Need some Newbee help with seperations...

[Rocfrog]

I'm the graphic designer for a small screen print shop and am relitivly new to the game (about a 1.5yrs into it) and I have come across this sevral times but have always been able to sort of make it work but there has to be a better way.......

I've been given a raster PNG file that the customer wants to get printed. Normally the art work is pretty bad and I need to recreate it anyway but this one is done very well. So I was wondering how do i go about printing out the seps for spot printing?? I work mainly in Illustrator.



Nick

[Frog]

Step 1. Boot up Photoshop. (Hopefully, you have it, or it will be step 2.

[Sbrem]

Photoshop would be where I'd go in lieu of a vector file. I'd separate this into 4 channels, Black, Blue, Green and Gray. If you don't use Photoshop, then that might have bounced of the front of your head, but there are a bunch of us here that will help you if you like. As I started to say, once I save the 4 channels, and assign each one a spot color, the the file can be "placed" into Illustrator, the the spot colors come in with it and show up in your color pallet.

Steve

[Frog]

Let's hope that he does indeed have Photoshop, and someone can then walk him through Color range and the marching ants to select each color. That's always good info for anyone new at this.

[Rocfrog]

Sorry guys I had a few sales people come thru my office and got side tracked.....

Yes I do have Photoshop. I have used Photoshop before for color correction but I have never used it for screenprinting pourpouses...... So I am a complete NOOB when it comes to do any sort of seperation work with that program.....

Oh and BTW I have CS5.5

Nick

[Homer]

netseps.com

[abchung]

How to do a Color Separation in Photoshop Part 1

May be this might help.

[Croft]

I'm in a similar situation , new to photoshop.
Any chance someone would do a quick tutorial using this design and seperating to 4 colour ,
You know in your extra time 

[Rocfrog]

netseps.com

I don't need someone to do it for me, I can completely recreate it from scratch my self just wondering/looking for a simpler/quicker way. Pluse i have seen tons of people that use Photoshop in screen printing aplications just unsure how it's done....

Nick

[Homer]

netseps.com. . quit Fkin around. . .just sayin. .

if you could do it, you wouldn't be askin. . .

-totally not trying to be a dick -just trying to save you the trouble/money, so don't take offense.

[Sbrem]

OK, Nick, open the png file, then make a duplicate (image menu) and close the original. Now, make sure your "Channels" pallet is visible. With your magic wand tool, select a black section, then go to the Select menu, and choose "Similar". This should select all of your black. In the channels pallet, at the bottom, click on the icon 2nd from the left and and the black will be saved as a separate channel. (Don't worry about it looking like a negative, we'll get to that.) Then I would do the same for the grays, if you don't get all of the gray, then hold your shift key and select the remaining areas of gray, and click the 2nd icon from the left at the bottom of the panel, which will save all of your gray as a separate channel. The next part is a bit tricky, because of the green in the shield fading to the blue, but... Go to the select menu, and choose Color Range. You'll get a dialog box with a preview image and a slider. At the bottom of the dialog box, make sure "Selection" is clicked. With the eyedropper tool that you get when you choose "Color Range" click on the green at the top of the helmet, then move the slider all the way to the right (it'll read 200) and click OK.This will make a selection of the green which you'll save as a channel by clicking the little icon again. Now do that same thing again with the blue, except lower the slider to around 125 or so. Click OK, then click that little icon again, and you now have the RGB channels plus Alpha 1, Alpha 2, Alpha 3 and Alpha 4. Click on any of the new channels, and in the Image menu, Adjustments,  and select "Invert". Do this for each of the new channels. OK, you now have your 4 channels, all that's left is to color them, save the file and bring it into Illustrator. Back to your Channels pallet; let's say Alpha 1 is your black; double click on the right side of the channel and you'll get a dialog box about the color; choose "Spot", then click on the chip, which brings up the color picker. Click the "Custom Color" button, and choose a Pantone Black. Click OK and that channel will now be black. For the gray, choose Cool Gray 442 or there about, and click OK. Do the same for the green and the blue. Save the whole damn thing as a Photoshop file, and make sure the "Spot Colors" checkbox is checked. Now go back to Illustrator, call us a blank page, and Place the new file. The 4 colors you assigned will be added to your color pallet. Go to print, and choose which colors you want to print and shut the others off. Whew! Hope this helps.

Steve

There are a few other things to try of course, but this will get you started, plus it shows two ways to choose colors, with the magic wand and with Color Range. BTW, it took 3 times longer to type this out than to do it... once you know, you know, and you get faster.

[Rocfrog]

netseps.com. . quit Fkin around. . .just sayin. .

if you could do it, you wouldn't be askin. . .

-totally not trying to be a dick -just trying to save you the trouble/money, so don't take offense.

No offense taken, just saying. besides I'm an employee of this company and the owner doen't like to spend a penny so it wouldn't work anyway. I'm always up for learning new tricks and this is one that has been eating at me for some time now. I'm using this job as a learning tool for when I step out on my own.

Nick

[Rocfrog]

Ok Steve thank you that is exactly what I was looking for! Which worked.....but......the gray channel didn't do any half tones.....only a solid color? And the Kelly picked up a TON from the black.....see screen shots....

Kelly


Gray


Black


Royal


Nick

[screenxpress]

I would go back up and watch the video that Abchung put there.  I didn't follow Steve's writeup.  Not that it's bad or anything.  Just that I'm more of a 'visual" guy.

To get halftones, instead of 100% fill, make the fill around 60% (trial and error here) to get the halftones at the opacity you want.

[Sbrem]

I would go back up and watch the video that Abchung put there.  I didn't follow Steve's writeup.  Not that it's bad or anything.  Just that I'm more of a 'visual" guy.

To get halftones, instead of 100% fill, make the fill around 60% (trial and error here) to get the halftones at the opacity you want.

It was visual in my head, or maybe it was a sixties flashback. I did leave a part out, of course. Regarding the gray, in your channels pallet, select RGB (that will highlight those channels). On a Mac, hold the Command key (Alt on a PC? or Control?) and click on your Gray channel; this will make a selection, see the ants, and "copy" from the RGB, then select your gray channel, with the ants still a-marching, and paste; there are your tones. Sorry I left that out last night. And do look at the other tut posted, in fact, look at as many as you can find; you'll develop a nice toolbox that way.

Steve