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I'm trying to see if I can do my own color separations. I am lost. I have never done it before. Everytime I read a tutorial or a thread on this I'd come at some point I'd come across a detail that wouldn't match my situation so I'd at a dead end. So I'm gonna give you the current status of my artwork and the resources I have and maybe you guys can tell me what I can and can't do with it. ANd if I can than how.
Original artwork is created in Corel (I have used the Transparency tool for some of the elements)
The colors are Pantone (the list is found under the "Fixed Palette" in Corel)
Do I have to change it to CMYK or RGB? Because as of now, from what I understand, it's neither. (What is the difference between these two?)
I don't have Photoshop, but I have Corel PHOTO-PAINT X3. Any chance I could do the seps with this program?
What are the first couple of steps I need to take? e.g. Do I open the photo-paint then click open then click on the existing file, or do I need to do the Import? etc
We will need a little more information to help you.
What are you going to use the separations for?
Do you need one printout for each pms spot color so you can screen print solid colors?
Do you need to convert all the spot colors to the 4 process colors? (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) Sometimes used in screen printing on light colors.
Does your design have a photograph in it?
The difference between CMYK, RGB and Pantone in very simple terms.
Pantone can be thought of as a single color, say purple, or green. Each color never changes unless you use a screen (little dots) to blend it with the color behind it. It is sometimes called a spot color. You usually only put one spot color in a given area. If your design had a red square and a blue circle, the screen printer would like one printout with a solid black square, and the second printout with a solid black circle. The colors are now 'separated', each color printed black on a different sheet of paper. He would then make 2 T-shirt screens and fill one with red ink and the other with blue ink.
CMYK is a process used for printing a range of colors by blending only 4 colors together to trick the eye into seeing all the colors. Inkjet printers have 4 (or more) colors and use CMYK to simulate all the colors and to print photos. Look at magazines pictures with a magnifing glass to see the dots.
To get the color Red, the printer puts 100% Yellow and 100% Magenta on top of each other. The inks allow light to go through them and bounce back off the white paper. Your eye sees red.
To do a 4 color separation, you would have 4 printouts, one sheet for each color. The square would be solid on the yellow and magenta printouts, the blue circle would have a solid circle on the cyan page, but on the magenta page, the circle would have a 40% screened circle. It would look gray until you got close to it, then you would see it is really a bunch of little black dots that blend in with the white paper behind it to make it look gray. (Some shades of blue use all 4 colors).
RGB is used for screen displays. Red Green Blue. Put a drop of water on your TV screen while it is on and you will see the 3 colored dots in action.
If you create an RGB design and send it to your inket, the RGB is automatically converted into CMYK to print.
There is a lot more to learn about the different color models, but this might be enough to help you get started.
We will need a little more information to help you.
What are you going to use the separations for?
Do you need one printout for each pms spot color so you can screen print solid colors?
Do you need to convert all the spot colors to the 4 process colors? (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) Sometimes used in screen printing on light colors.
Does your design have a photograph in it?
HI John,
Thank you so much for all the info. To answer your questions - I don't know. One of the printers I have been communicating with asked me if I had my artwork color separated. That's when I realized that that needs to be done also. Should I ask him, will he know which process needs to be done?
Also, does the printing technique play role? If I'm looking for water-based screen printing, do I need to do e.g. 4 process?
If you have created the art in CorelDraw using spot (pantone) colors ONLY the seperations will print for you - just go the the seperations tab in the printing dialog and click the box to print seperations. You will see each of your spot colors listed as well as details for frequency and angle - simply uncheck all but one color - print it, then do the same for the rest of the colors. If you have no halftones you can print to most any printer however a postscript printer is best and required to print halftones.
If you have any CMYK elements in your art, you will see CMYK as well as the spot colors in the color section of the seperations tab. You will need to git rid of whatever is CMYK - often its an outline or text you may have added in black or another color from the standard pallet and not a specific spot color.
All this pertains to screen printing spot colors. Doing 4CP or offset printing is different and I send completed art to my printer and they seperate it if needed.
You can use photoshop (and probably other photo editing software) to seperate art into spot colors or simulated process by creting chanels, assigning your required pantone color, then pulling that color out of the design and palcing eash color into it's on channel (super simplistic explanation). This requires a lot of expertise not only in using the software, but to manipulate the image/channels to properly work together on press to yield an acceptable print so you need to know that end as well.
As Steve said, if you've used Pantone colours in your art the separations are pretty much already done for you. In Photoshop/Illustrator you can just select the option to separate automatically when you print and it will spit out one sheet per colour. I imagine other programs have similar options somewhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Annushka
Also, does the printing technique play role? If I'm looking for water-based screen printing, do I need to do e.g. 4 process?
The principles are all the same for water-based and plastisol printing; the ink types just change.
Should I ask him, will he know which process needs to be done?
Also, does the printing technique play role? If I'm looking for water-based screen printing, do I need to do e.g. 4 process?
Yes he will know after you tell him what you want to print.
The artwork and T-shirt color will determine what the printer needs for separations. Most screen printing that I do is small runs for local business. Uniforms for landscapers or construction crews. Typically just one or two solid colors. I give the screen printer one page printout for each color in the job.
Photos or blends of colors in your art will require a different method of preperation. (A laser printer with built in postscript or postscript RIP software on your computer) You can hire a business to take your art and create the screen separations needed if you don't have access to postscript.
If you need more help, tell us about your art, shirt color, quantities etc. for this job. You can even export your artwork as a jpeg and post it here for us to look at.
thanks a lot for the posts. This is what I did so far:
emailed the printer, waiting for the answer back
got rid of all the CMYK colors, everything is in Pantone
found the feature that prints the seps. for you. I won't need it myself, since I have to email the artwork to the contractors. But it's a great feature to know for doing some at-home transfers etc
I have taken the design, and "chopped" it into separate pages within the file according to color, and put four registration marks in the corners and they are all perfectly alligned
I hope I am on the right track as far as the spot color goes. I'm going to try the 4CP color next using corel's photo-paint. I'm sure I'll have another post soon IN the meantime if there's anything else I should try/be working on please let me know.
looks like you separated the design manually. I do this quite a bit as I can controll all the variables/elemtns on each plate. If your designs are in PMS colors you can use the in prog separations. Under the print options select separations, choose advanced and you can apply all your specific angles, dpi and dot shapes and your done.
Color Separation Help 
Re: Color Separation Help 
IN the meantime if there's anything else I should try/be working on please let me know.
