Help! - Printing from Photoshop

[Hernard]

Hello anybody

I am using Photoshop (not Illustrator - don't have it) and have created stationery all in vectors. I need to use spot colours so will be printed using plates. The problem arises when I send the resulting file to Mr Printguy. I have created a DCS 2.0 file after converting from RGB to CMYK with extra channels for the spot colours and checked the options for 'include vector data' & 'halftone' and 'transfer' when saving the file. But when opened in Photoshop, it looks absolutely rubbish - all blurry and the Printguy isn't having much of it either. I would much appreciate any pointers or errors I am making. Thanks

[Keyare]

What version of Photoshop do you have?
Mine doesn't do vectors I don't think...

I think a DCS file is completely raster-based.
So you'll have to make it much higher resolution to get rid of the blurriness.
Or - Maybe give the printer guy the original PSD and a hundred bucks or so to fix it up so he can print it.

MORE RED!!

[Kool]

Hi Hernard, welcome to the forum. Photoshop doesn't do spot colors very well. The best way to deal with them is to make the spots either Cyan, Magenta, Yellow or Black. Any printer will be able to separate them. It will look all screwed up on the screen but the actual colors will be provided by the ink itself. Just make sure the printer knows to print Cyan as PMS whatever. /emoticons/cool.gif

http://home.comcast.net/~rnick9/signew.jpg

'You don't like your job, you don't strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way.' H. J. Simpson

[Hernard]

Thanks folks, I really appreciate your replies - I have something to go on now.

[dakels]

instead of using CMYK, which is fine too, you can make spot channels or use duo or tritones. For spot channels, just create a new channel and define the color with the other option then it should bring you to a menu of PMS colors. Also, talk to you printer about how they will print it. Some places just convert spots to CMYK because they arent going to break down the press and change the colors for one spot run, unless its a really large run. Make sure they are printing it as spot and define the PMS colors you want used.