AboutDan Loffler Expertise I can help with specific "How To" questions. No Photoshop Elements questions please.
Experience I have been using Photoshop every day in my work as an Art Director and Graphic Artist since 1993 with version 2.5. I am currently employed as a Creative Director in Miami. I have taught computer graphics classes at CompUSA, Computer City. I currently teach a crash course on Photoshop to digital photographers on Digital Photography Corner's Digital Photography Cruises. I have worked as a personal Photoshop tutor for clients as far away as Seoul Korea.
Expert: Dan Loffler Date: 7/16/2008 Subject: HELP!! Spot Colour
Question QUESTION: Hi Dan, I was working on a business card in Photoshop. I had it in CMYK mode. The printers suggetsed I use spot colour to get consistent colour. I have never worked with spot colours, can you please guide me through how to do that? Thanks a lot!!
ANSWER: Hi Tigist,
Although you can work in Photoshop in spot color, it is not ideal. It's better to do spot color work in Adobe Illustrator or another "vector" illustration program.
If you must work in Photoshop you will need to start with a new document and convert it to "Multichannel" ([Image]-[Mode...]-[Multichannel]). Then you add new channels for each color of ink you will be printing. Then create the artwork for each color on these channels. Then you will need to save the finished artwork as a "Photoshop DSC2 (EPS)" format,so it can be separated properly.
I don't advise doing this unless you are very good with Photoshop. You might want to talk to a different printer, or lower your expectations a bit, CMYK has a relatively low gamut of color that it can reproduce accurately.
I hope this helps.
Dan
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thanks Dan! I was trying to set up a document as you suggested, everything went well except I wasn't able to create layers. Any advice on that? I also wanted to do the same business card in Illustrator and can you also guide me through how to work with spot colours in Illustrator? Your help is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Answer Hi Tigist,
No Layers in Multichannel. Each color must reside entirely on the channel. For instance, if you have a logo that uses PMS 300, PMS 361, PMS 137 and PMS Cool Grey 9, you would need four channels one for each color. You would need to create the actual printing plates for each color on those channels. This is sometimes not so hard but it can also be virtually impossible.
In Illustrator you need to click the fly-out menu in the upper right corner of the "Swatches" palette and "Open Swatch Library" then pick the ink color system that your printer uses (Pantone is most common in the US). Then use only those colors. Your printer can tell you how to format the file (EPS or PDF).
This is very advanced work. You may want to get a book on Amazon.com or at the book store.
