I have a book on screen printing [Control without Confusion, troublshooting screen-printed process color by Joe Clark], and it suggests a 30 degree angel between each color. It recommends: Cyan 75 Magenta 105 Yellow 90 Black 45
what a lifesaver you are sir, got a test for a new job tomorrow and i was getting really nervous because of my lack of color separation experience thx a bunch!
my mind is blown. stressing over a ridiculous design with a bunch of colors and fade... i really thought i needed to outsource it because i'm not that experienced to photoshop (7... yeah, it was for free and it does the job i guess) outside of really simple task. i spent the last 3 hours trying to Color Range it all and ensemble it in inkscape, like twice. and i scraped it all. desperately looking for a better way to do this and i found this tut. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!! You made this 7 years ago and this noob is just now getting hip to the CMYK process. thank you for this. thank you.
This is one of the most concise explanations I have seen for how to do a CMYK in Ps. I wish I had something as easy when I started doing screenprinting artwork... YOU ROCK.
This was a great video! thank you for posting. I had the artwork burned on the screen already but was so insecure about how good of a job I did separating. You taught me a few thing I did not know about in Photoshop and reassured me that I actually did alright on my own... that tip about the "multiply" setting and the layer order was what I was missing when I was testing it in Photoshop! Now here I go with the ink!!!
nice, I do some thing #Bob_Marley Simulated #Eagle_Valley_Californi #Motorcycles USA #SCOOBY DOO #Simulated Color Separation rb.gy/u2siwu rb.gy/tv2zx1 rb.gy/6pev8s
I really appreciate this video. it has helped me a lot.i am a t-shirt designer and usually take my art work to be printed. with this billion dollar video i am good to kick off by myself....THANKS IT REALLY HELPED
I've written the steps down and I'm going to try this! You are very clear in what to do and how to repeat the steps for each color. Thanks for recording this! Thanks for sharing!
so in case you just want the numbers that he stated... Frequency: Mesh Count divided by 3.5 Angle: Black (K) - 45 Yellow (Y) - 0 Magenta (M) - 75 Cyan (C) - 15
+itsThuts Can you explain why the mesh count is divided by 3.5? I didn't understand that part. I am using screens with a mesh count of 230. Would I still divide by 3.5 or is the number you divide by based on the mesh count of the screen? thanks
Hi Thomas, I did it! I told a friend of my problem with the differences between my version of photoshop and yours. He said "there is always more than one path to a given result" He was right. Using the basic guide lines that you laid out I found a slightly different path to the same end. I have printed my cmyk films and will do a test print when I can get some time. I had to tweak each film a bit for saturation but that worked well as you can assemble them and see a tentative result.
Wow, Thank you so much for posting this video. I have been looking for hours trying to find a tutorial that breaks this down into a simple CMYK separation and it seems that everything out there wants to over complicate this process. This is going to save me a lot of money and headaches.
Thank you so much for this tutorial! I have been trying to figure it out on my own for the printing company I work for and kept getting stuck after the halftoning! This is a huge help!!!
Thank you.. I followed the instructions and made notes as I went. IT WORKS.. the only thing I do different is to add +20 Brightness and Contrast to all layers. that seems to get it closer to the original image. I need to learn this because I have a 4 x 2 press.
thanks man. so far this is the best cmyk tutorial i have encountered here in the net. i have still to try it though coz i find it very easy to do just by watching your video.
Thank you from someone you made smarter about graphics design this will help me a lot and all I can do is like and share your video! thank you again and merry christmas from asia!
AMAZING! Thank you so much, this is exactly what I was looking for. If you come across any other helpful tips during your Photoshop exploration, please share them.
Awesome video, learned alot. Quick tip on dragging and dropping hold shift while dropping and it will snap to center. It works in CS2-CS5 as far as I know.
So far the most informative tutorial on CMYK Separations process. Thanks bro. Just like the rest, I also wondering on how to prepare the 'white layer' base especially when printing on the dark garments. Anyone?
One thing not pointed out, is make sure before doing all the halftone seperations, have the file sized as you want to to print, if you do all this and end up scaling it up or down, your dots will be larger or smaller than desired... and generally 300 resolution, unless you have a really great printer 300+ Again, Awesome video! Cheers mate!
Like a lot of people here I thank you for this, there are obviously many ways you can set frequencies and angle but I found these to work quite well, dividing 300 by 3.5 to get the frequency might be high according to some sources but I tried this process exactly on a shirt using 305 thread count 85 frequency and the angles given here and it worked quite well (hand screen printing no white layer on a grey shirt, it would have been better to use a white shirt) I do not know if 3.5 is best and it might be just as good to divide by 4 or 4.5 thus getting a lower frequency (as I read else where) or to never for higher than 45 or 65 like I read still elsewhere, but in all honesty it came out nice and the ink was very thin on the shirt which is a plus with high thread count screens. Lower thread count spot color stuff the ink is much thicker and you can really feel it. Other than the question about how high the frequency really needs to be and the million different angles that people post as being their ideal, this process works for screen printing on light cloth, on dark cloth you would need at least a thin white base. Also, when printing CMYK you should print it WET, that is, do not dry each layer in between colors, this way they mix. Here is a link to a shirt I did using this process. twitter.com/drumaximus/status/995348797969530882So thanks man.twitter.com/drumaximus/status/995348797969530882
Thanks, As I am doing screen printing, every layer is registered and printed on an Hi DPI inkjet printer with all color slots filled with BLACK ink, no color printing onto transparencies to use in exposing the screens. So while its cool to see the mockup aspect that this tutorial gives (adding all layers to one file and coloring them to see how it will look) the real working files are the BLACK 4 color separations. I save each one out then import them into illustrator on their own layers to register them for printing. So in illustrator I will have a layer per color exactly aligned and label for what color screen it is and a layer for registration, so all one needs to do is turn layers on and off to print each one (register layer stays on all the time.) If you are printing, alignment and registration is EXTREMELY important.Also a word about the white base for doing this on dark color fabric as there have been quite a few people wondering about this and this does need to be done on dark shirts. As I said above, color does not come into play until the last step, actual printing on the material with screens and pigment. To make those screens you simply need every layer black and printed on transparencies in completely opaque black ink. To get white layer, you simply need to turn your full color image completely black on a white or transparent background...simple as that. How ever you do thing depends on how you have your image but as long as the whole original image is turned black it will be fine, it is the output not the process, there just needs to be white everywhere you are printing and it needs to be exactly size and shape of image. Then save it out as your white layer. I do this FIRST and then I go back to the original color file and do seps. Remember everything needs to be AT THE SIZE YOU ARE PRINTING. Do not do this process then resize, it will mess things up, also do not use ACCURIP when printing these separations. Also, the white base can be printed with a lower thread count screen but the color seps MUST be printed on high thread count if it is photo or illustration quality.Thanks again man.
+PhotoZen that's correct, whether vector spot colors or cmyk raster seps, to make a white under base just have one transparency that has the whole image black....print transparency and this will be your white base. all colors go on top of that when screen printing.
I know it's an old comment and it's okay if you don't answer me. I'm just confuse when you say "you should print it WET" , Does wet ink will not damage the design after putting the next screen?
this video is bad ass, ive watched it over and over again trying to remember each step. I watched the video as I was doing it and for some reason when I select all, color range and delete, it wasn't deleting. I have photoshop 7.0 and could not figure it out. then I looked and when I converted to cmky and split channels , each channel locked and I couldn't delete. so after I figured it out I unlocked them as I went and finally got it to go. thanks for the great video man I appreciate it .
Great tutorial for doing halftone for printing. Would like to note this: If you're screen printing on paper doing the multiply on each layer works when you're printing ink. If you're screen printing on t-shirts... The multiply does NOT reflect how it will appear when it's printed on the t-shirt. The difference is that when you apply multiply to a layer, it blends with the colors underneath it. Paper printing colors blend, on t-shirts it doesn't blend.
I've been playing with this a lot and I found a few things might be a bit of a help - I set my output to 4 times the size of my input (input 300px output 1200px: my halftones were looking very chewed up at a 300px output, I'm still working with the size ratio at 1, but there might be a better option like 2 or 3 for this) and then I set my magenta angle to 22.5 instead of 15 and my cyan angle to 67.5 rather than 75, this seemed to make the dot pattern spread more evenly - Yellow at 0, Magenta at 22.5, Black at 45 and Cyan at 67.5
This process is so awesome. I have come back to this a few times. I finally decided I was going to make Photoshop actions from it. I have made actions from 110 screens up to 305 screens . 35 -85 dot. I cant thank you enough. Fast Films and other seps software is 400 -800 bucks! There is another guy on you tube who has a nice spot color process. Anyway, since you gave this to us. If you would like the actions, I will mail the to you. Just message me! I have made them for Photoshop 7 to CS6
Really Helpful vid ! Lifesaver. I have a question, how can i get a white base for black t-shirts ? Im aware of color overlaying and giving it a choke, but the more colors you add, the bulkier the design gets. Is there a way to halftone the white which i will be lining it up using micro registration thanks
RedStarLacrosse thank u very much I have gravure plant but don't have Desinger so we give out for this work. Plz provide me more details. As I am learning too
Excellent explanation of how to do halftone colour separations in Photoshop in preparation for making 4 colour process - screen printing positives which usually had to be done by a reprographic shop...or at least back when I was screen printing they were. Thanks for making this video, great work. May I ask how you make the positives from the 4 layers? Do you print through an inkjet or laser printer on clear film?
Great tut man! Just wondering how it will look on a black tee since they are selling the most.. as well as other dark colors. Need to test this out now I have the process. Thanks for doing it
I thought I should add even though I have printed many four color project with the offset process, and have years of experience with screen printing I have never used the four color process for screen printing. I have toyed with the Idea, but attempted it. Screen printing is a great printing medium where you have great freedom to use bright bold colors printed onto many different sub-straights and varied applications that in my opinion is where it belongs. Screen printing can be a fine art as lithography can be too. The trouble with printing onto tee shirts is after there washed a few times there just another tee shirt.
Really nice tut! I am working on getting this done for black textile without overprinting dark areas twice. Will it work to simply invert the black channel before bitmapping and afterwards add the C Y M channels to it? I wonder if RIP machines can do that automatically.
hey thanks tom... great video.. but I do have a question for you.. so I am a screen printer and need multiple colorways for each pattern that I print.. the original is got by printing CMYK but how do I get more colorways besides the original CMYK... pls help... thanks
I do have a quick question. I noticed in the result that black was quite darker than the original and I was wondering if that would not come out as what we call "burnt" where blacks are too intense overall. Would that be the case? And if so, how would we control the intensity of the black layer?
After you select CMYK mode, Go to filter and select Pixelate - color haftone. In the dialog box select the screen angles and dot gain and you are done.
Jerry Rivera It will be hard for me to explain this with a few words in this comment box, I would suggest that you get a basic understanding of printing before attempting to change these settings. If the screen angles are wrong you will end up with a moire` pattern, and the image would look like it has measles.
Hi Thomas, I have a question: why do you copy paste the images from the separated channels (where you bitmap it) into LAYERS? Why not copy paste these rasterized images directly into the CMYK channels? Because now, for example, your first black layers, is made of CMYK. ? Thanks for filming this process by the way.
Thanx dude! I can't wait to try this out! After the multiply-part, the image really came to life. Crazy when you zoom in, to see all the CMY-parts. I'm very curious about the results on paper!
This is an awesome tutorial. The only thing that people need to be informed of is that when you submit a color separation to the printer. You don't want to color the layers yourself. They need only be halftones and saved in a .psd layered file with each corresponding layer labeled c, m, y, and k. Colors are not recognized, only black. Black represents the color to be printed on each screen. Printers usually tell you where to set the ppi. They decide the dpi. White ink is laid 1st..and so on. :)
Hi there, great video, it helped me decide to get into screen printing, I thought it would be much, much harder... I have a question though... How do you add a white background to print on dark or black t-shirts... Thanks
Hi, great tutorial.. Thanks. Once you've seperated all the channels and transfered them to seperate screens, what order would you screen print them in colour-wise? Or doesn't it matter?
i got some question...first question...in selecting color range..do you select on white and delete it? second question..when you print the cmyk on paper..do you change all of the layers to black color before you print it?thanksss
Thank you very much , this is very helpful . I have a question though , how am i going to flatten the layer that contain the color ( the one we applied the layer style on ) with the new layer , in other words how am i supposed to flatten two layers out of 3 ??? Thank you very much again. :)
Life savior! Thank you for sharing this cool process :) How do you suggest to approach shirt printing when a image got important white areas that get lost in the channels split, like a skull for instance? Does this only work if we print it on white shirts or is there a hack that enables printing on other colored shirts including the whites? Thank you in advance
I HAVE A QUESTION! HOW DO WE PRINT EACH LAYER? DO WE HAVE TO DO SOME COLOR OVERLAY TO MAKE IT SO BLACK OR DARKER? AND ALSO WHAT KIND OF PRINTER TO USE? I WILL APRICIATE YOUR REPLY AND I LOVE WATCHING YOUR VIDEOS DOWN HERE FROM PHILIPPINES. MORE POWER!
yoo!! thank you for adding this video it help me out a lot . I just started pressing t-shirts and im working with 1 screen and one color but will be investing in a 4color screen kit so I wanted to get ahead and learn so I can get right to it. THANX!! King A-wax
You can go to any of the 4 files and click on the channels flyout menu and choose merge files. In the dialog box choose the 4 different files and click ok.This will composite all of the colors back together so you can see what it will look like printed. I do this on a copy so I still have the separations for printing.
Added to favorites going to try this with 6 color print by photoshop image and then do this. So its divided by 5 the screen count? I have 200 mesh screen right now! So 40?
This a really great Tutorial. I have created my own actions from this Now I am wondering how I can create them to print on black? What could I do to this to make it work as a 'Simulated Process' for darks? Any thoughts?
Great Video, very detailed, i'm going to try out your angles on press and see how it comes out, Thanks for the help! I've used the below angles in the past,it worked but yeah over 90 is repeating angle.. so 105 and 15 are pretty much the same? weird.. So i'm excited to try your angles, you explained them well. great job! • cyan = 75° • magenta = 15° • yellow = 105° • black = 45°
Did you do the color overlay to each of the CMY layers you added? Did you also change from grayscale to CMYK color mode? That is what will give you the color.
The how to of angle used in creating the halftone screen was very insightful, thank you for the insight.1 By the way, if you have some time, your comments and suggestions on our work is welcomed.
Rising Sun Graphics, I create my artwork in Photoshop CS5, but it takes me so long to create that i was hiring someone to paint the artwork for me to save time. Then I learned about half tone silkscreening and all that changed. I am trying to teaching myself how to create half tone layers that give great detail and this video helped me out a lot. The only thing I see that's not so hot about this tech is you see a pattern. Can you make a video showing step by step how you would do this?
Good god man. What a GREAT video!! Seriously. I've been screen printing for about 10 years (4 on an automatic), and though we do a lot of multi colored prints, I've always turned away any photo realistic jobs because I wasn't entirely sure how to separation process was done. Sure, I could have researched online a long time ago, but just never did. It's too bad as this is a breeze! My only question....have you figured out how to do a similar process but on darker colored t's? As in, an underbase and a spot white? Either way, I'm absolutely trying this out this weekend when I have some time. Going to print up a few white shirts and see how it comes out. I'll post my results here when finished! Thanks again man!!
I actually never did. To be honest, I completely forgot about this! :-) That said, I'm definitely going to give it a shot in the next week or so and will post the results here when finished!
Very informative. That said, I recommend something more along the lines of Illustrator or Corel Draw (X6) which offer a "print as separations" option. Set your freq/angle there and print each screen to file as a PDF or JPG. If you confident enough in your settings you can even output them directly to film positives. Make sure you use a good inkjet printer and quality films. And of course, registration marks are key.
so if you just print by converting the image in to cmyk(first step) will the print have less colors? will not the print be exactly as it showed in screen after i converted?
