Datasheet

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Getting Four-Color Separations
If you selected the Photoshop Manages Colors option, you should turn
off color management in your particular printer’s dialog box.
That’s all there is to it. If you want more information on printing, check
out Book I, Chapter 3. For more explanation on color management, see
Book II, Chapter 3.
If all you want to do is print color prints on your desktop printer, I recom-
mend starting off by selecting Document in the Print area and selecting
Photoshop Manages Colors for Color Handling, which gives you the most
control over printing. If you have a little time and paper to burn, then print
another copy by using the Printer Manages Colors option. Do a side-by-side
comparison to see which one looks superior. You can also crack the seal on
the documentation that came with your printer for any recommendations.
Getting Four-Color Separations
It’s necessary to color separate your image whenever you plan to print your
image to an offset press. Your image must first be in CMYK color mode
(choose Image➪Mode➪CMYK Color). Then, the composite color image gets
digitally separated into the four-color channels — cyan, magenta, yellow,
and black — and is output. (These colors are also known as process colors.)
Sometimes, the separation output is onto film, and sometimes, it’s output
directly to aluminum printing plates. The plates are put on an offset press,
paper runs through each of the four inked rollers (cyan first, then magenta,
yellow, and finally black), and out comes your composite image.
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.