Preparing Art and Screen Printing CMYK with Water-Based Inks

Have you ever wanted to screen print CMYK, but didn't know where to start? Here's a crash course. In the video, print expert Colin Huggins shows you how to do CMYK color adjustments in Photoshop and how to screen print a photo in CMYK using water-based inks.
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00:00 Introduction
00:40 Resources for Color Separating CMYK
01:25 Fine Tuning Color Profiles
05:15 Gamut Warnings
08:20 Converting to CMYK
09:25 Correcting Colors
17:25 Final Adjustments
20:00 Printing Films
20:30 Printing the Design
25:52 Conclusion

[@axxxc]

I am an advanced printer at my community college and we don't have a set curriculum because we are the first advanced printing class but I am taking on the challenge of separating an image in CMYK. It's a little hard because I have to buy the inks out of my pocket and the school won't buy them. I have been soaking up information and even asked you guys about CMYK and now you guys are making this video.. you guys are the best!! I will order my water-based ink sometime next week. I'll probably order four new screens as well. Thank you ryonet!

[@Ryonet]

Awesome! Glad this video helped you!

[@uproarink]

Excellent video, Colin. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@Ryonet]

Glad it was helpful!

[@johanherein6956]

Thank you! It was very educational.

[@AmericanWithTheTruth]

Collin... I have found that if you use a white underbase and then use a white for hilights as the last ink (6 inks total) then you get a much more vibrant and full print not to mention easily reproducable on dark garments.

[@ndrewJanney]

Seems like a fun challenge! Thanks y'all 🤙

[@Ryonet]

Our pleasure!

[@sentientbeing9144]

back in the 90's I could do CMYK + 2 spots, 52 dowen in 8 hours, 8 color hopkins with fine register - good old days!

[@sentientbeing9144]

excellent video, clear , concise and correct. Thank you for your work on this! #screenprinting #waterbased

[@alessandroferreira4186]

Parabéns! Excelente técnica e didática.

[@Ryonet]

obrigada! impressão feliz!

[@PixelGraphicsCoLLC]

Thanks for sharing. I really liked you touched base on the Photoshop technicalities, somewhat. Maybe hitting a double stroke when printing the YMC could have increased the color density?. Just a thought. BTW, your voice inflection is excellent.

[@Ryonet]

Thank you for the kind words and good tip. Did you see our new Photoshop for Screen Printing: Advanced Color Separations course?! Check it out here, Colin is your expert in these videos as well. scrnprntl.ink/AdvancedPhotoshop1

[@tomaszsykutera9681]

Hi Colin, regarding adjusting cmyk colors, if I have an additional Pantone channel and I want to modify colors appropriately, should I first duplicate each cmyk channel, set the opacity to 0%, choose spot color, choose cmyk color from Pantone coated book and then together with Pantone channel to adjust colors on each one. This Pantone channel will be printed first and then all cmyk separation. Otherwise, this additional Pantone channel lays on the cmyk channels and can distort the colors of cmyk. I hope I am clear.

[@Ryonet]

Hi Tomas! The easiest way to knock your spot color (also known as a bump plate) out of the CMYK seps is to follow what you wrote. Duplicate each channel, assign as a spot color and use the CMYK 100% of that color, do not worry about pantones. So Cyan would have a color value of 100% Cyan and 0 or everything else. Do that with each color. Then exactly how you go about removing the color will vary, but it starts with selecting your spot/bump color and then beginning to knock out any CMYK build/information that would fall under that color. Turn on/off your Spot Color to see if any info is left under it, you can also change opacity on the cmyk colors to 100% to assist in visuals.

[@sergiy8521dispeaceable]

👍

[@tomaszsykutera9681]

what kind of profile of separation do you set in the "custom cmyk" window in line: ink colors? you have there "other". I have a booklet of Wilfelex Easyart software and they recommend setting "SWOP newsprint". What do you recommend?

[@Ryonet]

Starting at time stamp 2:00 I go over the color profile and CMYK settings. Where you looking for something else?

[@tomaszsykutera9681]

​@@Ryonet so do you mean that I can choose between colors profiles in order to take this one with which I can achieve most colors in cmyk mode file ?

[@Ryonet]

@@tomaszsykutera9681 You want to use the color profile for the CMYK inks you are going to use. In the video, we used the CMYK Profile for the Aurora force inks. What CMYK inks will you be using? I showed the differences between profiles since Screen Printing inks will not achieve the same range of colors that offset / paper printing inks will.

[@tomaszsykutera9681]

@@Ryonet mostly wilflex

[@tomaszsykutera9681]

@@Ryonet ok I got it

[@danielletodd2468]

Hello! I work for a company that designs and prints in house. I extremely limited in my knowledge in designing and the actual screen printing, as we are all self taught. I am currently dipping my toes into CMYK. My image on the computer in terms of color looks great, however when printed on the tee the colors are super off. For example, the girls hair in the design on the computer screen is blonde, on the t-shirt I am seeing a lot of blue and green. How do I fix this? Thanks for any help you can provide!

[@Ryonet]

Hi there! Glad you reached out! You'll get the best outcome if you use separation software for your CMYK layers. We offer ImagePrint Red and have a free tutorial. Please also check out this blog we wrote! www.screenprinting.com/blogs/news/preparing-art-and-screen-printing-cmyk-with-water-based-inks www.screenprinting.com/products/imageprint-r-e-d-color-separations-software

[@buildyear86]

18:28 "so what do our seperations look like?" Ah mannnn I was hoping I would learn how to seperate them out! Is there any video that teaches that?

[@Ryonet]

Start at 8:21 and that'll show you how to create the CMYK separation. Past that is how to adjust your separations for your CMYK color profile. I hope that helps!

[@buildyear86]

@@Ryonet hmm... I see that at your mentioned timestamp the picture is converted to CMYK. But there is still no seperation. When the picture is converted to CMYK the layers section in Ps still shows only 1 layer. But then at the timestamp I mention, all the sudden there are multiple seperated layers... How that is done is what I am missing. I still appreciate this video though, super helpful.

[@tomaszsykutera9681]

you mentioned that you printed out all cmyk channels with the same angle 22,5. As I know each cmyk channel has its specific angle.

[@Ryonet]

That is only needed if you are printing on paper or card stock. With fabric, it is not necessary. You can do that if you want, but there is no technical reason why you need to create rosettes when printing to fabric.

[@tomaszsykutera9681]

@@Ryonet wow thanks

[@minimalstudiotube]

@@Ryonet round shape or ellipse ? Thanks

[@PixelGraphicsCoLLC]

For that matter you can use any screen angle for all four colors, right? What about creating moiré by using the same angle on textiles?

[@jusjaz1090]

What’s the screen mesh count?

[@Ryonet]

Hey, Jus Jaz! He used a 305 mesh count. Happy printing!

[@gregscott-il7lh]

i am wanting to get into screenprinting.. but i can't understand how you choose your ink colors. if i have a full color shirt... how do i get the colors to match with what was designed in photoshop? i see some people using plain cmyk colors.. but how can those color choices make the different colors in your design. this is puzzling to me... i can''t find a video on taking a full color image and choosing the ink to make it... can you help me with this question sir?

[@Ryonet]

Hi there! You'll need to use separation software that will separate your image into CMYK so you can burn a screen for each color. Check out ImagePrint RED on our website www.screenprinting.com/products/imageprint-r-e-d-color-separations-software

[@gregscott-il7lh]

@@Ryonet I see that portion.. but if i have a bunch of colors in my image.. say a landscape.. i see plastisol has hundreds of colors.. im confused if we have to use an exact yellow for example or does a basic cmyk make all the colors when i screen print? or do i need to make a specific red color for the image and other colors like that? sorry for sounding a bit confused... im so interested in this process and understand all aspects so far.. just the colors ... thanks so much for your reply.

[@PixelGraphicsCoLLC]

@@gregscott-il7lh Check the difference between "spot color" and "process colors". I'm sure there has to be tutorial in KZbin about that. In using CMY and mixing those primary colors (CMY) you can achieve all colors that a full color halftone has (somewhat). Keep in mind that K is NOT a color and it is added to the equation only to provide depth to the picture. (With love from a former offset scanner operator)

[@theHotpointHoodlum]

The background music is rather distracting at times…. Maybe just turn it down a bit.

[@Ryonet]

Thanks for the feedback. Happy printing!

[@juanmendez3212]

This video wasn’t good at all. I’ve seen better ones where they actually put colors over one another and they change. This was not a helpful video in showing how that happens

[@Ryonet]

Well, thanks for watching and thanks for the feedback @Juan Mendez. Have a great Friday.