Soon I will be talking more about the print process, and how to find a good printer and make sure that they like printing for you and your company…but before I start those articles I’m going to do another post regarding design because it is a major part of the business.

This is a tutorial written by my friend Nick over at HeavyPrints.com on Color Separating Complex Gradients. This is both a video and written tutorial so if you have time be sure to check them both out and follow along if you are not used to breaking down art to get it print ready.

*The Video Tutorial follows the written version and is also in the video section of the site.

Step 1: Make a Complicated Gradient

For starters I made a New Document. It’s 6×8 Inches and it’s 300DPI. I filled it with a 3 color gradient, like so:

Screen Cap 1

When setting up your gradient for this method it’s very important that you create Shade Contrast. Gradient maps work from Light to Dark, ignoring the actual color. I have included black twice just to demonstrate that you can isolate the same color multiple times.

It’s not really important that the colors you use in the initial gradient reflect the colors you want in the end. It’s more important that we can isolate a color range from the gradient using the gradient map. If this doesn’t make a ton of sense now, it will soon.

Step 2: Isolate A color

To pull one color out of the the gradient we’re going to run a gradient map. I’m going to start with black, since it is the most straightforward application.

1. Press the “D” Key to return your color swatches to their default settings.
2. Create a gradient map by clicking the Image Menu>Adjustments>Gradient Map. When the Dialog Pops up, click the image of the gradient to bring up the Gradient Edit Dialog.
3. When you are in the Gradient Dialog, click and drag the right color tab to the left until you are comfortable that  the white section of the gradient on the screen is taking up both the White and Yellow sections of the entire image. Essentially, the only color that you want to show up as black in this gradient, is the color black. Like so:

Screen Cap 2

Step 3: Halftone the isolated color

1. Press “CTRL+A” to select the entire document.
2. Press “CTRL+C” to copy the selection.
3. Press “CTRL+N” to create a new document. It should automatically have the correct settings based on what is on your clipboard.
4. Press “CTRL+V” to paste your selection into the new document.
5. Select the Image Menu>Mode>Gray Scale. Select “OK” when it asks if you want to discard color information.
6. Select the Image Menu>Mode>Bitmap. Select “OK” when it asks if you want to flatten layers.
7. When the Dialog pops up, set output to 300 pixels/inch and Method should be “Halftone Screen”. Press “OK”
8. Frequency and Angle should both be less than 45. Shape should be “Round”. Press “OK”
   

   screen cap 3

9. Select Image Menu>Mode>Grey Scale. Size Ratio should be “1?. Press “OK”
10. Using the Magic Wand Tool with “Anti-Alias” unchecked, select the white area of the Image.
11. Press “SHIFT+CTRL+I” to invert your selection.
12. Press “CTRL+C” to copy the black pixels.
13. Close the current document, you don’t have to save.
14. Press “ALT+CTRL+Z” twice to undo the selection and the gradient map on the Original Document.
15. Press “CTRL+V” to paste the halftone back into the original document.
16. On the Layers Pallet(Window>Layers) hide the visibility of the halftone layer.

Step 4: Isolate another color

Being sure that your original gradient layer is selected as the active layer

1. Image>Adjustments>Gradient Map.
2. Click the Gradient Image to adjust the gradient.
3. Move the Black Color Tab to the right until it both the Black and Yellow areas are now Black.
   

   screen cap 5

4. Using the rectangular selection tool, select everything from the middle of the white area upwards. We’re doing this because we don’t need to halftone the black at the bottom again.

Step 5: Halftone the second color

1. Press “CTRL+C” to copy the selection.
2. Press “CTRL+N” to create a new document. It should automatically have the correct settings based on what is on your clipboard.
3. Press “CTRL+V” to paste your selection into the new document.
4. Select the Image Menu>Mode>Gray Scale. Select “OK” when it asks if you want to discard color information.
5. Select the Image Menu>Mode>Bitmap. Select “OK” when it asks if you want to flatten layers.
6. When the Dialog pops up, set output to 300 pixels/inch and Method should be “Halftone Screen”. Press “OK”
7. Frequency and Angle should both be less than 45. Shape should be “Round”. Press “OK”
   

   screen cap 3

8. Select Image Menu>Mode>Grey Scale. Size Ratio should be “1?. Press “OK”
9. Using the Magic Wand Tool with “Anti-Alias” unchecked, select the white area of the Image.
10. Press “SHIFT+CTRL+I” to invert your selection.
11. Press “CTRL+C” to copy the black pixels.
12. Close the current document, you don’t have to save.
13. Press “ALT+CTRL+Z” twice to undo the selection and the gradient map on the Original Document.
14. Press “CTRL+V” to paste the halftone back into the original document.

You will probably have to move the halftoned section into posititon manually. It should be placed underneath the black halftone layer. Finally, set the color overlay on the yellow halftone layer to be yellow:

screen cap 6

Step 6: Final color and cleanup

1. Make a new layer, below both of the halftone layers.
2. Using the Paint Bucket Tool, fill it with white.
3. With the White Layer selected, SHIFT+CTRL+Click the Black Halftone layer and then the Yellow Halftone layer to select all of the pixels on them.
4. Delete the selection from the White layer.
5. With the Yellow Layer selected, CTRL+Click the Black Halftone layer.
6. Delete the selection from the yellow layer.

It may look partially transparent when you’re zoomed out, but when you zoom in it should look perfectly lined up:

screen cap 7

That’s it for this one. I hope you enjoyed it!

Gradient Color Separation Tutorial from Nick Steimling on Vimeo.