How many colors do I need and how do I choose them?

Color reduction using Photoshop can be extremely frustrating.

If you have ever fooled around in the Index mode or tried to look for help in the Photoshop manual you may have found yourself making little progress.

There is a lot more to this process than simply opening a color table and clicking away at random.

You may find that your image looks posterized or a color like green is splattering pixels all over the place.

Well, we know this because over the last decade there is not much we haven't done with color reduction and Photoshop.

Our extensive manual will easily explain the many secrets to color reduction, and if you get stuck on a particularly difficult image you can E-mail it to us for free analysis.

You may have found, if you were unfortunate enough to purchase a "how to do index video" that Index separations have many pitfalls that were not addressed by the maker of the video tape.

Beware of statements like "Index Separations work well on some images".

Index separations work well on any image, period - you just have to know how to do it.

Don't despair, we have the answers to all the problems.

The number of our customers now sporting industry awards is testament to the success of our system.

This is why we offer unlimited tech support - not just a "30 day" take your money and forget you approach.

We can afford to support the system this way because it works so well.

We give free advice to our users on software and the latest developments in hardware and screen printing methods.

We only sell and develop separation software for screen printing - this means we are not distracted and we can focus on our single task of ensuring that you can create fast and reliable color separations that keep you customers coming back.

The animation of the two Indians above illustrates how an image can be rendered in any number of colors. (It may take a short while to begin animating)

If you are going for reproduction, 6 to 8 colors looks fine 8 to 11 looks superb and you can create stylized images in the 3 to 5 color range that are very interesting also.

Whatever the press set up that you are using is, this system will greatly improve your prints by allowing you to blend just a few colors together to create numerous new shades.

Users can also force an image into a set of colors not present in the original.

This can be useful when creating images to blend with a fashion line that has a predefined color way.

Force an image into your clients company colors!

Using a simple method that is clearly outlined in the manual, each color is chosen directly from the image using the eyedropper tool. After you choose your colors from the image, the image is redrawn in only those colors, giving you a full color preview of exactly what you will later screen print.

This ensures that if you choose for example 8 of the most prominent colors, that these 8 colors at least will match the original. The less important colors are simulated by dithering.

With 4 color process the only color that matches is black.

You can choose up to 16 spot colors. The colors you choose are then dithered together to simulate the remaining colors in the image.

Each color can be moved up and down in the print order by the clickable arrows. Any color name can be changed to a custom name, or Pantone numbers can be assigned to each spot color.

The image is then exported to

Illustrator where each spot color separation arrives on its own individual layer and a color matching bar is automatically produced.

The exported file is saved in the world's first "T-shirt" format called "T-split" which supports up to 16 colors each on its own layer.

The layers can be turned on and off to aid in final assembly of graphic elements and base plates.

All color and print order information is automatically printed on the film positives.

All the chosen spot colors are now available in the custom color palette to render type and other postscript elements.

High resolution postscript type is easily combined with the square dots, this allows a multiple resolution custom made screen print separation file to be created to take advantage of the ease of creating certain elements in a pixel program and others in a vector program.

There are also numerous output benefits to exporting Index graphic files to Illustrator for final assembly and output.

Firstly they are automatically separated "on the fly" between Photoshop and Illustrator.

Photoshop only supports CMYK for Index images and the task of converting each color to a spot channel is laborious and fraught with the perils of human error .

Screenprint separator does all the work in seconds that would take hours manually.

All files including the base plate are stored in the final Illustrator file - making back up easy and convenient.

These postscript Illustrator files can be sent to a service bureau for out put or compressed to one tenth their original size and sent over the internet, complete with color bars and printing instruction.

This makes Screenprint Separator a favorite with freelance designers and separators around the world.

Users have found this to be a reliable way to send graphics to remote locations for printing without worry that the print will look decent or not on press.

A typical t-shirt size file is 8-15 megs and can be compressed to fit on a single floppy !

Each element is contained on layer and for ease of composition a base layer and a type layer can be created. This also makes it easier to do drop in type on one master file.

All colors are drag and drop and each custom color is adjustable independently of the others.

Illustrator also makes it easy to build templates for shirt boards or any custom platens that your shop may use, this avoids any expensive size conflicts.

Illustrator's layers make it easy to create a shirt color data base and proof all designs on any color garment with an ink jet proof for client approval.

T-split files are transparent where the shirt is and they display white as an opaque white.

No more will you have to send every color of shirt to the press just to see which colors work best.

You can also turn the base plate on and off to check it against your color file.

Illustrator features a more robust print engine than the basic one found in Photoshop.

It is faster and easier to avoid trouble with this preview and orientation set up.

All aspects are easily controlled allowing the user to accurately output just the plates required to any postscript device such as laser printers, image setters or ink jet printers.

You can lock out plates like the "shirt color" so that no film is wasted and centering the image on the film is very easy to do.

Labels and custom registration marks can be placed anywhere to suit any set up.

The Macintosh version even creates automatically centered registration marks with a horizontal guide to speed setups.

Copyright Screenprint Separator 2003

Copyright Screenprint Separator 2000