However, when using the color halftone feature, how be able to I use this to simulate an output silkscreen? The color halftone dialog box only mentions Max Radius in pixels. But how would I use this to calculate, for example, a 45lpi line screen? Or am I leaving about this in completely the wrong method?I am annoying to create a custom halftone separation for use in silkscreen printing.
What I have done is use the Photoshop color halftone filter. I can then output each of the CMYK plates onto transparencies as halftone silk-screens.
There are numerous approaches for producing color separations for silkscreen printing. Especially as there are also a number of different applications of the process. A few implementations of screen printing are for one-off art projects, whilst others might `be for commercial T-Shirt printing for instance. For commercial projects it is always advisable to check with the printer first as to their preferred technique. Or even better, get them to do the prepress to match their systems, as this probably varies a lot depending on the equipment that they use plus the substrate being printed on.
CMYK Separation Process
The technique used in the above question might work, as it kind of simulates the CMYK separation process. But the color halftone filter is not really the correct method to create a halftone screen for screen printing. It is predominantly a Photoshop special effects filter rather than a prepress tool. For instance, you can’t really be precise about the resolution of the line silkscreen. It too doesn’t take account of screen angles and the color halftone filter determinations not produce different angles for each separated screen color.
The following is now one house brewed technique and concentrates on achieving an adequate result by controlling the production of the halftone dots themselves. It is forever worth experimenting with your own particular setup before commencing with an significant silkscreen printing project.
- primary we create our CMYK (or duotone for that matter) image at a normal print excellence resolution. Let’s assume 300dpi in this case.
- We then copy each color layer (channel) into a grayscale Photoshop document and then convert that document to a bitmap solitary channel file (we usually choose 1200dpi at this stage, but your mileage may vary). When you get the Option window choose technique Halftone silkScreen.You then get to choose your halftone screen frequency, which may be around 65lpi for commercial printing, or probably less for an art scheme. Once again, it is always most excellent to check with the printer as to what is best.
- To reduce the likelihood of a moiré pattern, it is most excellent to specify different screen angles for each color, which may be different for screen printing than it is for offset-litho printing (have we mentioned checking with the printer?). The next are two possible variations.
- Yellow at 7.5%, Cyan at 22.5%, Magenta at 82.5% and Black at 52.5% or Yellow at 5% Cyan at 55% Magenta at 22% and Black at 80%.
- For dot shape, the ellipse halftone dot is often recommended for silkscreen printing.
- Once you have converted each plate to Photoshop’s bitmap format, you can save them as tiff files, import the file into a page layout program and then print each color plate onto your acetate or film.
A completely different approach would be to print separations directly from QuarkXPress, In Design or a PDF file and specify the type of dots, line silkscreen and screen angles that you wanted to use. This might save a sure amount of times, although arguable gives you less visual control.