Multiple Color Design

[Lottie05]

I have a multiple color image in photoshop about 3 colors that I want to put on a shirt. could someone help me seperate the 3 different colors by pointing me into the direction of an excellent tutorial or video that will show me step by step how to seperate the 3 colors and also the printing perferences for printing the 3 different films I would also like in this registration marks so anything that points me in the right direction would be very helpful. thanks

[Catspit Productions]

I don't use Photoshop often for this purpose. Once in a while when all I can get is a high resolution TIFF then I might use PS with an add on for separations. But maybe these 2 videos could help you out:





This one could help too:

[Lottie05]

Thanks for the videos I have reviewed them in the first one when he went into the print options and used a rip software, is this a must have in order to get the design to film? I have an Epson workforce 1100 but no rip software. Will I be able to print without the Rip if so what type of settings must I apply to the print options to get a good film?

[Catspit Productions]

Actually if you’re not printing any halftones then no, you do not need RIP software. If your design includes gradients or tonal ranges then that would be rendered by halftones or dots. Again RIP software is necessary to print those film positives.

But if the design is all spot colors then you can go right to the inkjet printer with water proof inkjet film. Check out this article for tips on printing spot colors without RIP:

http://howtoscreenprintshirts.com/2011/ ... -software/

The article is specific to an Epson 1400 but there is another tip in there that should help out a lot. That is using a “color rich” black when printing the film positives.

I hope this helps out more.

[cowboylife]

Hi Johnathan,
Is the RIP software used during the printing of the film positive output process only? Or is RIP software used in the seperation of the layers to prepare for film positive output printing?

Thanks,
Rhonda

[Catspit Productions]

Hey Rhonda,

Mostly we use RIP to output film and it may have various functions itself depending on what RIP you have. Most of the time for instance we do all the art in Illustrator including separations and sizing. Then we can send one “plate” or piece of film to the RIP at a time if we are printing halftones or if you use the RIP for other functions. I guess it depends on how you like to use the RIP but the answer is we use RIP mainly for halftones as you don’t really need it for spot color work. Some people may use it all the time as habbit.

And there are color separation add “ons” for Photoshop, Corel and standalone software as well. Those all would need RIP to output halftone plates that it might create. Maybe a standalone product has RIP I don’t know but RIP basically enables a non post script printer to print small rounded dots and other dot patterns that it cannot without it.