Photoshop seps to Corel

[myseps]

Is there a way to print photoshop seps without using photoshop? Maybe using Corel instead or some sort of PDF or eps?

[Frog]

I don't remember why I did it, but I have saved PS channel seps as individual files which I then imported into CorelDRAW.

[screenxpress]

I snagged this from something Tom posted.  Maybe it will help.  I've done something similar but this might get you started -

Tom Pitman
Owner
Pitman Graphics
   If all you're using is Photoshop, you can output halftones directly to your film by changing the mode of your file to "bitmap", and change the "method" in the drop-down menu at the bottom of the dialog box to "halftone" and enter your linescreen, angle and dot shape in the subsequent dialog box. If you're working with spot color or process color, once you've edited your file to your satisfaction, save a copy, then use the "split channels" option by clicking the small tab at the upper right of the channels palette, then changing each of the subsequent grayscale channels to bitmap halftones as noted above. You'll wind up with a file for each of the separations. One other consideration when using this method is this: the sharpness of the dot shape when printing is not only determined by the resolution of you printer, but also by the resolution of your file. A low-res file will print ragged. Think of postscript files printed to a 300 dpi laser printer years ago . . . not as sharp on the edges as the same file printed to a 600 or 1200 dpi printer. When I've used this method, I always tried to create my file at 600 dpi so the halftone dots would be fairly sharp on the edges. Others may disagree.

I think you can output this to a file to pass off to someone.

[Command-Z]

Back in the day we used to save multichannel PSD files as DCS 2.0 EPS files. Nowadays, you don't need to do that... just import (or "place" in AI) your PSD into a CorelDRAW or Illy file and the spot color channels will print... when you see the spot colors from the PSD in the Draw/Illustrator swatches palette, you know you're good to go.

This is useful for people who have a standard setup with reggie marks, etc in a vector app... or if you need to add text or other vector elements.

[Dottonedan]

Hi Scott,


I know your picking up some of my customers here and there for them wanting to try you out. I've learned over the years that competition is a good thing. Keeps one sharp. It's a big world out there and room for some competition so I will share with you what I know below.  I'm sure your world is opening up from being accustom to using 10-12 colors down to trying to make these colorful jobs work on a 6 color manual press on dark shirts. :0 That is often more rewarding than simply using all the colors of a 10 or 12 color press + your printer is also more challenged and requires more printers skill to get them to look great. We have some very skilled printers using a 6 color manual or auto over the 10-12 color autos.




To your question,
We have multiple ways of saving photoshop channels so that the Corel users of the world who only print from Corel or do not even own Photoshop can print our seps. The most efficient manor (easiest for our Corel using customers) is to save them as a DCS2 file.


1, Once you create your spot color seps in photoshop, you take out all of the other remaining elements used such as any channel mask's and only keep the Spot color seps.


2,  For DCS2 files (this is important), you must also keep the top channels of RGB. If you only worked in channels for any reason or you've already deleted your RGB channels, you will need to change the mode back to RGB. This can be a flat version of the original art in RGB. It does not interfere with your separations, but I prefer to try and keep it cleaner looking so I fill the RGB background layer with solid white or solid black.


3, Do a (SAVE AS) and scroll down to PHOTOSHOP DCS 2.0 (EPS) Your sep file will now be saved as an EPS and they can be a bit larger in file size, but I simply compress the file when I send anyways.


4, IMPORTANT:   These are the steps that work most efficiently for me but each can be changed. UNDER PREVIEW, choose TIFF 8 bit pixel.
Under DCS, choose (SINGLE FILE) with COLOR COMPOSITE 72ppi.
Under ENCODING, use jpg, (Maximum quality).


I do NOT select any of the other options below the above options.
You can play with the other settings later to see what you like best, but this works.


5, Click SAVE.


Your end is done.  Your customer only needs to place the file into Corel and they can now see the CUSTOM SPOT COLORS you used in their color list. They choose those and print. Because the DCS2 file also had the RGB channels includes, Corel will recognize some of this file to need to be converted to CMYK and will show those colors as printable. Make sure they know NOT to print these. No need. Black or solid sheets will print out if they do choose those CMYK colors.


I prefer the SINGLE FILE with color composite 72ppi so that all separations are placed into the Corel document all together. It's easier for them to select that one file and scale down or up if need be.


The original benefit of a DCS1 and 2 file is so that you can add vector art to (or over top of) bitmap art. For spot channel seps, placed into Corel or Illustrator, you can assign one of the listed photoshop spot colors to a line of vector type for example and have both vector and bitmap print out together on he same color sep. This is very convenient for name changes on name drop designs and is typically the standard streamlined procedures of a name drop company. They set up a bitmap separations and make the art that changes (vector) so that they can quickly go back into the master file and change Arizona to West Virginia for example.


When placing these into Illustrator, you must follow and additional important step.


When you open Illustrator and go to PLACE the DCS2 file, you MUST check LINK on the selection box at the bottom options window. If it is not checked, it will not see or recognize the DCS2 file.
Illustrator does not embed DCS2 files. It can only LINK them. Now, in addition, since it is a LINKED file, you must always keep the linked DCS2 file in it's original location folder.


It by chance you move it, and open the Illustrator file with the linked separations, you will get that error box that says "Can't locate the placed image" because it was moved from it's original location. So keep it in the same folder all the time. If you do move it, you will have to re-locate it and re-link it.


The other more time consuming and tedious method is to split the SPOT color channels in photoshop and re-name, and save each color file as a psd, tif, eps etc. And then they can be placed within a vector program for output.


Some of your customers are not familiar with either of these processes above and you will need to accommodate them using whatever method they are most comfortable with. Some go crazy getting a DCS2 file because they've never seen it before and want individual sep files.


Have fun.
Dot-Tone-Dan

[Dottonedan]

What Z says is correct. For the newer versions of Illy and Corel, they recognize the psd spot colors in one file. I think it's Illy CS5 and up for Illy. Not sure about Corel but they are always one version behind Illy on new Illy features.


I'd add tho, that many of our sep customers have various versions of Illy and Corel and many are old versions. Just dropping the psd file does not always work for everyone.


Saving as a DCS2 file as a single file will work for all older versions of Illy and Corel.  It's more universal.

[myseps]

Thanks guys for the tips, i'll try these out.

[tpitman]

I've had mixed results outputting DCS2 files to .ps files for running through Ghostscript (I'm on a Mac). What I prefer to do now is split the channels to grayscale files, then place them on the equivalent number of artboards in Illustrator, each of which already has my registration marks and some placement guides that also line up with the overlay I've got taped to my Vastex platen jig so all films are relatively close in registration on the screens. I add any spot color text in the Illustrator file to take advantage of vector type, then print to file setting my screen angles, frequency and dot shape for each color. Open the .ps file in Ghostview and print.
So far this has been the most reliable way of getting stuff to print for me, and the halftones are very good. Adobe took all the good stuff out of the print dialog box in Photoshop with CS5, so I rely on Illustrator. I use an Agfa Imagesetter ppd as my printer when printing to file, which allows me to set up 11x17 and 13x18 films. I used to use Adobe PDF as my printer, but that's something else they've buggered up.

[Dottonedan]

I've found the various rips and qualities of rip to be the biggest burr under my saddle.  Everyone sets up a file so differently. A separation source can't rely on one consistent method.


Some require a psd channel file but with RGB mode.
Some with no RGB but saved as grayscale.
Some with no RGB and saved as Multi channel.
Some with just the multi channel file.
Some as DCS2 with RGB
Some as individual DCS2 grayscale files.
Some as tiffs
Some as psd files
Some as jpgs


The strangest one I've found is a customer wanted my grayscale spot color seps saved back into the RGB channels (as black) with each color on a different layer and saved with no spot color channels. Says he can only print from RGB layers.  ??




Seriously, I get a new method every other week it seems.

[Dottonedan]

Tom's and Z's methods of multi files placed into a vector program works just as well. The only draw back I find is that you have al of these individual files that can get moved around and out of registration by an accentual drag/move.  So, the single file has been good t me.


Back in the day, we used that process as a standard as well, but we only needed to save them as an eps and placed them. No DCS. Then that came out and changed the game a little.


One thing I miss about the eps files is you used t be able to assign a different screen angle to each one in photoshop and embed that info in the file. So no matter what Illy was set up to, the Photoshop  file would override Illy. So you could assign lest say, a test strip of 1% tints on up to 100% and the file was only 1" tall by 12" wide or whatever and drop each one into one vector file and print.  Each strip would come out with 10lpi, 15 lpi, 20 lpi, on up to however many different ones you wanted to drop in. Was good for test files.


I'm sure (some how) you can still do it but I haven't needed to for a while so never dug into it.
I hear Corel will let you assign different halftones to each element.  Freehand used to do that as well.


Freehand was pretty cool. You could assign many different funky things like mezzo tins, stipples, diamonds, ellipse, round dots, to different elements and have them all print out on the same separation. That was postsript language tho.

[Frog]

Freehand was pretty cool. You could assign many different funky things like mezzo tins, stipples, diamonds, ellipse, round dots, to different elements and have them all print out on the same separation. That was postsript language tho.

Yes, I found it quite disheartening when Adobe, their third owner, showed their true intentions of letting Freehand and some of its superior features die rather than keeping the program, or even utilizing those features into a new improved Illustrator.

Reminds me a bit of Hirsch actually completely killing US Screen and its T-Jet competition under the guise of infusing them with much needed capital.

[tpitman]

There's some version of Freehand that will work under OSX on the Mac. The shop in Daytona I work at some uses it almost exclusively. The artist they use for their hot rod art still uses Freehand. I don't know if this is something that's been jerry-rigged post-Adobe, or if Adobe has made some unpublished accommodations, but it seems there's a Freehand fanbase out there using it on current operating systems (on the Mac side, anyway).
This is the site of the artist who does a lot of their work. He used to be on staff, and he recently did the Turkey Run art for the shop:
http://www.adamicenogle.com
Maybe anyone interested could contact him and get the skinny on it.

[Command-Z]

Right... yes Dan, I should have mentioned that recent versions of Corel and AI don't require DCS 2.0, just PSD

I think I could do it with Illo CS3 but not sure when it started. DCS 2.0 will work with earlier versions, but file sizes can be large.

And yes, Freehand was cool. As much as I like Illustrator, I hope Adobe never buys Corel 'cause I'd hate to see DRAW absorbed into the Adobe gas-giant never to be seen again.

[Chadwick]

Yah know..I don't want to start the new year off wrong, but,
geez Dan, wtf was that all about?
Feel the hunger yet?
..

PSD Channel file.
Import it into Corel, or drag it into an open document.
You will have a grouped object ( multi channel file, each channel is a greyscale bitmap )
Ungroup it.
Select each layer ( object in Corel ) one at a time, put on a a seperate page, or beside each other, or whatever rubs you right.
Select the element you want to print and 'print selected' through your rip.

I've output PS though Corel for years.
If you don't have a RIP, you bitmap it ( 1 bit, line freq/angle ) in Photoshop, THEN put it into Corel,
or you could manually convert the greyscale to 1 bit through Photopaint, while in Draw.

Hope that was clear enough.
I'm here all week.

 

[JBLUE]

That was a strange jab for sure.