But hey- when your in a pinch it can work so you can get the job done. This is a very simple and 'crude' way to create your film positives for screen printing. One way is to separate each color to it's own layer in Photoshop and print your film positives. Spot color separation in Photoshop can be done a couple different ways. Halftones are another factor to take into consideration- a 35lpi can give your print a completely different look then a 55lpi print will. Your halftones can range from 35lpi to 65 lpi. I recommend using a RIP (raster image processor) to print halftones. In the pop up print dialog box select separations instead of letting the printer or Photoshop manage colors. When you have all the colors separated your ready to print out of Photoshop.

Follow all the above steps to 'pull' each color in your design to it's own spot color channel.A White Underbase channel should be set to an opacity of 85% - 90%. In the color box at the bottom of the pop up window you can change the color of the channel to your sampled color you selected. Double click your new channel and change it from an Alpha Channel to a Spot Color Channel.At the bottom of the Channels Panel is a small icon, a rectangle with a circle in the middle, click that and your color is now Saved as a New Channel.After you have the amount of color you would like to pull/separate- select the invert box. Using the Fuzziness Slider you can select more or less of a particular color hue. The Eye Dropper Tool will pop up with a dialog box with a slider.

Go to Select < Color Range to begin selecting your first color.

Learn how to do a basic spot color separation inside Photoshop for outputting film positives for screen printing t-shirts.Ĭolor Separations in Photoshop - Channel Separations

Illustrator spot color separation