Trying to get a file that the printer can use

[MichaelFinley]

I'm trying to create a file that my printer can use. I am trying to have some door hangers printed. They are black & white and one color (reflex blue).

The image I am working on is in CMYK mode, the printer said to only have black and 100% cyan in the file and save it to PDF to send to him. I've got everything figured out but my logo. The printer said the logo has to be in grayscale, because right now the file I send to him the logo is making it a 4 color job.

The logo is a separate file so I have been just opening it and dragging it into the door hanger image. I first change it to grayscale using Image/Mode/grayscale, but when I drag it into the door hanger file it somehow changes the logo image into parts of C, Y, M and black.

I'm stuck at this point in how to keep this a 2 color job?

 

[Dweezel]

I think you could change your logo image to CMYK, go to the channels palette and click the eye icons next to cyan magenta and yellow to turn those channels off, and then drag the logo into your main image.

I have no experience of dealing with printers or their requests, but that will give you an effectively greyscale layer, with no colour values.

 

[Dweezel]

Just tried out my suggestion on a file of my own and it doesn't look to0 good. I never work in CMYK as I don't do print work.

Thinking about it now though, if the logo image is greyscale when it's draged over, then if there are C,M and Y values, surely they should be 0?

 

[signal49]

Looks like Photoshop is forcing the greyscale image to become CMYK. An alternative to dragging is probably to copy and paste it onto only the black channel. Then take a look at each channel to make sure the Yellow and Magenta channels are blank. You may need to adjust the levels/curves of the Black and Cyan channels individually to make sure everything on it 100%. This isn't the best way to make something 2-color, but it's probably the easiest to explain.

 

[MichaelFinley]

signal49 when I do that it creates a new channel called alpha1?

 

[dagger2002]

Create new spot channels. with the four colors.

Then turn off all chanels except for your black layer then print it to pdf.

 

[Quizzed]

In your logo file go into image/adjustments/hue.saturation, click on the colorize box and slide the saturation bar to the far left. This will give you with a black channal only. If you copy this to your new document only the information in the black channel will then paste.
Should work.

 

[kylebellamy]

Speaking form the printing side of things, I have a few suggestions to offer.

First off, building your entire design in Photoshop is not really the best idea for the exact reason your stating. You can't really have two different color modes in the same document unless you go into really technical styling.

It's called a multi-channel and I have a small tutorial on it on my site if your interested:

http://www.kylebellamy.com/tutorials/multi/

But for most designers, the best way to do it is to create all the elements in seperate files and place them in a layout program such as Quark or InDesign. Do Not use Word or Publisher if you can possibly avoid it. They change the graphics into an embedded format that doesn't work well.

By using the Layout program you can place all the elements where they should be and color them perfectly while also allowing the printer the option to correct anything you might need. This will also speed up the whole process for both of you.

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[signal49]

Michael,

Sorry I didn't get to your question before.... Have you figured it out yet?

If not, here's some more info for your last question to me:

You shouldn't create a new channel, so there shouldn't be one called alpha1. Make sure your image is CMYK (Image > Mode > CMYK). Then go to Windows > Channels.

You'll see 5 channels: CMYK, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black. Click on Yellow and your image will look like greyscale -- it's showing you only where there is yellow in your image. Select All and Delete (with background set to white). Do the same for Magenta.

Now go to Cyan. Delete anything from this channel that is supposed to be Black. Then adjust it with Levels or Curves to get everything that should be 100% of the blue spot color to be 100% black. Do the same for Black.

Do not delete the 2 "blank" channels because that will change your file from CMYK to Multi-Channel. Hope you figure it out. And this is definitely not the best way to create a 2-color job, but it can be done. Good luck!

 

[kylebellamy]

I agree with Signal49 on his point. If you have to do it that way then it is the best. The problem becomes that you will be losing data with won't help with the clarity of the final print job but you cna count on a little dot gain (ink spreading in the paper) so it may make up for the loss.

http://www.kylebellamy.com

 

[blueark]

You just want the logo to be greyscale, right? Signal49's suggestion is the best way to go, given your printer's instructions. It can be a bit tricky if you're not used to working with channels, because you have to be careful about what's selected at any one time. Here's a step by step that's probably a bit too detailed, but it should get you on the right track:

1: Open the logo on its own and convert to greyscale

2: Select > All, and copy.

3: Open the main image that you want to place the logo into

4: Open the Layer palette (Window > Layers)

5: Layer > New > Layer, and in the dialog that appears, change the mode to "Multiply", and check the box that says "Fill with Multiply-neutral color"

6: Hide the background layer, and any other visible layers other than the one you just created.

7: Open the Channels palette (Window > Channels)

8: Click on the "Black" channel and paste.

9: Click on the "CMYK" channel, then go to the Layers palette and make the background visible again.

If there's anything behind the logo, it will show through, so there are two main options to fix that:

1: Change the layer blending mode back to "Normal", add a layer mask, and paint out the parts you want to show through.

or-

2: Paint underneath the logo in white (either on the background or on a new layer in between the two.

To make the logo even stronger, you could copy the black channel into the cyan channel, and use curves to make it brighter (if you leave it as it is, there may be too much ink when it's printed). Simply take the 'black' end of the curve and drag it to around the half way mark, so the cyan channel looks light grey.

You may need to flatten the image before you give it to your printer, but keep a copy in case you need to come back to it.

 

[signal49]

I agree with Signal49 on his point"

Ahem... *her* point, thank you very much ;-)

Anyway, I hope you can figure it out with all of these suggestions. Everyone has their own way and they all give the right results... Good luck!

 

[kylebellamy]

*blushes*
My apologies. lol

http://www.kylebellamy.com