and look.. But not every image that pops tell the story.. Sometimes you may be after a dingy look and a resized 72dpi image will do just fine..

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[mimosatexas]

Nice tip on the duplicate/merge channel option!  Thanks for the info on the Vuerite swatches.  I had started paying attention to those, and noticed some pretty funky stuff on the default seps it outputs.  Interesting info and definitely helpful when cleaning up art.  I'm not sure it is worth $900 to me right now, but I can't find another program or plugin that allows the custom palette for less, so it may be my best option when I have the funds.  I did a bunch of research yesterday on creating custom multichannel files in photoshop and was shocked at just how weak that are of the program is...

[jvanick]

we use it all the time for 'stuff that doesn't have to be perfect', and honestly, the results normally come out better than I expected... and our customers are usually very impressed too (which is really all that counts)

I'm sure that we've paid for it at least 2x or 3x in what we saved in sending out the separations.
it's not cheap, but it fills a nice niche...

[starchild]

Nice tip on the duplicate/merge channel option!

Just to be clear merge channel merges one channel to another.

Channel-apply channel copies info from one channel to another.. It takes the lightest or darkest areas of the target channel and copies it over to the destined channel depending on which option you choose in the apply channel...

SimplSeps Raster (for PhotoShop) is what's up... (It's the only plugin that actually has a culture) but that's a rabbit hole you'll have to venture down on your own.. But search the forum for Jeff, Tom, AdvanceArtist, FullSpectrumStudio, SimpleSeps.. Very important videos to support my claim are currently private at the moment on YouTube but once you do your investigation it may be somethir definitely on your radar..

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[Rockers]

We do like Separation Studio but still struggling sometimes what to do if the art contains some areas that are clearly spot colors. SS always breaks those down into a certain percentage of white, yellow etc. Well I guess you get what I mean.
And I wish there would be an option for grey scale separations.

[jvanick]

That's when you sample that color in photoshop and use it as a custom color... I love that feature and use it all the time.

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[Rockers]

That's when you sample that color in photoshop and use it as a custom color... I love that feature and use it all the time.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Would you mind going a bit more into detail please on how that process works exactly. Cheers:)

[starchild]

Rockers understand that SS don't create halftones your rip does that.. It only sets ink density (less or more ink) in the sep channels. If you require a spot channel then it should be reading 100% coverage in that channel..

So create a channel and take the required info from the channels that make up the spot color info and put it in the channel you created. Set the color that you want it to be and saturate it.. You could use the technic I explained in the previous post to move info from one channel to the next.. Remember to clean up the channels you got the info from..

When you save the file remember to print the channel as a spot.

Yuk...

You gotta get comfortable with SimpleSeps it karate kicks Separation Studio in the nuts..

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[mimosatexas]

That's when you sample that color in photoshop and use it as a custom color... I love that feature and use it all the time.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Would you mind going a bit more into detail please on how that process works exactly. Cheers:)

open your image in photoshop and eyedropper any spot colors and/or any specific ink colors you would like to use in your design.  open separation studio and go to Edit>Ink Mapping.  On the right side there is a drop down and to the right a button that says New.  Click that and name it whatever you want.  On the left side at the bottom, click the plus sign.  A window will pop up that lets you add a custom color.  Do this for all the spot colors or custom colors you want.  If you have only one or two custom colors from spots, select them and think about which of the 10 default colors you want to replace with those custom colors, click the little >> button to move the custom color over.  If you have a completely custom palette, you can replace all of the colors, or replace two or three or four, then make the remaining colors white or black to limit your palette.  Click the Default button in the top right, then click save.  Now open you image and it should separate it using the palette you created instead of the default one.

I've only sepped a handful of test images, but this has been INVALUABLE so far.  I had a five color image that was all hair colors (basically a bunch of browns and tans), and I was able to sep it with only those tones in seconds.  No mess, no fuss, no going through color ranges and masks in photoshop.  I tried the same image in Ultraseps and T-seps, which have "earthtone" or "flesh tone" actions, but they failed pretty hard.  I'm sure there are ways to make them work, and possibly even to sep to custom channel colors, but it isnt straightforward in the way it is in SepStudio (that I could see).

[mimosatexas]

Quick question, anyone know how to choke the underbase either in sepstudio, or in photoshop, in a way that only affects the outside edges of areas where overlayed color will meet open shirt?  In other words, it preserves all of the halftoned fades within the art, but chokes in a pixel or two around the outsides?

[starchild]

It will go something like this in PhotoShop- select the base, deselect the areas you don't want modified and then do Edit>stroke- center- how much ever pixels and fill with white..

Ultimately how you use the selection tools to define your selection is what's important.. but Shift/Click adds to a selection Alt/Shift/Click removes from a selection.

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[shellyky]

That's when you sample that color in photoshop and use it as a custom color... I love that feature and use it all the time.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Would you mind going a bit more into detail please on how that process works exactly. Cheers:)

open your image in photoshop and eyedropper any spot colors and/or any specific ink colors you would like to use in your design.  open separation studio and go to Edit>Ink Mapping.  On the right side there is a drop down and to the right a button that says New.  Click that and name it whatever you want.  On the left side at the bottom, click the plus sign.  A window will pop up that lets you add a custom color.  Do this for all the spot colors or custom colors you want.  If you have only one or two custom colors from spots, select them and think about which of the 10 default colors you want to replace with those custom colors, click the little >> button to move the custom color over.  If you have a completely custom palette, you can replace all of the colors, or replace two or three or four, then make the remaining colors white or black to limit your palette.  Click the Default button in the top right, then click save.  Now open you image and it should separate it using the palette you created instead of the default one.

I've only sepped a handful of test images, but this has been INVALUABLE so far.  I had a five color image that was all hair colors (basically a bunch of browns and tans), and I was able to sep it with only those tones in seconds.  No mess, no fuss, no going through color ranges and masks in photoshop.  I tried the same image in Ultraseps and T-seps, which have "earthtone" or "flesh tone" actions, but they failed pretty hard.  I'm sure there are ways to make them work, and possibly even to sep to custom channel colors, but it isnt straightforward in the way it is in SepStudio (that I could see).

wow thank you...ill try this today.  i use seperation studio exclusively for our sim process work and never knew about this feature.  When they'd give me brown or orange artwork, i'd always just open the PSD in photoshop and change those colors to red or green or blue...something it would pick up.   

As far as generate black, i always do 'detailed'....havent had any issues to make me try any of the other options.  I usually have to downsize my artwork to about 300 dpi 14x14ish for it to work well.  ANd on the adjustments, a lot of times on certain designs i merge the gray with the white underbase screen and run that as light gray (on designs where its a muted red, gray and a touch of white highlights)...after i tweak each screen on the slider adjustments they provide per color, i use dodge/burn or levels in photoshop to take it to where i'd like them to be.  the "add/subtract" color in sep studio i feel like adds too much or too little... 

great advice in this thread!