Color Separations Using Photoshop

[upperhandprinting]

I have a question about color separations. I will be printing pretty complicated pieces for bands merchandise. Luckily the bands have professional artists doing the artwork for them. These artists know that the final use for their art is t shirt printing, so they are very good and preparing the files for that purpose. When I receive the psd files, they are usually separated onto layers by color, so the majority of the work is already done for me. The only problem I'm having is that these layers are still the correct Pantone colors that they want printed. I obviously need to change the color of each layer to black to create my stencil and burn my screen. I have learned a few techniques that work well with spot colors, but I can't quite get them to work with more complicated designs. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to change that layer to black without using the wand or color selector? Those methods tend to muddy the images up a bit by not being exactly precise. I just want to change every dot in the image to black and not add or take away any pieces. I would appreciate any advice or tutorial videos anyone knows of. As a last resort, I could upload the psd file so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.

Thanks!

[Catspit Productions]

Again this is not my forte but I think you can use >select>color range> eye dropper. Turn off each other layer while working with one. Then convert them to 100% CMYK black or just use RIP software and let that do the layers as black. You could print visible layers and send it through that way.

Or if it is a high enough resolution tiff file Illustrator can vector-ize it nicely. Or you may be able to use the old export to Illustrator function if your version has it.

Upload the file, if it is not too bad maybe I could help further.

Anyone else...?

[tramokzs]

Good Day sir.. I would like to ask in separating the color. and the HALF Tone in photoshop
what LPI is preferable to use in 110mesh screen.?

[upperhandprinting]

I'm just getting started in doing halftones myself, but as far as I know I don't think LPI will matter much because 110 is pretty open for even trying halftones. I personally wouldn't try halftones on anything lower than a 230 mesh. It may work on a 160 or something, but I think the dots would have to be such a size that it would lose the desired effect anyway. Hopefully someone here that's more versed in halftones can help out.

[Catspit Productions]

It’s true a 110 mesh count will be no good for halftones. You’ll need at least a 200 mesh to do a decent halftone at like 40 lpi. You can do tee shirts at 30 to 45 lpi I think. For me that is the most I would push it either way. I always have my film made for 200 mesh at like 40 or 45 lpi so it looks decent. But that is not CMYK I am talking about. CMYK would go on a 305 or 355 mesh. The higher the mesh count the finer you can go with the halftone but remember you are printing a tee shirt so anything fine enough to fall into the knit gaps will be lost anyway during printing. That goes the same for the mesh.

And that means a high quality garment with a very tight knit is most desirable for any halftone work. Lower quality garments with very open knitting will not give you the best print results with any halftone really. It can affect the flood and stroke so much that the halftone won’t print the way it was intended.

[ppdlao]

I have a question about color separations. I will be printing pretty complicated pieces for bands merchandise. Luckily the bands have professional artists doing the artwork for them. These artists know that the final use for their art is t shirt printing, so they are very good and preparing the files for that purpose. When I receive the psd files, they are usually separated onto layers by color, so the majority of the work is already done for me. The only problem I'm having is that these layers are still the correct Pantone colors that they want printed. I obviously need to change the color of each layer to black to create my stencil and burn my screen. I have learned a few techniques that work well with spot colors, but I can't quite get them to work with more complicated designs. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to change that layer to black without using the wand or color selector? Those methods tend to muddy the images up a bit by not being exactly precise. I just want to change every dot in the image to black and not add or take away any pieces. I would appreciate any advice or tutorial videos anyone knows of. As a last resort, I could upload the psd file so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.

Thanks!

hi Craig!, I know! it´s been a long time since you posted this, but I 've had the same problem, and what I use to do is, if your color layer is "translucent", I mean you have the design but it is still translucent, you could create a new layer above it, and positioning the cursor between both layers press the CTRL key, now a little icon figure will appear, then when it appears press left mouse click and so that "new"empty layer will "cover somehow the layer below, and some litle "arrow" will be added to the left side of that empty new layer (all this is shown in the layers window) so then proceed to paint that empty new layer with black, and there you go, the color layer no matter what color it is, will be black colored, without changing any pixel at all, then create a new layer above those two, select it, and press IMAGE->APPLY IMAGE that action will "blend" all visible layers into one, and you will obtein the "black colored layer,when doing this be sure none layer isvisibe but the ones you need to blend in one, see you guys! , I hope this could help somehow

[ppdlao]

press the CTRL key, now a little icon figure will appear, then when it appears press left mouse click and so that "new"empty layer will "cover somehow the lay

Sorry, forgive me for the mistake, I do this mechanically, yesterday I was on my PC and realized that is actually the ALT key that must be pushed!!!!! sorry