CMYK Separations

CREATING THE PHOTOSHOP IMAGE FILE:

• Click to Open the Sailing file (image above), press on image and drag to desktop, open in Photoshop and change it from RGB to CMYK. (you are selecting a color space that corresponds with where you image ultimately ends up, or how it will be printed—this is the Destination Color space/profile)
• EDIT>>CONVERT TO PROFILE>>US WEB COATED (SWOP) v2
• OR – can can use IMAGE >> MODE >> CMYK (but you have less options/control over the conversion process using this route and you are asking the program to make color decisions for you)
• save result as a TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) file to your disk no compression. TIFF is a form of lossless file compression and will preserve all the information from your original image file. Best file format for printing bitmapped (photographic) images for print.

CREATING THE ILLUSTRATOR FILE:

• Open a new Illustrator file. Set the document set-up at letter size or 36 x 48 picas, vertical (portrait) orientation. Add a Bleed area of 0p9
• PLACE (Import) the Sailing.tif file from your disk
• Resize the image to fit the bleed on your page horizontally (by holding down shift and dragging one of the edge points, or Control +click >>transform>>scale. Then move it so that the bottom of the image is 3p0 from the bottom of the page.

COLORMATCH AND PROCESS TO SPOT COLOR:

• Use the eyedropper to sample and Colormatch the red-orange from the red sailboat with a Pantone Uncoated spot color and add it to your swatches window. Refer to these steps to complete this: Process to Spot

SYMBOLS LIBRARY WINDOW:

• Illustrator offers plenty of built-in symbols. These are stored in the Symbols Libraries. To access the libraries, click the libraries button at the bottom left corner of the Symbols panel, . You will then see the different categories of symbols.
• Open the Nature Symbols Library window.
  Menu>>Window>>Symbols Library (not Symbols)>>Nature

• Select one of the fish symbols and drag on to your layout.

SYMBOLS to GRAPHICS

• Change the fish symbol to a graphic by the Expand command (Object>>Expand)
• Ungroup (you may have to do this several times to completely separate the image into separate parts depending on the specific fish you chose.)
• Option (Alt) Copy two more fish and let ‘em swim in the ocean! (this is a create and release program 🙂
• On one of the fish, change the colors to the PMS red-orange spot color colormatch you created earlier + tints of it and black
  • (open the color swatch in the COLOR palette, drag the slider in the color dialog to create tints then drag those into the swatch window to use) Make separate 75%, 50%, & 25% tints of the red color.
• Use the eyedropper to select a fill color of one of the fish shapes, then from the Menu>>Select>>Same>>Fill to group select all shapes that are made of the same color fill. Replace with one of the Pantone tints you made. Repeat this process on the other two sharks with different tints until all of the sharks have been converted over to tints of the Pantone color. Create new layers for each of these tinted fish parts. Turning the visibility of these individual layers off after each of its colors have been changed will enable you to tell when all of the fish parts are converted.
• ReGroup the fish parts (all symbols from the graphics libraries may be further customized or edited in this general manner)

TEXT

• Open the digital history text file. Copy and Paste it into a text box that is exactly as wide as the sailing image. (Drag guides out from the rulers to ensure proper alignment).
• Keep the text alignment Flush Left.
• Bring the text file to front if it is not on top already.
• Move both text and image so that they both fit on the page (the text will overlap the top half of the image).
• Place the Title in a separate text box, Change the typeface to a sans-serif typeface (Gill Sans, Helvetica, Futura, Univers, etc.) 17 pt, centered, Pantone red-orange color match.
• Change the text to the same typeface family, 9pt.
• Change your text box to 2 columns with a 2p gutter (a gutter is the space between columns), by choosing Type>>Area Type Options).
• Use Align window to Align the Title, Text & Image on their left hand sides.
• Turn off hyphenation:  Window>>Type>>Paragraph (You may have to choose Show Options, from the down-arrow menu located on the top right side of the Paragraph Window). Uncheck the box next to the Hyphenate option in the lower left corner of the window.

SEPARATIONS

• Preview your file using the Separation Viewer to ensure that you will be creating 5 color separation plates — CMYK + 1 Spot Color, and that all of your elements are on the correct plate. Go to Window>>Separations Preview to launch the Separations Preview Panel. If the panel seems to be empty, check to make sure your document is in CMYK color mode

Print an Adobe PostScript File (choose this where you would normally select a printer. Remember that the result is NOT a paper print but instead a Postscript file.)

• You may further control what items will print, or separate, by placing each item in its own layers first, then making only the layers you want to print visible and finally, at the bottom of the main Print window, General and selecting Print Visible Layers from the Print Layers option.
• Create separations—From the Output option in the Print window, change the mode from Composite to Separations. You should then see what colors will be printing as separations. In this case, you should get 5 plates (C,M,Y, K + PMS spot).