Illustrator CS3 - Color Separation Problem

[eightball]

First of all, I'd like to mention that I have basically zero experience with preflighting designs. I designed a t-shirt for my wife's volleyball team and saved it as a pdf.

She sent it off to the t-shirt company, and told them that it shoud be two colors. The artist at the company believed it was only one color and wanted to see the color separations.

The file contains objects that are either 100% / 20% Pantone 426 or 0% Black.

Before I get to the real problem, are different percentages of the same spot color considered one color or multiple colors?

I have never quite understood that.

Real Problem:

When I try to print color separations, I goto to File > Print.

I select Adobe PostScript File from the Printer List

There are two options in the PPD dropdown, "Device Independent" and "Other..." (I choose Device Independent)

In the "Output" tab, all dropdown menus are gray and unselectable, so I can't change the mode.

From what I understand, you have to change the mode to do color separations. Is there anything that I can do to be able to change the mode?

Forgive me for being clueless... I have searched for how-tos online, and none of them have addressed my problem.

[MD]

0% black is white .... is the tshirt white?

[Craig B]

And yes, tints of the same PMS are one color and would be on one plate.

[eightball]

Yes, 0% black is white. I just indicated it in case it made any difference.

The t-shirts are actually red, but even if they were white, I wouldn't want the white colors to print. The only object that is white is an imported TIFF image file, used to create a distress texture, so I can't subtract it from the other objects. Just like printing on a piece of paper, I want to be sure that no white will be printed

[WannaBrie]

I'm confused, you said you have imported a white image into your design, but you don't want white to print? Could you post an image, maybe that would help.

[Ned]

The artist at the T-shirt company is correct. You only have one color in the document, Pantone 426. Since your white areas are transparent and not printed white, there is no extra ink used there, and your 20% Pantone 426 is merely a lower saturation of the same color.

This is good for you, because it'll substantially reduce your printing cost. :)

As far as why your output options are grayed out, that's probably because of the Postscript language you've chosen. I don't have Illy on this computer so I can't get any details for you, and I don't know the postscript dialogue very well since I tend to use PDF formats. Try using the oldest compatibilities you can. Have you tried using Distiller?

[eightball]

Thank you very much, Ned. I don't own Adobe Acrobat, So I don't have Distiller, but I will look into it.

Here is a link to the image:

http://img405.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tshirtsg8.jpg

[doubting_thomas]

Choosing Device Independent will not give you many options for output.
The reason is that most PPD's are tailored to a specific device for sheet
size, screening, image area, flattening and so on. Using Device Independent
will not set any of these variables so that the resulting PDF will maintain the
highest level of abstraction, or in other words, be a more flexible digital file.
Choosing a Postscript printer's PPD will most likely allow for printing to file
with seps, or choosing the Acrobat PPD and not choosing Device Independent
as an option will allow it, also.