Here we go -- The quick youtube walk throughs are going up as we speak….and of course the Black Film is where we all start off. Basically once you have a black film you, can use the film as a knock out to help sep out the other colors much easier. It is essentially the anchor to the sep. Feel free to comment with any questions, and if you are still confused, not to worry…we all struggled with seps in the beginning. It really is a forgotten art form, and often overlooked in the industry. You’re print will really only be as good as the sep, and the skill of the printer. So without much more to say, here is the video…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ad_rpNWTa0

So here is some basic, basic, basic information on Spot Color Separating with Photoshop.

Basically when needing to sep a piece of art that was created in Photoshop, you need to get that beautiful art into separate colors and into channels. 1 Channel will equal 1 film, meaning 1 color screen on the press…..but its always good to have a channeled sep file and an original layered art file….otherwise edit or changes are jsut about impossible. Ok, well not impossible, but you’ll have to start from scratch.

When you create art in photoshop, its always best to keep layers seperate…type layers…individual background layers…element layers….that way when separating you can isolate the objects better. 200-300 dpi is a good range…and make the art true to size. So just create a piece as you want in photoshop and then sep later in a new multichannel file when it’s done. Just remember the more complex you have the colors merged in 1 layer the tougher it will be to pull those colors out. So if you merge a bunch of elements together it does get hard to “unmerge” them into basic colors.

While some artists may suggest painting right into channels…if you need an edit for a client or just want to use an element in a new piece of art…you will have a much much tougher time.

The industry standard is outputting a DCS 2.0 eps multichannel file though Photoshop, into illustrator, or quark, or Indesign….basically as a placed file.

A separation artist will pull out each color and make a new channel in a new file off of your art…or you can watch some of our videos and learn to sep yourself…just be aware it is an art form there is a learning curve, and you will probably have to retrain the way you think about working process….but fortunately there are many ways to accomplish the task, and it really will give you a new appreciation for the screen printing process.

The start of the Eternyl Asylum -- Quick & Dirty Tutorial Series. I’ll keep the chatter down on this first episode, because it speaks for itself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ad_rpNWTa0

Mainly this Site, blog, brand and store of my own.

Well with a serious lack of posting, I’ve decided to start fresh for…. but October is nearly here and it’s about time to change focus for the fall season.

I am getting together the slew of work we’ve been cranking out, and I really want to take this site in a more behind the scenes and helpful direction….all the while vamping up goodies for sale.
Our brigrade of artists are all over the place now expanding and creating so I’ve been putting together a new outline for the direction I want this to go, so we can stay fluid, and not so choppy as the in the past…..something a little more interactive, and a little more laid back.

So that being said I hope to be able to fill  in some holes I’ve left on the site, with some new features and a little bit of an upgrade.
I’ve taken some of  the freelance aspect of the site, and kinda downplayed it in lieu of elance.com & guru.com, and a cut a clearer path for some direct release merchandise.
It’s more personal for our clients and I think that may be a better fit for this site, not to mention definitely a time saver.
I think the slowness of this site was really lack of time to dedicate 100%, which really sucks, because I have terabytes of cool stuff I’d like to post and offer up to sell.

So without starting anew with a long boring post, I will instead post a sampling I recently put up on elance.com so we can start off in the right direction.
Some of these might have been around before, and I know each should probably be their own post, because I really like to link to each dealership to promote their awesome choices in artwork….but we can pretend I’ve posted every other week throughout the summer and all is smooth sailing….anyways I think they should be new for the most part….

and if anyone is interested I can be found here http://eternylstudios.elance.com

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Drew

As always if you need that extra edge for an upcoming project – don’t hesitate to contact us…Our expertise is at your disposal.

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Drew

Stock Art is Evil, and a necessary Evil…

and if it truly doesn’t ruin the industry…you’ll see that it really, really, really changes it to something else all together.

…however now a days…it is a necessary evil, and one that will not go away, so we should accept it, and move along.

but then again…I am always under the deadline gun, so hell yeah I use it often….usually tweak it, and send it on it’s way….good enough….no worries…stock art is great.

that being said…

I think anyone who’s over 30 will know that the industry is nothing like it was – when we were in college….and to all those who are fresh out of college…you’ll see the same thing, and probably a more drastic change, when you hit your 30’s.

Everything is easier now…digitally made, and live-traced…eventually only the trained eye will be able to tell the differences, in a decade or so.

It does have it’s place….but as the quality improves, and the quantity escalates…the need for custom work really does shrink….at least for the majority.

Sure there will always be the “pure-ists”…but the general population, could really care less.

in say 20 years… if there are a 3 million plus cheap vector skulls out there, why would you pay to have a custom skull drawn out?…surely there is something close to the look you need….or that can be tweaked.

A group like GoMedia and designious.com has stepped up the game a bit and offer top notch packs that you can see in a lot of different aspects of the design world….on the same note, there are live trace factories that just live trace or hand trace pics and offer them up for free or cheap.

Heaven forbid that a well known artist or group of artists ever decides to leave the industry to pursue maybe sculpting, or traditional fine art…and releases their vault of art for the world to have at…That would be a game changer.

Here is just a quick look at what I found in a couple of minutes…quality varies, and so does price, but for good enough or free….it soon will be hard to compete.

sure it could always be nicer custom, but if you could also make double the profit, by lessening the costs on custom art, you just might be tempted….and most businesses…unfortunately, like profits, more than originality.

80-90% of businesses view art as a commodity….because…well, it is becoming one.

Basically it is what it is….be sure to check out our stock are selection!

hahaha….seriously though, Maybe we can bridge the gap a bit, with some higher quality quasi stock, quasi custom stuff.

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Drew

FlickR , Myspace , Technorati , Youtube , Facebook , and Squidoo ….thats a lot of socializing so it might take a few weeks to months to get everything up to speed….but in the meantime, you can always find me on t-shirtforums , emptees , and screen-printer.net …..and yes even the occasional fark comment….logged in as either Eternyl or EternylStudios….I look forward to hearing from ya.

Some are up and some are just getting underway….But we love building relationships on the web, and hopefully this will help reach some of our customers find out more about us. Fell free to add us as a friend, contact, connection, etc…..We promise to keep the information flowing and our social network growing….

Drew

]]> http://eternylstudios.com/our-social-links/feed/ 0 http://eternylstudios.com/using-the-channel-mixer-to-spot-sep-colors/ http://eternylstudios.com/using-the-channel-mixer-to-spot-sep-colors/#comments Sat, 22 Mar 2008 17:23:18 +0000 Drew http://www.eternylstudios.com/Eternyl_Edge/?p=144 Here is the quick & dirty version of how I occasionally sep out spot colors…with the Channel mixer…

Basically if you want to use a simple method…

in Photoshop CS,CS2,CS3…whatever just go to your channel mixer,
which is under the top menu (image / adjustments / channel mixer)
check the monotone box, and pull out your other info, with the sliders…

Then adjust the curves if needed…make the blacks that should be 100% actually 100% and not 97% or something.

Save in greyscale…add you line/screen/dot numbers if needed.

It works best if you are working with some sort of layered file…so you can easier isolate the elements you don’t need by knocking them out with the hue/sat tool….knock em out white or black…don’t just turn off the layer cause, well then the background will peek thru.
The actual numbers in the Channel Mixer aren’t really whats important, just how the file looks, every design will vary. So don’t just duplicate the numbers and think you have a perfect red film, ready to print on a tee.

This is just a regular flat RGB file for example purposes, but I did convert to CMYK on the yellow, since obviously the Y stands for yellow, and has the cleanest Yellow info…not enough info is lost since we are printing on shirts, on super low resolution….this can also be done with the Cyan channel….Blue, and even the Magenta, for Red.

This obviously works better with a layered file, and this is just really a quick fix / quick sep, if you need to pull out spot colors in a bind….it works great, but really if you want a perfectly separated ready to screen print piece of art, You have to create the art with that purpose from the start.

Although using this method is great, it really really helps to knock out the elements with the Hue/Sat Tool in a layered file with white or black or whatever your background color is.

That way you definitely know any similar color noise….won’t be in your selected color film…this is especially necessary with oranges/reds…like flames, or sunsets…but then again, I use an entirely different method when I sep those…maybe I’ll share, that method next.

Overall I think mixing up the different sep methods, works best.

Here are 3 screen shots…

the 1st is the original design…

2nd is the red spot pulled out.

and 3rd is the Yellow spot pulled out.

Real Quick Real Simple….But it essentially does the trick. YOu can easily further refine your spot color selection from here and make your sep even more precise, or take it right to press and see what you have already will work out.

Drew

The reason I thought I’d post it up is that was printed on a New model direct to Shirt Kornit printer (still gotta find out the model Number). A Colleague of mine oddly received it at a demonstration of a new Kornit DTG Printer model, so I thought I’d take a pic and post it up here….The print quality is amazing, and the colors are super vibrant….The hand on the print is almost that of a water based ink, or a dye-sub print, very cool… The only issue they could have improved on is- that it looks like the under base isn’t pulled back enough, meaning the red ink along the edges would’ve looked cleaner had it just printed directly to the shirt, instead of on the white under base…. but that is more of an issue with the operator or file preparer as opposed to the Kornit. A little known issue with direct to shirt, is that although you don’t have to Seperate the art, you do have to prepare the file for best results…Even with that being said the direct to shirt printing method, is evolving very nicely, and needless to say very quickly. A printer we deal with often Visual Impressions, here in Milwaukee ( www.visualimp.com ) have a Kornit DTG from a couple years back, and actually I think the quality is the same, fro the tests we’ve run in the past….They could do just as much business on that machine as their Traditional screen presses, except the traditional presses outnumber the DTG. Hopefulyy if time allows, we can post some of the comparisons, as well as a video we took of the speed of the older DTG vs the traditional 10 color Press.

L8TR
Drew