Author Topic: white separation for CMYK process discharge prints in illustrator...  (Read 1898 times)

Offline jvanick

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I'm starting to experiment with CMYK process discharge printing with the sericol texcharge inks...

I need to get some whites in a few of my prints and I'm wondering if somebody has a good tutorial on how to do that.

I'd prefer to do it in illustrator, so I can merge my vector stuff into that same layer...

suggestions?

-J


Offline jvanick

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Re: white separation for CMYK process discharge prints in illustrator...
« Reply #1 on: December 30, 2013, 12:01:36 PM »
Nobody has any thoughts or suggestions?

One idea I came up with is opening the file in Photoshop, printing my cmyk screens from there, converting the image to LAB color and then using the 'Lightness' channel to make the white screen.

seems like it might work?

I'm open to any other suggestions...

Offline Frog

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Re: white separation for CMYK process discharge prints in illustrator...
« Reply #2 on: December 30, 2013, 12:30:14 PM »
Keep in mind that many who would normally reply may be off for the holidays.
That rug really tied the room together, did it not?

Offline Sbrem

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Re: white separation for CMYK process discharge prints in illustrator...
« Reply #3 on: December 30, 2013, 01:01:16 PM »
Andy is correct, a lot of us are out. I'm just in today taking in the mail. My initial thought is that you don't need to underbase the discharge colors. If you are using Illustrator to convert to CMYK though, you're probably not going to get the results, as Illustrator doesn't take dot gain and other issues into account for you. In my opinion, it's better to do the CMYK seps in Photoshop, then import into Illustrator and add text there. You may need to do a ton of reading to keep from wasting a lot of film and screens trying to get something that looks good. BUT, you really need to have a good understanding of CMYK, and then more importantly, what happens when you do it on textiles. Perhaps Tony P. or some of the other guys with more experience printing discharge can chime in. Maybe if you post an image of what you want to print, we can make more suggestions. Good luck, and don't get discouraged, and Happy New Year.

Steve
I made a mistake once; I thought I was wrong about something; I wasn't

Offline jvanick

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Re: white separation for CMYK process discharge prints in illustrator...
« Reply #4 on: December 30, 2013, 01:11:26 PM »
honestly right now, I'm just trying to print some gamut charts and test patterns.

what I want to figure out is how I get the lightest colors on the gamut chart to print as those would typically be the ones (on a white shirt) with the least amount of ink going through.

what I think I need is a 'mixing white' layer for the lightest/white sections of the image.. the problem/question for me is, how do I get there ;)

as far as the vector layer in illustrator goes, I've got that process down...  as well as pretty good on process printing on white shirts, the colors aren't always perfect, but for the people I've done them for, they've been happy.

no problem on everybody being out.. just wanting to make sure that my post didn't get lost... I'm just doing experimentation while we're slow, so I can learn how to do some new stuff, and feel a bit more comfortable in offering it.