Help with halftones

2039 Views 15 Replies 4 Participants Last post by LAURENCE, May 10, 2012

dptees

Discussion Starter · May 8, 2012

Just starting to use illustrator to work on graphics and color separations. Having a hard time figuring out how to create a halftone for the black in the image so that it will work on a screen. I'm sure theres an easy way to do this, but since I'm new to illustrator coming fron photoshop I cant figure it out.

Also - How would I get the color separations to print the blue behind the black field goal post?
http://www.dptees.co/logo.ai

Thanks for help

1 - 16 of 16 Posts

ProSeparatorNJ

· #2 · May 8, 2012

Basically, halftones are created in Illustrator by using a percentage of a spot color, then choosing dot frequency and angle in the separations dialogue.

Select the black goal posts and overprint to make the blue print behind it.

Make sure all the colors in your art that will be printing are spot color.

Reactions: 1

dptees

Discussion Starter · #3 · May 8, 2012

See I knew the overprint would be an easy fix....the halftone I'm still having some trouble with -

Regarding this image, could you be a little more specific on what I need to do to get the black to print halftones? I'm going to use a 156 mesh, if that matters (I'd rather use a 110, if possible) but I really have no idea how to convert what I'm seeing on the screen to halftones that will work on the screens..... I know theres the spot for it in the output settings in the print dialog once I select separations, but it doesnt seem to be giving me the printout I'm expecting to see (I'm expecting to see dots, and its either too fine or its printing in gray instead of black?)

Thanks!!

BTW - I know the colors arent spot colors right now, I can convert them later, I think I figured out how to do that without a problem.

Luke T

· #4 · May 8, 2012

Man, those halftones freeze my Illustrator in its tracks. It says it doesn't have memory enough to display it, and then it won't even let me click OK. Had to force quit twice.

As far as printing the halftones goes, do you have a RIP installed?

dptees

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 8, 2012

Hmm. Can you tell me the process involved with creating the half tones maybe my computer can?

As far as a rpi- I think no? I was printing separations to PDF since I can't figure out how to print them directly to my printer (go laserjet cm1415cfw)

dptees

Discussion Starter · #6 · May 8, 2012

OK. I made all the changes that I needed to except for getting the halftones right. I uploaded new files:

http://www.dptees.co/Sportgasm.ai is the original

[media]http://www.dptees.co/Sportgasm.pdf[/media] is what I'm getting when I select separations

[media]http://www.dptees.co/separations.jpg[/media] is what my separations dialog looks like - where am I going wrong?

Luke T

· #7 · May 8, 2012

Well since you're not running a RIP, I may be off base here, but here's my take. Make sure your black is set as grayscale black, and then deselect everything but the process black. And I typically run my black halftones at 40-45 dpi, but 50 should be OK if it goes through a fine enough screen. But in the top of the image it shows 600 dpi? That could be your problem. AccuRIP offers a free trial, you may just want to try that.

dptees

Discussion Starter · #8 · May 8, 2012

I understand everything you're saying but I dont know HOW to do it. How do I set blacks as grayscale blacks? I'm totally new to illustrator - so you need to talk to me like I literally have no idea what I'm doing (because I sort of dont)

Luke T

· #9 · May 8, 2012

In your regular working screen, not the print dialog. Select your black. In the color window, you will see a little arrow thing. Click that and it will pull down color options for CMYK, RGB, and a few others. Select grayscale. Then, in your print dialog, when you go to output, select separations. Then deselect everything but process black. Then, since you're not running a RIP, the part where it says 600 dpi, at the top, see if you can adjust that downward to around 40-50 dpi. Like I said, I run AccuRIP, which pretty much makes this part of it foolproof.

dptees

Discussion Starter · #10 · May 8, 2012 (Edited)

OK I did that and its still not creating halftones for the ENTIRE black parts of the image - its just picking and choosing what it feels like making halftones for, and the rest is staying gradient. This is really frustrating.

Here is what I'm not ending up with [media]http://www.dptees.co/Sportgasm2.pdf[/media]

The very right side you can see theres supposed to be some sort of gradient "shadow" effect, and its not creating halftones. Also, the inside circle is staying gray and not turning to halftones except for the very center.....

dptees

Discussion Starter · #11 · May 9, 2012

Update - Even stranger, and maybe this is why no ones instructions are working for me.... if I select the entire layer and tell it to do halftones, then it works fine...but selecting ONLY the gradient paths (leaving the red and blue paths unselected) causes it to only do what I'm showing in the PDF above. Is it a bug in illustrator thats causing this, or it is something I'm doing wrong? I just dont get what I could be doing thats causing it to do this......

ProSeparatorNJ

· #12 · May 9, 2012

dptees said:
OK. I made all the changes that I needed to except for getting the halftones right. I uploaded new files:

http://www.dptees.co/Sportgasm.ai is the original

[media]http://www.dptees.co/Sportgasm.pdf[/media] is what I'm getting when I select separations

[media]http://www.dptees.co/separations.jpg[/media] is what my separations dialog looks like - where am I going wrong?

The black is not a spot color, it's process so it will print as however many colors make up the black and none of them solid color. When you have it set up exactly right, you won't see any process colors in that dialog. Just 3 spot colors. Black, red, and Blue.

Once you fix the black, change the frequency from 70something to 45. That should be it. Try to work cleanly and not have stray colors. When I looked at it earlier, there was a piece of gray that is the same size as the blue, directly under the blue that will continue to show up as process colors

dptees

Discussion Starter · #13 · May 9, 2012

OK. I cleaned up all the paths that werent being used (this artwork was sent to me like this) and NOW finally when I select the black it will create the halftones. Last problem - 2 of the paths have a drop shadown effect on them, and its not creating a halftone for that (you can see it on the right side of the black ring, theres a shadow) what is the correct way to create halftones for this effect too?

LAURENCE

· #14 · May 9, 2012

Use CorelDraw its the best. get the plugin from Advansedtshirts.com to do the seperations and the halftone conversion, and print directly to inkjet printers. You won't make mistakes and it takes just seconds to do. Or you can use ghost scrip with ghost view.

ProSeparatorNJ

· #15 · May 9, 2012

How can CorelDraw be the best if you need 3rd party separations software? That's not very logical. Whatever you think of Illustrator, it does have advanced color seps built right into it. Extremely advanced actually. You can set up and view your separations directly on the artboard before even going to the print dialog. You can trap the colors, create vector underbases and view it all directly on the artboard. You can preview 1 color at a time to see exactly what you're getting, directly on the artboard before going to the print dialog. You can completely preflight a piece of art without going to the print dialog. The only other programs that do this are rip software and Adobe Acrobat. This should give you some idea of just how serious Adobe software is. The difference between Illustrator and CorelDraw in this dept are absolutely immense. This particular piece of art needs about 1 minute to separate, trap and print but you do need to know Illustrator and color separations. Trying to learn both at the same time is of course difficult.

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LAURENCE

· #16 · May 10, 2012

ProSeparatorNJ said:
How can CorelDraw be the best if you need 3rd party separations software? That's not very logical. Whatever you think of Illustrator, it does have advanced color seps built right into it. Extremely advanced actually. You can set up and view your separations directly on the artboard before even going to the print dialog. You can trap the colors, create vector underbases and view it all directly on the artboard. You can preview 1 color at a time to see exactly what you're getting, directly on the artboard before going to the print dialog. You can completely preflight a piece of art without going to the print dialog. The only other programs that do this are rip software and Adobe Acrobat. This should give you some idea of just how serious Adobe software is. The difference between Illustrator and CorelDraw in this dept are absolutely immense. This particular piece of art needs about 1 minute to separate, trap and print but you do need to know Illustrator and color separations. Trying to learn both at the same time is of course difficult.

If you work through the tutorials you will be able to do all that without the plugin, the plugin makes it sooo much easier and quicker especially from a production point of view, time is money. coreldraw does not rely on 3rd party software. If you have worked through all the tutorials you will be able to make you own plugin.

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