You should print with register marks on.
(other than that,.. in greens you should have more yellow than cyan than magenta; black should look like a "normal" picture, reds have more magenta than yellow than cyan; orange…)
Search for "Pocket Pal"
Thanks for getting back to me.
My questions stems from the fact that the separation prints as channels (meaning – in *grey scale*). This is what lead me to ask my question…perhaps not very clearly. I should have said – because the separations print as *grey scale* (like a channel) how can you tell which is C,M,Y, or K?
I added the registration marks as you said thinking that some how PS would print them as "colored" separations. But I still get *grey scale* separations.
* BTW I am using the term "grey scale separations" loosely. I understand what channels are showing me in terms of "amount" each color. So I am only using this phrase to note that what is printing is not in the separations color. I am/was expecting 4 prints. Each one being printed in its color.
….thanks for the book reference.
B.
B. I thought that registrations alone would give you the written names of the color plates printed as grayscale.
(I haven’t printed separations from Photoshop in a very long time) Isn’t there an option to print the names too?
You should be able to tell the individual plates from the density in certain areas, and if you print halftones, from the angles.
BTW I am using the term "grey scale separations" loosely. I understand what channels are showing me in terms of "amount" each color. So I am only using this phrase to note that what is printing is not in the separations color. I am/was expecting 4 prints. Each one being printed in its color.
I have never heard of a printer that can do this. (Besides a press proof) If there is one please let me know what it is.
You will get the grayscale separations to print out with the labels C,M,Y,K on 4 sheets if you have a postscript printer.
B,
Color separations ARE grayscale files (images). Not loosely. That’s what they are by definition. They are actually the negatives (or black and white positives made from them) that are used to burn the four different printing plates (in a system that uses an imagesetter to output negatives) or the four different printing plates in a system that directly images plates in a platesetter. No color exists until these grayscale images are actually printed using printing inks.
The images NEED to be grayscale so that you can see the characteristics of each (trappimg, overprinting, that sort of thing). Have you ever looked at an image printed in only its actual printing ink? The yellow image is just about impossible to see unless you view the sheet using a dark blue filter. The other colors are easier. Obviously the black image is, well, black. The Cyan and Magenta images are easier to see than the yellow image, but looking at them as a monochrome black image is much easier to do.
VL
Thanks for all the replies-
I found what I was looking for both in the everyone’s replies and in File>Print with Previews. I had not selected "Labels".
VL- thank your for the clarification. While I understand what channels and negatives are, I was not putting them together right in my head. I was expecting that when I printed out the separations I would get the equivalent of what I would see at the printers as you described it – a yellow image, a cyan, etc. And that is how I would know which print out is which. But of course that does not make sense if I am the one creating the negatives. Once I selected Labels so that each separation was labeled Cyan, Yellow, etc. and read your reply – I had to do the Homer head slap.
Thanks all.
B.
