Screen printing color separation is the process of separating an artwork or design into different color segments. This is an integral part of screen printing, so it is essential to separate the colors first to create the product’s design. Recently, the software has emerged that helps simplify the whole process. These softwares are helping embroidery digitizer in many ways.
Why Go For Color Separation?
The purpose of the color separation process is to prepare the file for printing. The type of color separation process used is determined by the image and the surface on which it is printed. Color separation software breaks the image down into the elements needed to reconstruct it.
Types Of Color Separations:
Understanding the different types of partings and their difficulties can help you do a successful detachment regularly. Successful color separations take years of practice, but a screen printer can help you find the right screen. Using printing software can significantly simplify the process.
Knowing which of the following techniques works best for your design can help you get the best results. Having access to reliable screen printing software is also essential. The color separations used in screen printing are:
● Spot Color Separations:
Spot color separation is the most common separation method in screen printing. Spot color separations range from vectorization and raster logos to cartoon graphics, with each hue printed separately with its own ink. Sometimes halftones are used for shading. Using spot colors ensures more accurate color management when printing. The appearance of
spot color separations can be simple or complex. Some very complex designs fit on the press and are printed as spot color jobs. Spot color work that contains too many colors for the press can also be split into simulated process files.
● Four-Color Separations:
For printing images, this color separation technology includes four colors: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). Most colors in an image can be created by printing these four tones. Halftones (small dots) are used in four-color process separations to create photorealistic images.
However, it can be difficult on dark backgrounds as the ink is translucent. Therefore, this technique works best on white or light backgrounds. Due to the system’s color accuracy, spot color simulation has been the preferred separation option for the past decade.
● Simulated Process Separations:
Like four-color process separations, simulated process separations use halftones to create images, but simulated processes use a wider color gamut to handle a wider color gamut. Because it uses opaque inks, it allows simulated processes for both light and dark backgrounds, unlike color process separations.
Sound or channel separation is another term for simulated process separation. In addition, simulated process color separations are created, similar to color process separations in Color Separation Photoshop. Simulated process screen printing for apparel, clothing, and custom t-shirt printing.
● Index Color Separations:
Square pixels of the same size is used instead of halftone dots to achieve color shading in index decomposition. Process separations can be more difficult to run, print, and index than color separations. Photorealistic prints, on the other hand, often require the use of more colors. Separation is done in Photoshop, but images from other applications such as CorelDRAW and Illustrator can easily be transferred.
Color shading squares are used in a limited range of colors (usually the most prominent colors in the image) to match the original design as closely as possible. However, you need a larger press and more colors to compete with the Sim Process or the Four-Color Process in custom screen printing.
Color separations can use a combination of these separation methods depending on your printing and design requirements. For example, the color separation process can benefit from including spot colors to extend the color gamut.
Optionally, process colors or custom spot colors can be included in simulated process printing. However, due to different printing/design requirements, customer-specific color separations are often used in practice.
Tips For Successfully Implementing Color Separations
A smart way to achieve high-quality color separations that result in accurate and crisp screen prints is to develop and iterate the color separation process. Individual screen printers develop their own challenges and preferences when it comes to creating separations.
However, identifying and maintaining a technique that works for you and paying attention to potential problems can increase the success rate of isolation and reduce organizational waste. Here are some tips to further streamline the whole process:
For the best color separation service, be sure to use high-resolution images.
● Identifies colors that are part of a color separation and identifies potential problems. For example, contrasting or unusual color separation.
● Select and extract colors individually. To avoid overlapping layers of ink, you can remove colors with less optical color.
● Depending on the process selected, identify and fix any issues that may occur when performing this procedure. For example, the image may display more colors than expected. Photoshop’s default CMYK palette is designed for printing on paper, so you may need to import your own CMYK palette. In addition, when you import vector images into Photoshop, the program’s anti-aliasing feature may automatically soften the edges. I need to undo this. Ideally, you should be aware of all the issues that can arise with any type of color separation and be prepared to address them directly during the color separation process. This process is totally different from the embroidery digitizing which is more accurate and cheap.
Whether online or not, color separations are an important part of the manufacturing process, but screen printers know they still have work to do to create quality prints from separated images. After confirming that the teardown was successful, follow screen printing best practices to achieve a high-quality print. Cre8iveSkill provides the best color separation service for screen printing. Discover more services.
