Full Color Screen Printing with Photoshop
If you have read my article, “The Secrets to Full Color Screen Printing”, than you already understand the underlying principles to 4 color screen printing. In that article we discussed the principles of the CMYK color model, color separations, halftones, and lines per inch (LPI). In this tutorial, we are going to take what we have learned, and using photoshop, quickly create color separations for output to transparencies for screen printing.
In this tutorial we will be using Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Download the registration marks .psd used in the tutorial, here.
1.) We are going to start off by firing up Adobe Photoshop CS2, and open the registration.psd.
Alternatively, if you would like to start from scratch, create a new file. This file will be 8.5” x 11” at a resolution of 600dpi in the CMYK color mode. Click OK and lets get started.
2.) Next, place the artwork that you plan to use for the final screen print into the registration.psd. File > Place. We are going to want the largest image possible in terms of resolution in order to get the best quality out of our printed piece.
3.) I am choosing a vector image, and while I would have better results going with maybe 5 color spot print, this will work fine for what we are doing. Also, being a vector image, I have the freedom to scale this as large as I like for our final screen.
4.) Because I eventually plan to print this onto a colored shirt, I will need to create a white spot plate. I am going to CMD+click (or ctrl+click for PC) on my Chick layer, to create a selection of the artwork, and on a new layer fill that selection with white by pressing CMD+Delete (or ctrl+backspace on a PC).
5.) I am also going to create a quick drop shadow for my little chick. Because I want to print this drop shadow right onto the shirt, creating just a dark spot beneath the chick, I do not need to have a white background. So, I will create a new layer under my white spot layer, and with the circle marquee, create a small, horizontal oval. I am going to fill this with 20% black.
6.) I am also going to quickly add some text to my design. Using the text tool, I am going to quickly add screensilk.com in century gothic under my chick. I hit the color box at the top, and using the eyedropper sample the orange from my chick to be used with the text.
7.) Again, because I am going to want this text to be very visible, I am going to have to add it to my white spot plate. Again, I CMD+click (ctrl+click) the text layer to create my selection and after selecting the white spot plate layer, I hit CMD+delete (ctrl+backspace) to fill it with white.
8.) To make this process as easy as possible, lets quickly make our white spot into its own plate. To do this, we are going to , once again, CMD+click our white spot layer. With our outline selected, open the channels palette and from the flyout menu select “New Spot Channel”. Selecting this creates a new channels layer that includes our white spot as a plate. This will be helpful when we start making our separations in the next step.
9.) Save your file.
10.) Let’s start creating our separations. Quickly clicking through our channels palette, we can see how our original artwork is being broken into 5 channels of color. Each channel contains a certain percentage of color to create the colors in the final artwork. Our goal is to break out each separation and convert it to a screen printable halftone.
11.) At the top, select Layer >Flatten Image
12.) Yikes! I know, I hate doing that too, but looking at our channels palette, you can see that all of our channels are still intact. Open the flyout menu on the channels palette and select Split Channels. This is going to close our flattened file and create 5 individual files of each color separation.
13.) Ok, so now we have our 5 plates. Why 5 you ask? Well because even though we are doing 4 color printing, we do have our white spot plate. If we are only printing to white shirts, we won’t need that plate, but it is easier to create that plate now, than realize a few days later that you want to go to colored fabric and you need to go back and create it. Each file open is named after the original file and has the color name appended to the filename.
14.) Now for the easy part. We are going to convert each of these files to a black and white halftone. From the menu bar, select Image>Mode>Bitmap.
15.) Now we are presented with the bitmap window. Since we are going to output our artwork at the same resolution as we created it, we will put 600 pixels/inch in the output box. For our screening method, we are going to use a halftone, so select Halftone Screen from the drop down box. Click OK
16.) Next we are presented with our halftone screen settings. If you read my previously mentioned article, most of these options should suddenly make a lot of sense to you. The frequency is our LPI. In the article we discussed the means of figuring out your optimal LPI for your screen. For my screen with a mesh count of 220, I figured out I should use an LPI of 63. So in the frequency box, I put 63 lines/inch.
17.) In the article I also discussed halftone angles and their importance for quality prints. Here are the angles I had recommended:
• cyan = 75°
• magenta = 15°
• yellow = 105°
• black = 45°
18.) Because we are creating our Cyan plate, I am going to put 75 into my angle box. For shape, we are going to go with the round halftone.
19.) Click Ok, and our plate is converted to a print ready halftone separation.
Repeat these steps with the other 3 separations and you will have print ready files ready for output to transparencies or film.
The final print:
Close-up of the final print:
Creating full color screen printed designs can be a rewarding (and profitable) experience. The key to success will be to experiment, and finding the right balance between detail and printability.
Please feel free to post your comments about the tutorial, or photos of designs you have created using this tutorial.
If you have found this article useful please feel free to share it at any of the following social bookmarking sites:
Hi,
February 4th, 2007 at 8:06 amFirst of all I want to ask you the order of the colors when they wil be printed.
Second,I want to ask you, how do you obtain colors like green for example (from cyan + yellow) since these inks are not semitransparent as in typography. So, putting yellow over cyan, will result green?
Hey Bogdan,
Thanks for the questions!
The order of the colors printed can be a very important step, but it can also be dependent on the artwork you are printing. I generally will start with magenta, then proceed with cyan, yellow and finally black. This is a personal preference, and would be adjusted if I felt the percentage of a color was being lost to another color. Again, depending on the artwork, I will almost alway lay down black last, because that is where the majority of my detail is.
Regarding mixing color, you may want to refer to my article about The Secrets to Full Color Screen Printing I actually discuss green and how we go about creating it with our separations. In the real world process, during a 4 color print, I will flash cure each color before placing the next color over it. Because our colors are actually semi-opaque, and because of the 15 degree offset of our halftone screens, our eye will be tricked into seeing green, even though we are actually looking at dots of cyan, yellow and magenta.
Hope that helps!
Josh
February 4th, 2007 at 12:41 pmHi josh,
Thanks for your advices. I will try to proceed as you told me.
I read about what you said about correct angles in order to avoid moire. Theory is saying that the most common corrected angle set for screen printing is Y = 7.5°, C = 22.5°, M = 82.5°, and K = 52.5° and works for 95% of cases.
The problem is that I need a good software to separate automatically color images in different ways (cmyk, spot colors, index colors)
Bogdan
February 6th, 2007 at 2:11 amHey Bogdan,
Your welcome!
As far as correct screen angles are concerned, I don’t believe there is on correct set of angles. Just like finding optimal screen frequency, screen angles are really just a case of best practice. What works great for me, may not work great for you, and visa-versa.
Screen printing can be a crazy beast, but once you can tame the specifics, everything will fall into place. Always keep notes on what you do and what the outcome is, so once you find that secret spice, you can recreate it everytime.
Good luck, and let me know how it all turn out!
Josh
February 8th, 2007 at 9:21 amI also filled out the contact form to get in touch with you…
Another question is the image the psd you create has areas that have no color like an area that you do not want a background in will those stay empty as they are in the original psd and they will end up being the fabrics color?
I guess I got confused with the white plate thing.
I sent you the psd I was working with and I need that ready to print on t-shirts..
Thanks
April 18th, 2007 at 7:07 pmThanks for the email Jeremy, and I hope that it answers some of your questions.
The white plate in the tutorial is created to overlay the design onto, so if I wanted this printed on a blue shirt, I would lay down the white and then proceed to overlay my 4 color design to create an opaque image on my colored shirt. If I was using a white shirt, I would bail the white plate altogether.
Hope that helps!
Josh
April 18th, 2007 at 9:27 pmI like this. We use this method. Much better than paying a fortune for film output!! Best way to do your own full colour t-shirt screen printing!!
May 11th, 2007 at 6:39 amThank you for this tutorial, it’s given me a lot of great information.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:25 am[...] Photo quality separations??? (image attached) Looking for tutorials to create photo quality screen separations. When I create 4 color separations using methods like this: Full Color Screen Printing with Photoshop Screen Printing Information and Tutorials I can’t get the end results I’m looking for. When I separate the CMYK using this method I wind up with a great separation as long as I "multiply" the colors. When the seps are just stacked on top of one another they block or cover the colors underneath. Please help. [...]
June 27th, 2007 at 6:03 pmtrying to give a link of the image I’m working on:
http://www.cementshoesrecords.com/publicftp/drop/sm/sm.jpg
June 27th, 2007 at 7:05 pmI got all the way to the end, just when it shows what the final print looks like in your example. I have all my “colors” separated in different files, but they are all in a “grey” halftone separation like your example. So, what I am wondering is where is the color ( % of CMY and K) of the file. Your final product has all the color including halftones. Also, what would I send off to the printer (what files)?
I am so thankful for both of your tutorials as you have really helped to make this once complicated subject easy to understand.
July 4th, 2007 at 7:11 pmIf I generate a halftone spot color in white, what angle would be best to use for the white plate as the 5th color?
July 14th, 2007 at 11:16 pmHi Maurice,
I just say your comment on my article “Full Color Screen Printing with Photoshop”, and thought I would shoot you an email with my answer.
The best rule of thumb is to just offset all your separations by 15 to 30 degrees.
For example, in the article I list the following angles:
• cyan = 75°
• magenta = 15°
• yellow = 105°
• black = 45°
To add a white halftone to that, I would look at my highest existing angle, and remaining consistant, add 30° to that. So, with yellow being 105°, my next available screen angle would be 135°.
• cyan = 75°
• magenta = 15°
• yellow = 105°
• black = 45°
• white = 135°
Good Luck!
Josh
July 15th, 2007 at 2:47 pmHey James,
Sorry for not getting back to you sooner with this. I was out of town and not checking the site.
Your question was regarding the outputted files, and where the color information is, and how the files to hand off the file to your printer.
As for the grey scale halftone separations that are outputted at the end of the tutorial, the percentage of color for each separation is being described in the file by the size of the dot. The smaller the dot in the halftone, the lower percentage of ink that will be printed when you got to press. The larger the dot, the more ink that is being printed. As an example, in step 19 of the tutorial, I have outputted the cyan plate and show a close up of the halftone. The lighter grey areas are a lower percentage of cyan that will be printed, and you can see below that the corresponding areas in the full color image.
Handing your files over to the printer is a different beast and can be dependant on your printer. If you have talked with your printer and have built your separations with the correct LPI to match their screens, than you should be able to hand over the .tif files we have outputted in the tutorial and they can print them to film before burning them to screens. This is the technique I use for my prints, but every printer is different, so your best bet is to just speak with them and find out what they prefer.
I hope this helps James, and good luck with your screen printing project!
Josh
July 15th, 2007 at 3:01 pmThis tutorial is exactly what i was looking for, thank you so much. Is there a way to preview, in Photoshop, what your finished work will look like? I split my channels, save as bitmaps with your suggested settings. I then import each bitmap back into PS, rasterize the layer, do a color overlay with the corresponding ink color then layer the colors, from bottom to top, M-C-Y-K.
I play around with the layer order, but either way, the Magenta layer makes my work washed out magenta. I have to adjust the M layer with a true red to get desired results.
Do you think this is a screen translation problem, or should I use the color as photoshop suggests? I do not have screening equipment myself, I just do the design work, so experimentation could get expensive.
PS. What would your suggestion be for a good press set up for a beginner, later to use for output testing before placing bulk orders?
Again, great tutorial, I may have found a new passion.
July 19th, 2007 at 2:40 pmHi,
i am working with channel and i want to define a pattern with multiple channel but i am not able to do this.because when i am definig channel then it merge in to a single channel . I am using photoshop 7.
So please i possible ,then help me.
thanking you
September 10th, 2007 at 11:03 amhey, ok i did everything that was in the tutorial although i really NEED HELP WITH ONE THING.
When i added the bitmap to each of the 4 layers and added their own specific angles, when i was done i had the four different files that represented cyam, yellow, black, and magenta although THEY WERE ALL in a black and white (grey) dots?
September 10th, 2007 at 1:00 pmwhat do i do here?
when i go to print dont i have all these files together.. how do i combine them back together so that the dots are in the right colours and not black and white.?
please help
do i just save the 5 files (C,M,Y,K, and the black layer) and print them ontop of one another or what?
September 10th, 2007 at 1:45 pmHope u r fine and happy, i want to separation of an image of john cena with photoshop CS, for black t-shirt how it is possible to creat its separation for dark garmnets for screen printing. actually its called spotprocess separation or simulted process separation.
September 11th, 2007 at 5:07 amrespected sir
September 15th, 2007 at 1:47 amtutorials of how to process with colour separation of bitmap image such as photos of dj’s etc..which then used to print on t-shirts n pants.explain it stepwise because i badly need ii.
i’m using coreldraw12 n photoshop software
Hi
I have noticed in your example the halftone dots on each layer overlaps. I am
September 29th, 2007 at 5:26 amcurious, dont the colors change when the halftones touch each other. I have always thought that the perfect screen print has to have its halftones fit like a jigsaw puzzle and not overlap. Thats where i get most of my problems. I use indexed colors to achieve multiple spot color prints, sometimes up to 10 spot colors including underbase. But the hardest part is getting the haltones to fit like a jigsaw. I was wandering if there was an easy way to achieve this. Thanks
Thank you, very helpful but I have a question. My image is brown and pink. When I do the color separation, I have the five plates and they all print out separately (it doesn’t show all on one page but prints on five different pages). Also, I only need to burn two screens, correct since it’s just two color? How do I know which of the five to choose?
October 9th, 2007 at 2:47 pmHi Stacy, thanks for the question!
You would actually need to break out your design into spot color seperations, as opposed to a cmyk or 4 color seperations. I will post a tutorial on the use of spot colors in the next day or so, so please check back, or subscribe to my rss feed.
Thanks!
October 9th, 2007 at 2:52 pmhi sir, im new in silkscreen. i would like to ask what type of paint should i use to come up a great results. do i have to buy c,m,y and black textile paint??
thanks
October 16th, 2007 at 1:24 amjay
Hey Jay,
Yes, you need to buy the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Dick Blick Art Materials sells this stuff, just make sure you are buying the “Process” types. (ie. Process Cyan, Process Magenta, Process Yellow), these inks have a lower viscosity, and thusly more transparent to provide the right appearance.
Ger the process inks here:
Speedball Water-Base Textile Screen Printing Inks
Hope that Helps!
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October 22nd, 2007 at 6:31 pmnice little tutorial, but I would like to add that you can save yourself some time by using the “separations” tab in the print dialog box during output and set your lpi and angles (if needed) there. There really is no need for bitmapping your image. Also I usually only use 600dpi for b/w bitmap or lineart. 300 is usually preferred for cmyk and greyscale images.
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:39 pm[...] read more | digg story [...]
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October 22nd, 2007 at 7:40 pmI just want to say that for silk screening ideally you’d want to be using vector graphics artwork to transfer to the screens. Yes, rasterized artwork with a high dpi will do, but it’s just good practice to create vector artwork if you’re looking into doing silk screening beyond just messing around. — good article.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:50 pmThanks Muhammad, I completely agree. However, when it comes to recreating photographic quality prints, vectors are generally out of the question. I appreciate the comment, I will get to work on creating a tutorial covering vector graphics. Thanks! Screensilk.com
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm[...] great tutorial for anyone interested in colour separating an image into CMYK ready for use in screen [...]
October 22nd, 2007 at 8:07 pmThis looks like a LOT of fun. I can’t wait to try it…although I mostly use Inkscape (not photoshop) I might have to get creative to produce something similar.
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October 23rd, 2007 at 11:43 amThis seems like it should have been done in illustrator sence the colors are solid, and it started out a vector, the image would prin more crisp
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:18 pmI agree COOP, but I felt there was a need to cover this topic. The artwork I chose is not relevant, it is all about teaching people what they need to know to be successful.
One could argue, as Gene stated above, most software can create the separations for you, so why go to all the trouble. I feel that if you don’t understand your subject completely, then you will never be in the position to master it.
As a painter, you could buy all the colors you need, but the true artist will be inclined to mix their own.
October 23rd, 2007 at 2:01 pm[...] Full Color Screen Printing with Photoshop · Screen Printing Information and Tutorials (tags: photoshop printing tutorial) [...]
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:23 pmYou do know that photoshop does dot pattern, angles and line screening without using seperate files and bitmapping them right? You just use the “screen” function when the print dialog box pops up. It’s actually very easy, then you just have to have your colors seperated into seperate channels. Much easier than splitting channels and keeping up with seperate actual files. Let me know if this don’t make sense cuz I’ve been doing it for years and it saves a ton of time. -D
October 24th, 2007 at 10:43 pmOh my god! Your tutorials are awesome. I actually saw Full Color Screen Printing with Photoshop several weeks ago after a search on Google and because I hadn’t read your other tutorials I was really lost. Today I found your first article after searching for process color on Google and then re-read this article. I am so excited about trying the technicques you have so easily laid out in your tutorials. I really appreciate the help!
October 30th, 2007 at 7:37 pm[...] used in full color screen printing. A must read if you have any interest in silkscreening.read more | digg story Posted by Matt Filed in [...]
November 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 amPlease help.
Iam from South Africa and need a full training manual on silk screen printing.
Please.
November 11th, 2007 at 1:53 pmHi! Thanks for creating this article. I read the article before this and it was really helpful in making a novice like me understand color sep. I’ve had relatively average experience in the publishing field, and though somebody else handles the printing part, I somehow get the idea of color sep. Only today I was looking for articles/tutorials that could help me understand it more before I try screen printing, and found your site ver helpful. Thanks!
More power to you!
November 27th, 2007 at 2:15 amHi,
I read your artical lastnight and thought it was awesome, definitly the best I’ve come by thus far. However I do have a question. I sort of identified with the problems of one girls post about a design that would only be 2 colors. I was wondering if itd be possible for you to reply to me with a link to your spot color separation artical. I would appriciate it greatly
(Also what if I am using a blk & white image that I’d like as most detail as possible ie. Halftone on that image and spot colors on the other images on the shirt)
Please Help
December 11th, 2007 at 2:29 pm-Andre Beauvais
So here I am waiting patiently for the spot color tutorial…. I am using a Print Gocco for screen printing onto card stock. They do make CMY inks (and I have them) but I prefer to use my own lightfast acrylics that I trust mixed with a screen medium. I’d like to separate my image either into wider gamut acrylic colors (maybe even more than 4), or choose 2 or 3 colors that match my image better. There aren’t really decent tutorials for this online that I can find. Your tutorial above cleared a lot up though!
December 13th, 2007 at 7:24 pmThis is a big help!
What kind of adjustments will I need to do if my mesh count is 120?
This tutorial is about 220 mesh count.
Need expert advice on this.
I live in a 3rd world country. Trial and error is just too costly for me so I want to get it right on the first time.
January 28th, 2008 at 8:02 pmGreat article!
If you look at the color pallet to the left of the CMYK percentages box and enter 100% into the K field with all others set at 0% you might notice that selection tool in the color pallet isn’t set as far into the lower left corner edge as it could be. Thus I don’t thinkits not a true black. If you enter 000000 into the # field you should have a truer less transparent black for printing. I hope this helps. Let me know. Also, I’m not sure how this works with other colors in Photoshop. What if I want a true Cyan or Yellow? Is the % field off for everything?
Beyond that what’s the quick and easy way with this process in Photoshop? I like the more hands on approach and the tutorial gave me a better understanding of why/how the process works but simply using the Halftone filter won’t achieve this.
Thanks.
February 12th, 2008 at 1:25 pm@adoks
A quick rule of thumb is mesh count divided by between 3 and 5. (I use 3.5).
So for your silk’s mesh count of 120, I would use halftone separations at between 24 to 40 lpi.
Hope this helps!
March 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pmHi, I love your tutorial… I really do. Im new on screen printing and I haven’t yet mastered paint mixing.
My problem is. I can’t find a supplier that sells CMYK paint. They only sell RGB paints. Ho do Can I hace those paint colors?
Thanks Hope to hear from you soon.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:51 pmGreat tutorial. most people dont go into great detail. I really appreciate it.
September 12th, 2008 at 5:42 pmhi i have done every thing on your instructions, but what do i save the format as to save for print,, thanks
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:50 pmthis tutorial was a life saver. thanks for being so thorough. i am having trouble, however, with the registration marks. when i convert the separated channels into bmp, the reg. marks are also converted…making it excessively difficult to set up when i’m printing.
how can i go about the registration marks so that they are visible and uniformly placed on each channel file?
thank you!
October 27th, 2008 at 3:01 pmThanks so much for your help! I have been experimenting with bitmaps for screen printing, and was wondering about “diffusion dither”? If I output my halftones as a diffusion it prints at a better quality than halftones, however I’m scared that the detail will be too fine to cut the screen properly.
November 6th, 2008 at 6:39 pmIf I’m not to use a diffusion for screen printing, then what is it used for?
Sorry, let me clarify my comment above - “If I output my halftones as a diffusion it prints from my laser printer at a better quality than halftones”… Thanks!
November 6th, 2008 at 6:41 pmHi
Sir
Good colour sepration but any more colour So Please how to creat Colour Sepration
November 18th, 2008 at 7:45 amI’m a bit of a cheapskate and would like to purchase the smallest amount of ink possible, how would a finished print look if I were to create a RGB separation instead of CMYK, and screen using red green and blue inks?
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:04 amI just want to say that for silk screening ideally you’d want to be using vector graphics artwork to transfer to the screens. Yes, rasterized artwork with a high dpi will do, but it’s just good practice to create vector artwork if you’re looking into doing silk screening beyond just messing around. — good advice. http://www.bannerofchina.com
December 27th, 2008 at 5:35 amHi, I’ve been having a hard time seperating fading color over an other color. ex: red circle, black outline fading over the red, drawn by hand, using magic wand in photoshop. Any suggestions?
Thanks.
December 30th, 2008 at 8:47 am