CMYK Colou Seperation

Creating great looking photographic prints or full color range prints onto a garment can be
accomplished using CMYK process printing. By only using the process colors you can
accomplish millions of colors onto a garment.
I just wanted to share with you the process of creating color seps used for CMYK screen
printing, here we go.
Artwork. The first and most important step is the artwork. Nothing can move forward with this
process without artwork. I have my artwork here that I will be working on. With all these
colors, and gradients its a perfect fit for CMYK printing. without CMYK printing for this
design, It would require so many screens and set up time that the print job would just break the
bank.
My artwork was created using Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. This piece has a hand drawn
element to it, and a chalk look almost like pastels. Be sure to create the art at the size to be
printed and at least 300 dpi! scaling artwork up or just snagging a low res picture off the web
results in horrible printsdont do it
Art to screen print showing image size settings

If your art isnt already in CMYK mode now is the time to change that. Go to Image > Mode >
CMYK. Then flatten by going to Layers > Flatten Image.
Layer > Flatten Image
Image > Mode > CMYK

Note* you will lose some color detail if you are changing from RGB mode to CMYK. RGB has
a far higher color range than CMYK, most of the time it wont be too noticeable, but can really
change some colors. Just keep that in mind.
Our next step will be to separate the colors; Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (Key).
Bring up the Channels Pallet. You can access the channels pallet either method shown below.
Channels from Window Menu

Use the method on left if you dont see the tab next to Layers.
Click the Channels tab next to Layers
Photoshop has made it really simple for screen printers and artists to separate their CMYK
channels into separate files.
on the Channels pallet, click the fly-out button on the top right to access our channel
options. Click on Split Channels.
You should now have 4 files that each contain grayscale images for each color. That was pretty
simple huh!
See the pictures below for visual guides if your lost on that last step.
Note* You cannot undo split channels. So if you mess anything up you will have to re-open
your original artwork again.
Select Split Channels from the fly-out menu options
New Files for the Split Channels

Now that we have all the separated colors its time to make them ready for screen
burning. Because a printer will just print the newly separated files in line gradients, a screen will
not burn out properly. We will need to convert the grayscale images into a Halftone Screen
setting. The halftone dots will vary in size depending on the percentage of black. A 100% black
area of the design will have a solid black printout, whereas a 50% black area of the design will
have a more spread out halftone pattern.
Lets start with the black or K file. Go to Image > Mode > Bitmap to bring up the bitmap
settings.
Bitmap Options
For the output I am selecting 300ppi which is the same as the dpi settings I have for this image
file.
For the Method choose Halftone Screen.
The next window for our bitmap settings now comes up.
Halftone Screen Options

This is the part that will take some trial and error. These settings that I use may not work for
each design, or setup. I will explain how I came up with what I have used here.
Frequency: I use a formula to come up with this number. Screen Mesh/4=Frequency.
305/4 = 76.25 I have rounded down to 75. In most cases I just keep my frequency between 45
55. For screen printing going any higher might be considered overkill.
Angle: I like to keep all my screen angles the same @ 22.5. This is a topic that many have
debated over the years and I dont want to go into too many details. Some would consider
starting with 45 and adding 30 to each new halftone screen. So you would start with K=45,
C=75, M=105, and Y=135. With screen printing presses holding really tight registration
keeping all the angles the same is not a problem.
Shape: I choose to use Round, but many like ellipse. Ellipse has its advantages, the screen mesh
can hold an oval shape better than a round shape. Play around with each different settings to find
which method you prefer.
After applying these settings your Black plate is now in a halftone screen, almost ready for
printing onto your transparencies and burning the screens! Just a few more steps and were done.
In the black plate you will now want to convert the image back to grayscale, Image > Mode >
Grayscale.
Your black file should be looking similar to this when you zoom in.
Halftone Pattern when Zoomed In

Now grab the magic eraser tool. We want to remove the white from the background. Be sure to
zoom in so that when using the magic eraser tool you dont accidentally click anywhere that has
any black. Heres the settings for the magic eraser tool that I use.
Magic Eraser Settings

Setting the tolerance to 10, and making sure to deselect Contiguous.
Now just click any white are of the file to remove all white.
You will notice now that some of our black halftones have become uneven.
Before Magic Eraser
After Magic Eraser

To fix this, switch over to the Layers Pallet if not there already, and duplicate the layer (I prefer
to hold ALT and then click and drag down my layer to create a duplicate, but you could right
click the layer and select duplicate layer that way as well). Then merge (CTRL+E on PC, or
command+E on mac) the 2 layers together to bring the black back to a solid fill.
Merged Layers
Now we will want to convert our Black file into RGB mode. This might not make sense because
we have been using CMYK mode and Grayscale mode throughout this article, but its ok
Move this file over so that we can start on the next colors. All we have to do now is exactly as
we did to our black.
- Image > Mode > Bitmap. Use the settings described earlier.
- Image > Mode > Grayscale
- Zoom way in
- Use Magic Eraser tool on white area of image
- Duplicate Layer
- Merge Layers
Now instead of changing the image mode to RGB we will drag the halftone for each color
directly into our Black file using the Move Tool.
Remember to label the layers after each move for the appropriate colors.
Using move tool, click and drag in the artwork and drag over to the black file
Still dragging the art onto the black file
The art is now inside the black file, in its own layer.
Now keep using the move tool to position the artwork in the exact spot as the Black layer. This
is important for registration when on the press. Newer versions of Photoshop will actually snap
to the correct spot once you have it close. To be certain try zooming into an area of the art where
you can easily tell if they are lining up correctly.
Here is the file I now have that shows the art lined up correctly and my Layers now labeled for
clarity.
After moving Cyan, lining up art, and relabeling my layers

Now we can close our Cyan file, no need to save the file. Do exactly the same process for the
remaining 2 colors.
Here is my file now that contains all 4 colors, each on their own nicely labeled Layers.
All Colors in one file, nicely labeled

These files are ready to send to the screen printer! But were not done yet. We will actually be
applying color overlays to each layer, and then changing the blending modes so that we can see
what our new file looks like.
Right Click on the Cyan Layer (not the thumbnail) and select Blending Options.
Right Click Cyan Layer and choose Blending Options

This brings up our layer styles, we wan to now click on Color Overlay
In the Layer Style window, Click Color Overlay

Now we want to click the color Box to change our color, clicking the red color box brings up yet
another window that lets us choose our color. We will want to click the button for Color
Libraries for our color.
The Color selection box appears, click on Color Libraries

In the color libraries make sure that PANTONE solid coated is selected. Now scroll up through
the colors to find the process Cyan color and select it.
In the Color Libraries, scroll to the top to find our Process Colors
Our Cyan layer now has a color overlay of Cyan!
Move on to the next 2 color to select their appropriate PANTONE color using the same Blending
Options on each layer.
Heres how our file should now look. Notice in the layer pallet that each layer except for black
now has a layer style.
All layers with their Color Overlays

Wait a minute! This looks nothing like our original file not to worry!
Create a new layer beneath each of the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow layer.
Create new layers under each color

Now we need to merge each color layer with the new layer under it. DONT MERGE ALL
LAYER TOGETHER! So in my example above we will merge Yellow with Layer 1 copy 2;
Magenta with Layer 1 copy; and Cyan with Layer 1.
So highlight Yellow and Layer 1 copy 2 (or similar to however you have your file now) and
merge the layers. This applies the color overlay to our halftone files that we created. Now we
have our yellow layer as halftones, in the correct color it will be printed with. This is important
and you will see why in a minute.
The layers after merging the color with a new layer

Now you can see that each color has the correct overlay, but its no longer an overlay.
Our next step is to change each layers blending modes.
In layers change the blending mode from normal to multipy for each color
Heres what we should get now that we changed each layer to Multiply.
The Image looks Great!
It loos alot like our original now! This process actually simulates exactly what is happening on
the screen printing press. Because the process inks used for CMYK printing are transparent they
are blending together, meshing and mixing on the shirt to create all the different colors.
Closeup of whats happening on the file.
Closup of file
Before sending the file out for screen printing you could save your printer a step by creating
black color overlays for each color.
I hope this helps anyone looking for CMYK separations using Photoshop.
Leave a comment below if you thought this was useful, or if you have any suggestions.
Thanks for reading.

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Creating great looking photographic prints or full color range prints onto a garment can be

Art to screen print showing image size settings

Layer > Flatten Image

Image > Mode > CMYK

Channels from Window Menu

Click the Channels tab next to Layers

Select Split Channels from the fly-out menu options

New Files for the Split Channels

Halftone Screen Options

Halftone Pattern when Zoomed In

Magic Eraser Settings

Before Magic Eraser

After Magic Eraser

Still dragging the art onto the black file

After moving Cyan, lining up art, and relabeling my layers

All Colors in one file, nicely labeled

Right Click Cyan Layer and choose Blending Options

In the Layer Style window, Click Color Overlay

The Color selection box appears, click on Color Libraries

All layers with their Color Overlays

Create new layers under each color

The layers after merging the color with a new layer

The Image looks Great!

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