These programs use sophisticated mathematical algorithms to generate high resolution and extremely clear and accurate halftones from a Photoshop channel separation or vector documents created with Illustrator, CorelDraw or other PostScript application. The RIP software referenced are strictly for black ink halftone and solid film output. These RIP’s are not to be confused with “Color RIP’s”, which may be included with your inkjet printer or available elsewhere to control color output. “RIP”, is an acronym for Raster Image Processor. The final method is using a RIP such as AccuRip, FilmMaker, etc. An in-depth instructional video can be found here. Less obvious is the simplicity of film output as each color channel of the separation will print sequentially and automatically as opposed to printing multiple documents.

One obvious advantage is the ability to preview the color separation itself as halftones and output to film directly within Photoshop. The benefits of a more advanced technique are twofold. The process retains the separation within the channels panel with the designated color applied to each channel. This method is complex and usually requires the use of advanced color separation software such as UltraSeps. The second is to create bitmap halftone channels within the existing grayscale color channel palette. Low cost color separation such as QuikSeps provides an automated process to complete this procedure. No other film output settings are needed other than the correct page size. The dot shape can be elliptical or round and an angle that works and doesn’t create moire, such as 26 degrees.Įach document would then be sent to your printer directly from Photoshop. Within the bitmap window upon conversion, the user would enter the required output LPI followed by the desired dot shape and angle. Once split, each document is then converted to bitmap mode. This is accomplished by “splitting the channels” of the color separation into individual grayscale documents. The first is to create individual bitmap documents with the proper halftone information embedded from each channel within the color separation. And here is where all the confusion begins and potential issues stem.īasically, three methods exist to generate halftones from a completed color separation. Once the separation is complete, usually within Channels (not Layers), at this point we begin to look at different methods to reach our final destination of halftones to film. With the exception of Index Separations, which I’ll cover in another article, all color separations within Photoshop are actually grayscale channels that contain no halftone information whatsoever. First off, one doesn’t begin by generating a halftone separation. Well, this question doesn’t have an absolute answer as there’s many ways to address it. Screen printers often ask “how to do halftone color separations in Photoshop”.

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