Color Separation For Screen Printing Software

UltraSeps is the preferred color separation software used in the screen printing industry today.  Unlike programs such as Separation Studio and T-Seps, UltraSeps is the powerful tool of choice for screen printers to separate artwork quickly and easily.

Not only does UltraSeps have the power and features to make great color separation possible, its truly one of the easiest tools for screen printers to use to step your printing up to the next level.

Don't spend hours separating your customer's artwork when you could be on the press printing shirts and making money as opposed to struggling with difficult color separations.

In addition to offering many different types of color separations such as simulated process, cmyk, index color, spot color separations, duotones, tritones and others, the program also includes automated processes to enhance and repair artwork within Adobe Photoshop prior to running a color separation.

Some of these intuitive image correction features include improving the color of artwork, enhancing the clarity of images and up-sampling low resolution images such as jpegs to help make low resolution and poor quality graphics usable.

Other image enhancing feature include an intuitive method to sharpen images that surpasses the basic Unsharp Mask function of Photoshop along with the ability to brighten problematic shadow areas and correcting poor blacks found in some artwork to help provide separations with more contrast.

Bringing a poor quality image into Photoshop and having UltraSeps work its magic is truly something to behold.  These image enhancement and color correction tools can save the screen printing artist hours of time when compared to the usual trial and error methods.

Regarding t-shirt color separation, believe it or not, the six color simulated process separation below was generated automatically within seconds with just about no further adjustments required!

Complex color separations for t-shirts such as the sample below could take and entire day, if not more without the help of software such as UltraSeps.

Stop wasting time and money and invest in the right tools today to get your artwork and separations done quickly and accurately!

Software For Screen Printers

As I have owned and ran a screen printing shop for well over 30 years, and have been writing software specific to the industry since the late 90's, I'm often asked what is the best software to use.

Well, the answer to this isn't cut and dry, as there's software to run the numbers end of the business and other products that are used to create artwork, color separations for t-shirts and for film output.  We'll focus on the graphics software here and leave the business side to another day.

There's four different kinds of graphics software needed:

1. Illustration
2. Image Editing
3. Color Separation (Programs such as UltraSeps)
4. Raster Image Processing (RIP)

Illustration Software:  Also known as "Vector Software" and first on the list is likely the most important as its the basis for artwork creation.  Illustration software such as Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw are needed for setting type, bending and shaping text, effects such as outlines and drop shadows, etc.

They are also used to draw objects, trace objects, apply basic spot color to text and simple images and are usually used for all film output.  For printers doing simple work only, such as sports league printing and basic text and logo type images, Illustration software might be all that's needed.

Adobe Illustrator is king of illustration software and is the industry standard.  Learning and using Adobe Illustrator is where most all of those new to the screen printing industry should start.  I would avoid CorelDraw as it really lags in acceptance behind Adobe products.

In fact, recently I was talking with a friend who owns and runs a very large contract screen printing shop printing millions of shirts each year.  I asked him how often he receives CDR files, which is artwork created with CorelDraw.  His answer was, "maybe two or three in the past year".  So that alone should scare anyone from using CorelDraw as its simply not widely accepted or used in the graphics and printing community.  Stick with Adobe here.

Image Editing Software:  Also known as "Raster Software" and second on the list is software used to enhance, clean up and modify complex images such as photographs for example.  Its also used to create high-end artwork and to assemble multiple images and graphics into a final version.  If you've ever seen a t-shirt with any type of realistic image or complex, dynamic color image, chances are its created and color separated using Raster Software.

This type of software is also the kind used to generated high-end color separations for screen printing such as Simulated Process, CMYK, Index Color and more.  Without Raster Software, its impossible to create those eye-popping designs and print them easily to t-shirts.

Adobe Photoshop is the overwhelming choice with raster software.  In fact, a true competitor doesn't exist!  And please, don't believe anyone that tells you otherwise!

Photoshop can be a bit daunting at first for those with little to no experience with it, but don't let that scare you away, as its imperative to learn Photoshop if serious about doing great looking art and color separations.  The key to harnessing its power is to realize that only a portion of it needs to be understood, especially for those in the t-shirt business.

Color Separation Software:  Also known as Plugins, Actions and sometimes Scripts, make doing color separations in Photoshop possible!  These programs, such as UltraSeps and QuikSeps than run within Photoshop greatly speed up the process of color separation, and in many instances generate perfect separations without any further adjustment needed!

They can process the most complex images, such as photographs and full color graphics down into usable spot color channels.  These spot color channels are then output to film to burn your screens with.

Attempting color separations within Photoshop without the help of programs such as UltraSeps is almost impossible.  And for those who can actually do it themselves, well, they'll normally spend an entire day on a single color separation when UltraSeps could have it completed within minutes or sometimes seconds.

Even the most talented and knowledgeable artists and color separators use color separation programs as a starting point to save tremendous amounts of time.  And for those newer with far less experience, there's honestly no way to avoid using one.  And considering the low cost of plugins like UltraSeps, its really a no-brainer.

Raster Imaging Processing Software:  Also known as RIP Software is a must when requiring high-quality film output to an inkjet printer.  A RIP basically performs two vital functions.

#1 Makes it possible for an inkjet printer to image accurate halftones and the ability to easily change the halftone frequency, dot shape and angle.

#2 Provides a denser (darker) image to the film itself.  It does this primarily by employing the use of more than the single black ink head of an inkjet printer.  Modern RIP's such as FilmMaker and AccuRip can send information to the color heads of an inkjet with a black ink cartridge installed (such as the cyan, magenta and yellow) to function when printing just black.  They also allow the end-user to make adjustments to the amount of ink sent to these other heads.

Although it is possible to create bitmap halftones of a color separation within Photoshop and simply send that file to an inkjet printer without a RIP, the results are not as good.  The halftone dots themselves may not be as clean and smooth and the ink density on the film will likely not be as dark.

It's also cumbersome and counterproductive to not use a RIP if serious about your t-shirt screen printing business.  In the beginning a printer might be able to get by without one, but once consistent orders start rolling in, a RIP is going to be necessary.  Especially when needing excellent and repeatable film output that is certain to result in good performance on press.

Color Separation for Screen Printing

Do you need great color separations for that big t-shirt order?

Custom Seps is a company committed to detailed and accurate t-shirt color separations that are easy to print using the least possible colors. Our method of t-shirt color separation is unlike what most, if not all others offer. We create smooth blends, color transitions and gradients from your artwork or photo to print bright and accurately on both light and dark t-shirts.

CustomSeps has the ability to produce separations in high resolution using original artwork of not the best quality, such as jpegs and poor quality original art. What does this mean for you? It means you’ll not only get the best quality separations, but fantastic results that capture every detail of your artwork and perform great on press!  Your t-shirts have never looked better!

Do you need the color separations fast? CustomSeps.com can do your job in 24 hours or less. Just upload your artwork directly on our website for us to separate! Just like that, you'll have fantastic separations!  So stop stressing about that difficult job.  Let us bring your artwork to life today!

For those who would rather do separations in-house, we also develop UltraSeps Color Separation Software!  UltraSeps is the #1 t-shirt color separation program in use today and generates instant separations such as:

Simulated Process
CMYK True Process
Index Color
Spot Color
Black & White
Duotone
and more!

CustomSeps and UltraSeps have your covered when it comes to great looking and performing color separations for screen printing!

Color Separation

About Color Separation

Color Separation is the process of converting an image, such as photograph or full color artwork, into a set of spot colors that can be printed easily.

Color separations for screen printing are always done using Adobe Photoshop along with a plugin such as UltraSeps or QuikSeps.

When an image is brought into Adobe Photoshop, its usually in a color mode compatible with the device that it was created with such as the RGB color mode.  RGB is a common mode for digital cameras and computer monitors.

The RGB mode is based on the blending of Red, Green and Blue light. To screen print an image, the colors need to be converted to a combination of spot colors compatible with screen printing. The resulting set of colors is called a Color Separation.

There are many types of color separations available to t-shirt screen printers.

Types Of Color Separations Commonly Used

Simulated Process Color
This is the most common type of color separation and is by far the most popular. Most of the color separations done today are simulated process. Simulated Process separations, unlike true process (CMYK) use spot channels and regular plastisol inks to generate a full color image. Simulated Process can be printed on white, light and dark shirts and look equally great on all. If unsure about the type of separation needed, run simulated process.

True Process Color – CMYK
CMYK Process Color uses cyan, magenta, yellow and black process inks to create a realistic photographic image on the t-shirt. CMYK separations are great for true photographic images or pastel style artsy graphics such as a painting. Some CMYK separations require an added spot color to help the image print accurately. This type of separation isn’t a good choice when printing on black or dark shirts or when a bright, vibrant print is required. Its also not a good choice for an image which contains large areas of solid, defined different colors.

Index Color
Unlike other separations, Index uses tiny square dots of identical size as opposed to traditional halftones. Index separations work great on both dark and light shirts and are very easy to print and control on press. The downside to Index is that a good separation “usually” requires more colors to print accurately. Its also not a good choice for artwork containing excessive gradients or which fade off into the shirt. Index separations can appear grainy, especially on the computer monitor although will print great on press. If choosing Index, make sure the artwork is the “exact final size” being printed since Index Separations can’t be re-sized once complete. Start with artwork at 170 - 200 dpi when running an index separation.

Grayscale
Grayscale Separations are basically a simulated process separation done using a grayscale image void of color. They are also done on color images converted to grayscale for a different look. Quality grayscale separations include several gray ink channels a white highlight and a black. Sometimes the black ink is replaced by an “almost black” deep, dark charcoal color. Grayscale separations look great and are easy to print. The term Grayscale Separations can be a bit confusing as channels within a simulated process or CMYK separation are actually a Grayscale channel.

Spot Color
Spot Color separations are the type most commonly used since most artwork is simple such as jobs for schools, clubs, etc. Usually this type of separation is done automatically within an illustration program such as Illustrator. Sometimes however, an image can contain many spot colors and gradients and therefore attempting to output each color using Illustrator or CorelDraw can result in far too many films. This is where UltraSeps can help and bring that spot color job down to a manageable number of colors.

Discharge Ink Optimized
Discharge inks react with the dye in the shirt and basically replace the shirt color itself with the color of the discharge ink. The primary difference between Discharge Separations and traditional separations is the white underbase. With discharge, a white underbase under the top colors isn’t needed or wanted and there should only be white ink where white is actually seen in the design. UltraSeps includes a function to convert a traditional white underbase to a discharge white.

Duo-Tri-Quad Tone
This type of color separation is utilized when an image basically contains a single color along with its contrast. Think of a black and white photograph viewed through a red filter as an example. Its also used for sepia style images, such as the old photograph look whereas the photo isn’t black and white but rather has a faded tan and brownish look. Duo-Tri-Quad Tone Separations use multiple color channels to obtain the correct effect.

Photoshop Plugins such as UltraSeps are the most commonly used within the screen printing industry to generate high-quality color separations with Adobe Photoshop.