Complaining about the making of art files by "artist" that don't print.

[Dottonedan]

I'm here to wine about the making of art files by "artist" that don't print.


I've got this file that is kicking my butt.  One of those easy peasy 3 color discharge jobs. 


It's on a gray background, and the original art they used was some colorful scene and they used 3 different filters to change it and get the look (that only looks like that) on the charcoal. Can't separate it out on black or white...and it disappears. Can't merge since the art is very light, airy and whispy like smoke. In fact, it's intended to be fog. Can't select it (as one) since it;s got all of those filters intertwining wreaking havoc over the data.


2nd file in my life I think that is kicking my butt....yet, I will not give in. I must push forward like the mighty sep worrier I claim to be. I will overcome. All this frustrations yet, no one will see my trials, the works I've done, and triumphs over this booger.


Ok. I'm done now that I got that off my chest. Back to work.

[Screened Gear]

Dan,

I am sure you know more tricks than me but try this. Duplicate the art. Then put the top layered one on Multiply in the layer window. That will intensify the fog. Then merge the layers. That should help with selecting it. Then when selected just make that layer 50% or what ever percent you need to soften it. If you need to you can do multiple layers on multiply to intensify the fog so it easier to select.

Hope that helps.

[Dottonedan]

Thanks Jon,


Understood.  Thats one of the tricks I tried, but selecting the fog "is not necessarily the issue. All colors are pretty close in contrast an It's separating out the colors of Charcoal, Cyan and a purple form that fog that is an issue. And it's filters used are where the colors come from. Except for merging all, Merging individual layers wipes them out. Multiply only compounds the issues.  I've got it pretty close now, but it's not perfect yet, so I'm still working on it. Doing a lot of manual stuff.

[Screened Gear]

I feel for you. I am just glad I don't ahave to do that all day.

How is the printing going. Lets see photos of that shop.

[Sbrem]

I'm sure you tried this, but how about a grayscale copy, then posterizing/tri-toning that, or make a grayscale, then another dupe in RGB, and a 3rd dupe in CMYK, which would give you a number of channels to try to knock out of the grayscale, or combine with calculations to make the new channels? Can we see the image?

Steve

[Dottonedan]

I got it completed, but don't know how specifically. I did so many tricks and making adjustments, it's hard to back track to say what did best. It was many combination of things. I pretty much went through the whole gamut of tricks and evaluated each and pulled a channel from a few of them and combined them. Then did some burning out on one channels and filling in on another etc. Long tough 3 colors job. 


I thank you both for the suggestions. In the process, I'm sure I used each and possibly combined a few others.