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Computers and Software => Raster and Vector Manipulation Programs, and How to Do Stuff in Them. => Topic started by: Gilligan on November 19, 2011, 11:21:13 AM
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How do you guys do it.
I know that is an EXTREMELY open ended question but I'll throw out an example.
My turkey.
(http://www.theshirtboard.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=2024.0;attach=1673;image)
I've attached the 5 color original PSD as we will be discussing it and not this grey scale version (I just have this online for quick reference already. I know cross hairs are screwed up and I will fix that. It's zipped because the original PSD is 5mb.
Tools, I have available are Photoshop and Illustrator (and Ghostscript).
I've watched a few vids online and I can BASICALLY duplicate and get a "usable" piece of art out of it, but I want to do it right/best.
What would you guys do with this.
So far methods I've seen are "Select color range" which umm... sort of works but does weird things when there is any "blending" on the edges.
Here are some vids
Color Separation in Photoshop for Screen Printers Part 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TinI9Io-2UM#)
He also uses "save selection" to create his channels.
Convert Images to Spot Colors using Photoshop (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uydc2VmfvQ#)
This one copies the information in the selection and paste it to a new channel (spot channel would work for my purpose here but I understand why he does what he does).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmspWZqbc2Q#t=3m (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmspWZqbc2Q#t=3m)
Jump to the 3min mark. This is guy is admittedly a "newbie" to this but it works... He is using the magic wand tool to accomplish the same thing as above.
Spot Color Separations In Photoshop (http://vimeo.com/2974180)
This guy has a good tip about using the large preview of the color selection tool. He also uses layers and FILLS the selection with BLACK. This wouldn't work with shades/halftones though.
Or should I be live tracing this in Illustrator and work from Vector?
(btw, for those that are following this project in the other thread, this is the same turkey but lets pretend I'm doing it in 4 or 5 color instead of grey scale... just a good example piece of art.)
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Piece o' cake. I see 3 shades of brown, black, white, red, and yellow. Set your Magic Wand tool to 8 in the tolerance box. click on something black, then under the Select menu, choose similar, which should choose everything black. If you get some of that dark brown, then reset the Tolerance of the Magic Wand to 4 and try again. Then in your Channels pallet, at the bottom, the second button from the left is "Save selection as Channel". Click it, and you will have a Channel with your selection in negative form. Go to the Image menu and Invert. Now it will look like black on white. Do this for each of the colors, and you will have your individual channels. That's the basic, but I would use just one brown, the lightest, and print a black halftone over the darker brown spots to reduce the amount of colors we need. But that's another tut for another day. Gotta go print some shirts...
Steve
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That's the basic, but I would use just one brown, the lightest, and print a black halftone over the darker brown spots to reduce the amount of colors we need. But that's another tut for another day. Gotta go print some shirts...
Steve
Thanks Steve... Now I have yet another way of doing this. Is there a "standard" way, or even a "better" way or is most of this "what works for you" workflow kind of thing.
I'm going play with this method right now.
FYI, I saw that same darkbrown out of light brown/black halftone possibility also. When there were some communication issues on their end of getting me artwork I suggested that I could do this job as a 4 color to save them some money. You are right there are 3 shades of brown but I was going to make it just one shade of light brown since they don't really sit on each other and it would save a color or same weird 10% halftone look.
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Not exactly answering your general question, but this particular turkey is also a really easy trace with that layer isolated. I traced it in CorelDRAW, and then filled the different component objects with shades of black like your original project needed.
I don't have the time or patience for your cross hairs right now though, lol!
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That's the basic, but I would use just one brown, the lightest, and print a black halftone over the darker brown spots to reduce the amount of colors we need. But that's another tut for another day. Gotta go print some shirts...
Steve
Thanks Steve... Now I have yet another way of doing this. Is there a "standard" way, or even a "better" way or is most of this "what works for you" workflow kind of thing.
I'm going play with this method right now.
FYI, I saw that same darkbrown out of light brown/black halftone possibility also. When there were some communication issues on their end of getting me artwork I suggested that I could do this job as a 4 color to save them some money. You are right there are 3 shades of brown but I was going to make it just one shade of light brown since they don't really sit on each other and it would save a color or same weird 10% halftone look.
I left out an important part, that is the coloring of each channel. Select, let's say, the red channel, and double click it. In the ensuing dialog box, choose spot, then click on the chip to bring up the color picker. Click on the Custom Color button, which brings up your PMS pallet. Select 185, a fairly standard red (or any red you want) and click OK. Now that channel is assigned as a spot color, and when you import it into Illustrator to print, that spot color will show up in the Illy color pallet as a spot color. Do this for each channel...
Steve
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Cool... thanks Andy... yeah, those cross hairs are just dumb... I'll have the wife tackle that... she'll probably just recreate them.
Also... when doing the color one. What about trapping and filling in the small gaps.
So far I have done a few things which works (sorta) digitally but I don't know how it would translate to press. I expanded everything (1 pixel) but the black. The only problem is it means I over print the dark brown on top of the light brown. Losing some of the light brown (most notable in the tail).
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Quick somewhat related question.
What should I do about this... probably not even worry about it.
But this will create a few "half tones" around what should be black. Should I just ignore it as it will be so small it won't matter?
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That type of design fits vector more so than raster. Recreating in vector will rid you of any pixelation issues as you posted from the eyes. You can fill / color how ever you wish as well as using blends and can easily separate.
Those yes depending on the size in the final design may cause you issues depending on you final dot size and shape used when printing your seps and ultimately being exaggerated once on press once dot gain is present.
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That type of design fits vector more so than raster. Recreating in vector will rid you of any pixelation issues as you posted from the eyes. You can fill / color how ever you wish as well as using blends and can easily separate.
And is perfect for an almost automatic trace as in my example.
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That type of design fits vector more so than raster. Recreating in vector will rid you of any pixelation issues as you posted from the eyes. You can fill / color how ever you wish as well as using blends and can easily separate.
And is perfect for an almost automatic trace as in my example.
agree 100%
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I've never messed with Corel but from my understanding, it's "automatic trace" function is better than AI Live Trace.
We use it with some success for cutting vinyl... but that maybe the largest beef. Multiple lines making multiple cuts and lots of ungrouping and deleting said duplicates.
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Trace is good and I would tackle that design by manually tracing the turkey outlines with my drawing pens on parchment paper. Scanning that in and tracing to vector. Quick cleanup with the shape tool and then adding color and using the tool in DRAW to recreate everything else. Total time to redo that design into 100% vector about 20 - 30 min tops.
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That's a great idea that I never thought of... my artistic skills are so bad that I couldn't even TRACE it well! :)
But the wife could knock that out!
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I had 15 minutes tops including the text. Perhaps the jpg doesn't do it justice, but the turkey trace was a gimme. Not one that you would need to do manually.
As you know, some just work perfectly with standard settings, and some need tweaking. (Some also present a little more leeway than others as well)
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agree again. I didnt click the jpeg yet you are absolutely correct. Sometimes you can get a almost perfect trace from the get go. Just all depends on the design at hand.
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Absolutely... this particular one can be done MANY ways successfully.
This thread isn't about this design though. This thread is about the process in general. So Fluid's idea of tracing and rescanning is a great one that I will file away for when it is more applicable.
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Absolutely... this particular one can be done MANY ways successfully.
This thread isn't about this design though. This thread is about the process in general. So Fluid's idea of tracing and rescanning is a great one that I will file away for when it is more applicable.
A trick in that vein is the same I used going back to late nights at Kinko's. Work big. Really big whenever possible, then when it's reduced down to actual size, it can be much cleaner.
I will still sometimes output an enlarged rough version, touch it up with white out pen and black pen, and then scan that version.
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Absolutely... this particular one can be done MANY ways successfully.
This thread isn't about this design though. This thread is about the process in general. So Fluid's idea of tracing and rescanning is a great one that I will file away for when it is more applicable.
Taking a loot at every design is always the first step. I look to see what can easily be recreated with the tools of the program and what would be easier and quicker just hand drawing and tracing to vector and then I dig in and get to work. Sometimes you can get away with tracing wn entire design and sometimes just various elements and working the other portions with the program tools and then bring everything together for the completed design.
I would say I hand draw about half of what i do and the rest is done entirely with the program tools. The more you learn the program the faster you get so some things you might draw by hand at first will eventually will be done with the programs rather than the tracing. Also the amount of time needed to clean up a trace to vector might warrant just recreating entirely using the program tools. You just have to break down the design into the various basic elements and decide from there.
ex: your eyes you posted. In vector, recreating those would take seconds using ellipses and outlines or contours rather than trying to clean up the trace to vector elements.
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I would say I hand draw about half of what i do and the rest is done entirely with the program tools. The more you learn the program the faster you get so some things you might draw by hand at first will eventually will be done with the programs rather than the tracing. Also the amount of time needed to clean up a trace to vector might warrant just recreating entirely using the program tools. You just have to break down the design into the various basic elements and decide from there.
ex: your eyes you posted. In vector, recreating those would take seconds using ellipses and outlines or contours rather than trying to clean up the trace to vector elements.
I was surprised to find that the budget priced Artwork Source that I used for a re-do a few months back, re-draws much of their stuff rather than trace and tweak.
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I think that goes back to how much time is involved in cleaning up rather than just redrawing.
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As I tell all my clients, The problem with doing seps from a raster file that has tint's tones, gradients & halftones, is that I will give it a 55 dpi pattern to reproduce those and that will apply itself to everything, including fine lines, text edges, even the tints area edges......
at 55 dpi no matter the files resolution it is brought doen to about 110 ppi.
It would just be faster for me to redraw it vector then mess with it. and I hate producing stuff that looks like it was printed by a hack :o the client will always complain about the final product and not equate it to the original crap !