With the release of Photoshop CS5, Adobe has removed the Monitor button within the application’s Print functions. Why? Well, for some reason, Adobe feels that it is simply not required to print color separations directly from within Photoshop! For most users, it’s not a big deal. However, for those in the t-shirt screen printing industry, removing this vital function is quite problematic.
Therefore, since halftone settings can no longer be applied directly within Photoshop CS5, CS5.5, and likely all versions from now on, those who need color separation output, particularly the kind used in T-shirt screen printing industry will need to save the Photoshop document as a DCS 2.0 file followed by a DCS file entry within Adobe Illustrator to print color separations onto film.
The initials “DCS” is an acronym for “Desktop Color Separation” and is a format based on the EPS file format developed by Quark in the early 1990s. In short, a DCS 2.0 file is an .EPS file with the unique ability to also contain spot color channels, much like color separations that are created within Photoshop.
Since I found a lot of information on the internet regarding saving, placing, importing, and printing DCS 2.0 files somewhat imprecise or confusing, we will try to explain the process here using a step-by-step process.
step 1) When color separations are complete, either by doing them manually or using a quality Photoshop plugin/action to create, it’s important to delete the RGB channels along with any color channel not needed for movie output. It’s also a good idea to change the name of the black channel to “Black Ink” or something other than “Black”. This will help avoid confusion with the black process when placing a DCS 2.0 file into Adobe Illustrator.
Step 2) Once the file is properly formatted as above, choose “Save As” from Photoshop’s File menu.
Step 3) When the Save As dialog box appears, select “Photoshop DCS 2.0 (*EPS). Make sure the “Spot Colors Box” is selected and then click Save.
Step #4) When the DCS 2.0 Format box opens, enter the following settings, and then click OK.
Preview: TIFF (8 bits/pixel)
DCS: Single file with composite color (72 pixels/inch)
Coding: binary
The file is now saved in DCS 2.0 format and will be assigned an EPS icon. Next we’ll put the file into Adobe Illustrator for output.
Step #5) Launch Adobe Illustrator and create a new document with the RGB color mode along with a page size appropriate to accommodate the physical dimensions of the color separation.
Step #6) Select “Place” from the list of files in Illustrator. When the Place dialog box opens, locate the DCS file and click Place. The DCS file is now inserted into your Illustrator document and visible on your page. Don’t be put off by its appearance! The image may look faded when compared to the preview in Photoshop. This is normal, simply a low quality screen preview and color separations will print as expected.
Step #7) In Adobe Illustrator, select Print and choose your printer. Set the correct page size and then select “Output”. Under “Mode” select “Detached (Host-Based)”. All spot color channels from the original Photoshop-created chapter should now appear and are selected under the Adobe Illustrator Document Ink options box.
Step #8) Change the frequency, angle, and bitmap shape of each channel to be output to the movie. A setting that works well for most T-shirt color separations is to set each channel to 55 lpi and 26 degrees with an elliptical dot shape. Once set, the file is now ready to be sent to your printer.
Registration tags can also be added using standard Illustrator tags, or creating a custom vector registration tag is a great idea. Simply design a registration tag inside Illustrator using the color called “Registration”. The mark can then be duplicated and placed exactly where you want it and it will be printed on each channel. Save the created registration tag for use on all files printed from Illustrator.
We hope this article removes some of the ambiguity associated with using DCS 2.0 files. Especially for those in the world of screen printing on t-shirts.
