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So my press gets here tomorrow, and the last thing I need to be able to do to really get to the trial and error process, is to print and separate my colors.
All I see on the web is that you need a PPD driver or something?
I have an Epson Photo R260. Will this work? And how do I separate these colors. I really need a step by step. I downloaded a Generic PPD driver from adobe's website, and at least now the "Separation" optins are available, as they weren't before the driver download. But I have NO IDEA what to do here.
Thanks in advance.
Schizm
Last edited by Schizm; November 8th, 2007 at 04:33 PM.
Reason: Addition
Oh. Also, you should know that I am not trying to print photo-realistic or anything. Just basic art up to 6 seperate colors. But most designs will be just 2 colors. Hope this helps.
Good luck , I just paid for someone to come to my house and load illustrator in my computer with 4 hours of tutoring and I didnt get any of it
I spent about 4 hours fiddling around and staring at the screen tonight all confused, I spent most of the time hitting backspace or ctrl Z
I dont think they could have made the program more esoteric and obscure if they tried !
Its all super secret nerd code
At this rate, and with my level of computer science knowledge, I'm looking at about 47 years before I can master color separations
In case anyone wants to learn Illustrator free of charge, you can always just search Google Video (or YouYube, or any of the videos places) and go from there.
(Google Video allows more megs for upload though, so you'll be able to watch videos all at once, rather than parts 1 through 5 for example)
Here's an example I got from searching using adobe+illustrator...
(The + sign means 'also', which essentially searches within a search, it looks for Adobe, not looking for Photoshop, and then it looks for Illustrator)
Hahahaha. Gumbydave. True. If you have NO previous experience with Adobe products, it will look like Chinese to you. It takes quite awhile to learn photoshop, let alone Illustrator. I have 10 years of design in Photoshop, but had none in Illustrator until 2 weeks ago.
Illustrator is a ***** if your not a "true" artist. I can't draw to save my life, but it looks like Illustrator is essential in our line of work.
Do as I did. Go buy a few books, and search and watch ALL of the video that you van on the program. It will slowly all become clear.
And use this forum. Everyone here seems more than happy to help. I know they've helped me a ton!
if you don't have a RIP, then you may not be able to print halftones. here's what you do:
for your design: choose your colors from Windows>Swatch Library>Pantone solid coated
when your design is ready for seps go to the print dialog box (file>print)
in the General setting, choose your printer and set your document size to whatever you need.
in Setup crop your artwork to "artwork bounding box"
in Marks & Bleeds check all printer marks
in Output set the mode to separations. only the colors you need should have a printer icon next to them. change your screen dot size here also.
click print and that should be it.
if you need to print halftones and you have a RIP system, change your printer to Adobe Postscript file, follow all the directions and instead of print, it should ask you to save. name your file and send that to your RIP for printing.
good luck.
__________________
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others." Groucho Marx
if you don't have a RIP, then you may not be able to print halftones. here's what you do:
for your design: choose your colors from Windows>Swatch Library>Pantone solid coated
when your design is ready for seps go to the print dialog box (file>print)
in the General setting, choose your printer and set your document size to whatever you need.
in Setup crop your artwork to "artwork bounding box"
in Marks & Bleeds check all printer marks
in Output set the mode to separations. only the colors you need should have a printer icon next to them. change your screen dot size here also.
click print and that should be it.
if you need to print halftones and you have a RIP system, change your printer to Adobe Postscript file, follow all the directions and instead of print, it should ask you to save. name your file and send that to your RIP for printing.
good luck.
good post, but what does RIP stand for? i use CS2 can i still use this method with this version of illustrator? also, does this method still work if my computer is not connected to my printer?
how do you send the file to your printer if your computer isn't connected?
i didn't want to print it
i tried it and it worked, i just wanted the files, to easily get the color seps... thanks for the tips.... the marks it puts on the page is very helpful
Color Separations in Illustrator CS3 
