Adobe Photoshop CS2 On Demand [Electronic resources]

Creating Spot Color Channels

When you work in the world of service bureaus and press machines, there are certain things you must do to create a printable document. The color mode of the image will be CMYK, and the output of the document will most likely be in a format designed to create color plates such as DCS 2.0 (Digital Color Separation). In addition, you may want to apply a spot color to the image.

Spot colors instruct a press to apply a specific color to a specific portion of a document. For example, you may want to create a book cover jacket, and you want the author's name in a specific Pantone Blue, or want to apply a varnish to a portion of a brochure. Whatever the case, you will need to create a spot color channel.

Create a Spot Color Channel

Open a document.

If the document is not in the CMYK format, click the

Image menu, point to

Mode , and then click

CMYK to convert it.

Create a selection, defining the area for the spot color. Use any of Photoshop's selection tools, including the Type Mask tool.

Select the

Channels palette.

Click the

Channels Options button, and then click

New Spot Channel .

Click the

Color box, and then select a color.

If you need a specific press color, such as the Pantone Color Matching System, click the

Custom button in the Color Picker, select from the available color sets, and then click

OK .

The Name box displays the name of the selected color.

Enter a Solidity value (0 to 100) to view the spot color at a specific opacity (Solidity does not affect press output).

Click

OK .

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