Datasheet

658
Getting Four-Color Separations
Before you take your image to a service bureau or offset printer to get color
separations, it’s wise to get what are called laser separations. Basically,
you’re color-separating your image, not to film or plates, but to paper.
If your image doesn’t separate to paper, most likely it won’t to film or plates,
either. You can go back and correct the problem, rather than pay upward of
$80 to $150 an hour to have the service bureau or offset printer correct it for
you. Consider laser separations a cheap insurance policy.
Follow these steps to get laser separations from your desktop printer:
1. Be sure your image mode is CMYK. If it isn’t, choose Image➪Mode➪
CMYK Color.
I’m assuming your image is a four-color image. But it may also be a gray-
scale, duotone, tritone, or quadtone image, in which case, no conversion
to CMYK is necessary. (See Book II, Chapter 2, for more on modes.)
After the conversion, you have an image with four channels — Cyan,
Magenta, Yellow, and Black, like the one shown in Figure 1-2.
2. Choose File➪Print, and then select Color Management from the pop-
up menu in the top-right portion of the Print dialog box that appears.
3. In the Print area, select Document.
The setting should say U.S. Web Coated (SWOP) v2.
4. Select Separations from the Color Handling pop-up menu.
This option prints each channel from the image to a separate plate, or in
the case of laser separations, paper.
5. Select Output from the pop-up menu in the top-right portion of the dia-
log box, and then select additional options as you desire.
For general print options, see Book I, Chapter 3. For additional options,
see Table 1-3.
Note that if you’re printing to a non-PostScript printer, some of these
options may not be available. You see a preview of most of these
options when you apply them to your file.
6. Click the Print button.
If all goes well, four pieces of paper, one for each of the four CMYK chan-
nels, print. If you’re printing a grayscale, duotone, tritone, or quadtone
image, you get one to four pieces of paper, one for each color used. If
that doesn’t happen, something’s amiss, and it’s time for troubleshoot-
ing. Be sure to take these laser separations with you when you hand
over your file to the service bureau or offset printer.
43_608210-bk09ch01.indd 65843_608210-bk09ch01.indd 658 4/29/10 8:20 PM4/29/10 8:20 PM