colour names to pantone to cmyk

[pixelation]

I have this list of colour names i need converted to pantone to use as cmyk in illustrator cs2

Black, Navy Blue, Signal Red, White, Charcoal Grey, Canary Yellow, Olive Green, Stero Red, Dark Brown, Dark Plum, Kelly Green, Grass Green, Denim Blue

whats the best way to do this?
i looked for colour names to pantone converters but they dont seem in the right format
any help would be appreciated
Al

[PrintDriver]

Where did you get the color names?

Color names are in no way, shape, or form standard. Just look at the paint industry. Your best bet is to get a swatch of some kind then thumb through a PMS to Process guide.

Good luck.

[pixelation]

colour names are from the guy taking submissions for a tshirt design
i thought there would be a definitive colout for each of those colour names but looks like there isnt then
ill ask him for some kind of swatch then for each colour
thanks for you help

[PrintDriver]

If you are doing a t-shirt design, why CMYK? Usually they are spot colors, and only 3 or 4 of those at the most. Usually.
(I did see this really neat HP the other day that prints 4-color directly on a t-shirt, I believe with UV inks. Excellent!)

[balou]

(I did see this really neat HP the other day that prints 4-color directly on a t-shirt, I believe with UV inks. Excellent!)

Have a link?

[rickself]

don't take this wrong, pixelation, but you might be missing something here. Just go to your color libraries and bring up a Pantone library. Use Pantone colors, not cmyk. Your screen previews may be set to smyk, but you should still be using spot colors.

[PrintDriver]

No, Balou I don't. I saw it at a show and stupid me didn't pick up a brochure cuz we don't do that where I work. I haven't been able to find it online and suspect it may have been a prototype or 'coming soon' item. It was small enough to fit on a table top, you stretched the imaging area of the t-shirt onto a platten and it printed as it fed into the machine. Very nice print quality and excellent color, but slooooowwww. Size limited too. I think about 11" x 14" print area. I'll keep an eye peeled at the next sign show.

[pixelation]

yea i made a mistake with the colour names doh
it was the colour names for the actual tshirt fabric im printing onto double doh
i have to use 3 pantones..yea i see the pantone library in illustrator..i read about the U C and M prefixes for different colours but they wont matter for printing to fabric or will they? i read theyre very close anyway

i have also been told not to use shades, neither light or dark on the 3 colours which is ok of course just that when i designed for print before and the design was to be one colour i could have many shades and i thought that would apply the same here
theres a high chance im missing the point here with spot colours and printing processes but just wanted to know..
thanks all for your help

[PrintDriver]

You're missing the whole point about silkscreening.

Shades, or tints, or opacity are bad things in screenprinting, usually requiring a line screen to produce, and a relative course one at that so it doesn't moire. Gradients are out of the question. Especially 2 color gradients.

If you want to do this for real, you might want to take a look thru Amazon.com for books on designing for screenprinting. Or go to your vendor's shop and look at the artwork he is producing and figure out how it goes together.

And yes, U, C, and M are all different and it does matter. Depending on the inks used. I tend to use Coated for everything but some SP vendors want Uncoated for screening to fabric. Matte I have found no use for whatsoever (read disclaimer in sig). Always ask the printer or follow his spec sheet. Your art will be separated to all black plates for film so what you put in your file doesn't matter. You could use red, white and blue then tell the printer to use green, orange and purple. It's how the ink is mixed and applied that matters. If the printer matches PMS 256U instead of 256C you might be surprised.

[pixelation]

yea i was just getting confused with comparisons on non sceen printing
thanks for your information and yea your suggestion of a book is a good one
Al

[PrintDriver]

If you want to do 4-color printing on t-shirts find someone who does dye-sublimation.
Usually your only option is a light colored t-shirt for that, white being the best solution. Dye sub is a transparent process rather than opaque but you can get some really cool results from it and you aren't necessarily limited to the usual 11" x 14" or smaller size.