See how quality color separations can boost your business. By barb binder, adobe certified instructor on photoshop updated for cc jun 30, 2016. Using this method of creating an underbase allows us to control the amount of ink in the underbase. In pretty short order you will have a each color as a section on the new artboard, just save it. Adobe illustrator cs6 create a template for screen print color separation duration. Realtime color extraction enables you to quote your. In the printing process, spot colors are overprinted on top of the fourcolor image. What sets them apart from one another and what is the best use for each. Illustrator cc 20 oneonwe bring in outside artwork, limit the color pallet and create. Figure 7 you should note the color you selected on and assign that color to this channel and make it a spot color channel.
Refers to a method of specifying and printing colors in which each color is printed with its own ink. Spot color separation is used to separate colors can be or not mixing. Spotcolor images generally have specific solid colors, but also can have small halftone dots for shading. Imagine doing highend separations in about one minute.
Open the file and click the window layers to view the files layers. And theres a difference between onscreen color and inprint color, which is most important to remember and troubleshoot if youre going to print. Just about every function that permits the tshirt screen printer or graphic artist to generate color separations of any type, custom spot color. And theres a difference between onscreen color and inprint color, which is. In this post, adobe illustrator will be used to create a threecolor screen print using a fictional company logo, and have it set up to allow a screen printer to easily print the. I made a design which is composed of an expanded live trace, a couple of rectangles with fills and strokes, and some text within said rectanglesboxes. Okay, so youve heard their names, cmyk process, spot color, and simulated spot process, but what are they. Luckily, the main roadblock people run into is but is overthinking the process. Spot color separation is used to separate colors that are not mixing.
To hide a separation ink on screen, click the eye icon to the left of the separation name. Dont waste time fixing client supplied, downloaded, or improperly color managed artwork. Once the output section is visible, set the mode to separations. Cmyk is the oldest halftone print the post cmyk vs. Click again to revert the color back to a spot color.
Spot color transparency and screens in illustrator. Cmyk process cyan, magenta, yellow, black what is it. Adobe illustrator is the industrys leading vector generation software. To change the screen frequency, screen angle, and shape of halftone dots. For straight up spot color images the monotone method in photoshop definitely works, but the easiest way by far is to just place the grayscale image in illustrator or indesign, choose the direct selection tool the white arrow, click on the image and then click on the pms color from the swatch palette to assign it to the image make sure you.
Quikseps color separation software for screen printers. Learning how to color separate in illustrator for screen printing can be overwhelming at times, but is more commonly over thought. Spot process separation studio 4 color separates graphic images created in adobe, corel and other mainstream graphics software. Color separation software for screen printing separo. Spotcolor separations in photoshop cs5 layers magazine. What is the best color separation software for screen. Refers to the cmyk color model used in offset printing. There are a couple of ways to do color separations for screen preparation in illustrator. I have separated spot colors on a pc before, but i was under the impression that you cannot download the adobe pdf printer on mac os which is required to separate spot colors for screen printing. Magic lens max is a realtime, intuitive and advanced screen magnifier. Doing so is an early binding of the color profile to a device dependent workflow. This tutorial will show you how to create spot color separations in adobe illustrator for silk screen printing in the easiest way possible. Now, the first thing i want youto notice about this logo is that both shades of blueare represented by a spotcolor.
We wanted to make ultraseps v2 not only the finest tshirt color separation program available, but also the easiest to use. To convert an individual spot color to process colors, click the spot color icon next to the color in the document ink options list. Learn how to do a basic underbase separation in photoshop for screen printing. Spot process separation studio 4 has automated the most difficult color separation processes for screen printers, plus delivers direct to inkjet output for easy film printing. Quikseps outputs automated color separations in up to 9 colors within minutes and costs 75 percent less than the competing products. As graphic designers working between multiple platforms and applications, we can sometimes forget which mode were working in, or which colors have been applied where. Print seperation for screen printing illustrator photoshop.
Tweak the details in adobe photoshop or go straight to ripping with our seps. Art prep, color separation and film output is a snap. You can create this type of color separation with simple vector artwork. How to create color separations in adobe illustrator. Part one how to adjust your one color image in photoshop in order to. Spot color printing is effective when the printed matter. In this video, i will show a simple way to separate a design. I need the attached art traced and separated for cmyk, color process or 4 color plus screen printing onto fabric. Depending on the advice you get from the screen printing company, you can either choose a pantone color or any color that your screen printer will replace with the actual colorthe important thing here is.
In this video we go through the necessary steps in adobe illustrator to color separate your vector art so we can make films for your print project. How to print color separations out of adobe illustrator. You create a logo that contains two spot colors in this case, ive used pms blue 072 and pms red 032. Check out separo color separation software for screen printing weve been using it for free for a while they do have a paid service, but we dont use it just yet as it doesnt quite fit our needs. Printing presses produce color using either process color or spot color, or both. How to do a basic spot color separation in photoshop for screen printing illustrator cs6. We bring in outside artwork, limit the color pallet and create films for a 4 color press. From quick spot color jobs to tough simulated process separations separo creates high quality separations ready for silk screen printing and proofs with color gamut reduction. I havent sent preseparated files for print work since about 1994 or so.
He is a member of the academy of screen printing technology and has published more than 350 articles, columns, features, and papers over the past 35 years. Simple spot color separations for screen printing graphic design. In this case, a separate plate is created for each spot color. In the new spot channel dialog, name the channel and make sure that the color swatch holds the color you want to use. To disable printing of a color plate, click the printer icon next to the color in the document ink options list. What works to help one shop print shirts might not work. Second, you can work with your composite image and manually select each color section.
In this tutorial we duplicated the spot color channels and choked them before adding them to the underbase channel. These printers will likely want a color separation. Does this make a difference when printing, or will the printer understand the transparency setting of a pms color thats set to 100%, and convert it to screens in the printing. How to create spot solor separations in adobe illustrator for silk.
To hide all separation inks on screen except one, altclick windows or optionclick mac os the eye icon for that separation. How to color separate in illustrator for screen printing. With premiumadvanced license options now available get on board with spot process. Converting spot color to process color in illustrator or. How to color separate vector art in adobe illustrator so its screen. This additional step is something that everyone has heard of, but very few have tried. After you create vector artwork for tshirt printing, there is one more. Spss4 provides default settings to maximize processing speed while maintaining the.
Click on each eye individually to see what each plate looks like. During the spot colour process where you pick up colours, what would. Online tshirt shops are popular with ecommerce entrepreneurs because they are easy to start thanks to. Color separations are necessary because a typical printing press applies only one color of ink at a time to a sheet of paper. Does anyone use a mac os for spot color separation via adobe cc. In this video we demonstrate one of many way to separate colors using adobe illustrator. The spot color screen printing separations process is suitable for one to three colors. Before you print color separations from illustrator, its a good idea to perform the. If you are using photoshop with spot color channels, turn off the unwanted channels and save each as a different pdf file. Its a simple design and we have three spot colors, black, red, and yellow. Quikseps is a simulated process color separation program designed for tshirt screen printers.
Color separation for screen printers freehand graphics. What is the difference between adobe illustrator cc and cs6. Tseps is an automated color separation plugin for adobe photoshop. This is a plugin for adobe acrobat used to split pdf pages according to page color. Spot process separation studio screen printing separation. We suggest using a rip software to output your film positives to control the lpi and ink density. After you create vector artwork for tshirt printing, there is one more major step the printer has to perform before printing. Color separations photoshop diy tutorials for screen.
From illustrator s file menu, select print to open the print dialogue box. And as well see, illustrator is betterat this than photoshopbut you have to be careful as well. We provide screen print separations that work, with a fast turn over to keep your press running. Illustrator shows the different opacity of each element in the group in the transparency panel, while the percentage of the color in the color panel is always at 100%. How to do color separations for screen printing in adobe illustrator. This is a discussion about spot color separation using adobe photoshop or illustrator that was posted in the screen printing section of the forums. For some screen printers, using illustrator to separate colors can be overwhelming at times. Youre trying to do it the more complicated way, so ill. Images are converted from rgb to spot colors for screen printing. Getting tshirts printed is an ideal way to promote your business, organization or event. Spot process software transformed sim process in 1995 into an easy and reliable onscreen and onpress system. How to create spot solor separations in adobe illustrator for silk screen printing vlog.
They are a promotional item that people can actually use, and they have the added bonus of being an advertisement for you. Because your screen is an rgb device and youre setting up your file for a cmyk output device, the colors you see onscreen do not match the colors that will ultimately be printed on paper and at best are a ballpark match. How to print color separations in illustrator adobe support. How to create color separations in adobe illustrator practical.
Creating spot color separations in photoshop how to. You have just made the first color of the separation process in photoshop. Spot process sep studio 4 is the highly anticipated end to your struggles with raster and vector art, bad customer supplied files, and downloaded images not ready for. Theres a lot of software involved with a great print. Depending upon the application i am using, i wont bother with converting images to cmyk. Experience the power of color separation automation with intelligence. Ok, im an illustrator noob, but ive worked in screen printing. The new spot process separation studio 4 has 80% more tools and features than the previous version.
To convert all spot colors to process colors, so that they are printed as part of the processcolor plates rather than on a. Lets face it, most of us set type over our photoshop images using a page layout program i. Monster graphics print color separations from illustrator. We take out the guess work, and provide you with quicker screen set ups, predictable results, and brighter colors for beautiful prints every time. Its crucial that you learn how to color separate before your artwork is compromised. How to color separate vector art in adobe illustrator so. In this movie, ill show youhow to export spotcolor seperationsas a. The color gamut the range of colors that can be achieved is much smaller with process color, so matching a pms spot color in fourcolor can often be a challenge. So, convert whatever you have to spot color, and be sure you do not have anything on rgb or cmyk color which will not works well on silk screen printing. Mark coudray is the founder of coudray growth technologies and is a noted industry expert on color, color separation, halftone printing, and quality practices. First, follow the steps above, then open each page of the color separation pdf in illustrator, select the black image, copy it, and paste it to a new artboard. In contrast, process color printing uses four inks cyan, magenta, yellow, and black to produce all other colors. Preparing artwork for screen printing in adobe illustrator. The logo has a drop shadow behind it, and youve correctly set illustrators drop shadow feature to use the blue 072 spot color, not black.
You can specify the color separations to print, including the order in which they print. Separation studio is the latest release of spot process, the software that pioneered automated, color image separating. This software is exactly what you need to take your company to the next level. When the dialogue opens, set the color type to spot color. If you look at a fourcolor image using a loupe, youll see a discernable dot pattern. How to print color separations out of adobe illustrator youtube. To overprint all black ink, select overprint black. How to create your own color separations in adobe illustrator. Spotcolor separations and prints generally are used for logos, school designs, clip art, hardedged graphics, cartoons or other images that have a.
Spot colors are used for printing text and solid line and area images, but not full color photos or designs with complex gradients. We bring in outside artwork, limit the color pallet and. Mac mcadams 9 color separation by myseps, artwork by wicked grafixx the baddest tshirts in drag racing, print by staub screen printing jun 30, 2015 9. Screen printing shop management, digital printing business software. Im confused about color separations coreldraw community. Ultraseps tshirt color separation software ultraseps.