Need some Newbee help with seperations...

[Rocfrog]

Thanks guys for all the GREAT help!! I will tinker with this some more later on today and see what I come up with. I have been trying to find tutorials on how to do this for sometime now and this is a step in the right direction! I will watch the video (once I'm on a computer with sound) and see if i can find more, like screenxpresssaid I'm also a very visual person. Sbrem I had to print out your instructions so I could follow along and not get lost and even then it took me sevral times to get it right, also kept getting interupted by the printers and the phone.

Nick

[JBLUE]

Here are some that I found helpful. He has a mini series of them to learn from.

Eternyl Quick & Dirty Photoshop Sep Tutorials - The Underbase Film

[Rocfrog]

We are printing this today.....if all goes well I'll post some pictures of it! Thanks again for all the GREAT info!!

Nick

[Rocfrog]

Here is the pre-test pellon.....



Nick

[Dottonedan]

Not bad.  The only thing different is the tones of gray. Did you use a gray or did you print black?  I see a smidgen of shade in the sword but very little.  What line screen halftone was used?  even the small shading you have, looks very fine. Maybe it was too high of a line count?  Not sure.

[Rocfrog]

Here is some pics of the test print on a shirt. FYI these are crappy cell phone pics....

Not bad.  The only thing different is the tones of gray. Did you use a gray or did you print black?  I see a smidgen of shade in the sword but very little.  What line screen halftone was used?  even the small shading you have, looks very fine. Maybe it was too high of a line count?  Not sure.

We use our standard gray to print the gray, this is all hit flash hit...no wet on wet. For the half tones I use 55lpi and 22.5angle...this is just what I've been told to use. This ended up being a 5 color print, white undelay, grey, flo green (custom mix), royal, black.

Nick

[Dottonedan]

Ok.  These pics look much better. That first one was miss leading.  This isn't bad at all. What was the mesh used fort he 55 lpi?  It's possible some smaller dots were lost but it's common. For halftone dots at 55lpi, you should be using a 230 mesh at minimum or a 305 mesh. THis helps assure that you stand the best chance of holding the smaller dots. It works on the mesh best.  People like to use 4.5 as the magic number to help determine the best mesh.  I even use 5.


230 mesh divided by 4.5 = 51.11 line screen (rounded to the nearest)  = 50 lpi.
230 mesh divided by 5    = 46      line screen (rounded to the nearest)  = 45 lpi.


305 mesh divided by 4.5 = 67.77 line screen (rounded to the nearest)  = 65 lpi.
305 mesh divided by 5    = 61      line screen (rounded to the nearest)  = 60 lpi.




You are learning from this one, but what would have made this more dynamic is to also include a % (10-15%) of black halftone for deeper shading on the darker parts of the gray also.

[Rocfrog]

I think all but the black is on a 305 screens. I agree this print could probably be 100 times better but with our sub-par equipment (exposure unit) and this technially should have been printed as a 3 color (drop the white underlay and the black), I think it came out GREAT!!

You are learning from this one, but what would have made this more dynamic is to also include a % (10-15%) of black halftone for deeper shading on the darker parts of the gray also.

We print half tones all the time, the learning process for me on this one was to figure out how to print our of Photoshop. Now do I know how to create AMAZING half-tones....no way! Like I said before our sub-par equipment and my limited knowledge is holding us back. To print out my seps I print out of Illustrator into an Adobe Post Script file and then open that up in GhostScript View and then Print to a non-postscript printer (Epson WorkForce 1100), the only thing I do to it is when selecting the spot colors to print I change teh LPI to 55 and the Angle to 22.5 because that's what the previous artist did here.

Not sure using the steps layed out for me above how I would acchive the "black halftone" your are talking about.....


EDIT: sorry I just reread this and it sounds defensive......I meant that in no way, just trying to give you an idea of our current process and my limited knowledge. I was thrown into a very lo quality shop with ZERO screen printing experiance and the "printers" have little to no experance as well...

Nick

[Dottonedan]

No Prob.  Been there, done that and got a few tee shirts. LOL.

[Gilligan]

What about the fade from green to blue on the shield?

I know when I played with the file I had the same issues... I used some tricks to include it but still didn't like the results... but I didn't need to print it and had to leave so I stopped playing with it.

Overall it looks like a great job!

[Sbrem]

You could take your gray channel, duplicate it (gray copy) then using curves, reduce that down to only the very darkest parts. Then, you combine that "new" gray channel, with the black channel using "Calculations" under the Image menu, which will give you a new channel that has your original black and the altered gray information, putting a little shading in your grays too add depth and form. You use this new Black instead of the old black, delete that old black channel. As you move along through this stuff, you're going to find "Calculations" to be very useful.

Steve

[Dottonedan]

It would be interesting to see your process in calculations. I only use them to pull unique colors on occasions. Maybe you have something to add to my process.

[Rocfrog]

What about the fade from green to blue on the shield?

I know when I played with the file I had the same issues... I used some tricks to include it but still didn't like the results... but I didn't need to print it and had to leave so I stopped playing with it.

Overall it looks like a great job!

What about the fade? yes it didn't go all the way across like it should but if I selected mor color then it grabbed the surrounding in the black as well and I didn't want that.

Thanks I think it turned out "ok".....

You could take your gray channel, duplicate it (gray copy) then using curves, reduce that down to only the very darkest parts. Then, you combine that "new" gray channel, with the black channel using "Calculations" under the Image menu, which will give you a new channel that has your original black and the altered gray information, putting a little shading in your grays too add depth and form. You use this new Black instead of the old black, delete that old black channel. As you move along through this stuff, you're going to find "Calculations" to be very useful.

Steve

ok....wow...you completely lost me.....not that that is hard to do..... ;0)

Nick

[Sbrem]

Sorry about that Nick, I know it's a bit much. I sent Dan an explanation, maybe he can post it for me, I gotta get outta here right now. I'll check back.

Steve

[Dottonedan]

Attached is the image that Steve (Sbrem) created from calculations for those interested.




He sepped out the black (Alpha 1) and the Gray (Alpha 2), then made a dupe of the
Gray (Alpha 2 copy) then did the calculations for the new black channel (Alpha 3).
Also, my settings in the Calculations dialog box...


This gives you the shadows areas to add to the black screen to add to the depth of the image.