Photoshop tech help plz

[tripperfunster]

I'm entering a t-shirt design contest, and the rules (or rather, tech guidlines) are thus:

Use Pantone Solid Coated color swatches for your design or else we will have to convert your colors
Maximum of 6 spot colors
Gradients & Halftones:
Photoshop users, make certain that your halftones are 30 LPI or larger for a full-size design at 300 DPI.


What does that mean? I plan to ink my design (traditional media) then upload it and colour it in photoshop. Is there anything I need to do to make sure I stay within these parameters??

thanks in advance!

Comments

[rexluscus.livejournal.com]

Yes - when you color the piece, go to the color picker and click on the button that says "custom," which will give you a drop-down menu that will allow you to select "PANTONE solid coated." That will then give you a list of Pantone colors you can use. I'd recommend putting each color you use on a separate layer. (Also, put your line art on a separate layer and adjust the levels so that it's 100% black on a 100% white background.) If I were you, I'd color exclusively with solid colors since I have no idea how to do the halftone/gradient thing, but here is an article I found on color halftone separation in Photoshop (http://www.designtalkboard.com/tips/photoshop/screen_printing.php) that might help.

Caveat: I'm a complete Photoshop autodidact, so if any real designers answer this post, listen to them and not me. :)

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

OMG! How do I adjust my line art levels so that it's 100% black? I HAD NO IDEA I COULD DO THAT!

As for your caveat, you are the lone answer-er at this point, so yeah ... I bow down before you. ;)

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Wheeee! Look at that!

I am honestly SO STUPID when it comes to all things computery.

thanks hon!!

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I don't even know what a half tone IS, let alone what 30 LPI means. ;)

[rexluscus.livejournal.com]

So what you do is go to "Image" > "Adjustments" and then "Levels". You'll see a little graph with three sliders underneath. Move the two outer sliders closer to the center until you've got the right level of black-and-white contrast (that is, enough so that your lines are really dark and your bg is white, but not so much that your line starts to break up and look all jagged).

There's also a quick way of making your background white (instead of paper-colored) which is to select the far-right eyedropper icon in the "Levels" dialogue box and click it on the background of your image. That selects your paper tone and changes it to white.

[rexluscus.livejournal.com]

BTW, LPI means "lines per inch" - it has to do with screen printing. It's resolution, basically. The way to do halftones in Photoshop is to convert one of your channels to grayscale and then to bitmap, which then lets you select the LPI. But I don't fully get all that so I shouldn't give out half-baked advice about how to do it. :)

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Oh yay!!! *brain is full of info*

thank you so much!!!!!

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Okay my tech wizard friend ... ;)

Is there a way to 'convert' a hand drawn/coloured file to a simpler, say 6 colour file? And to have each colour on it's own layer?

Say, like http://pics.livejournal.com/tripperfunster/pic/001r5k7t/ this pic? (I don't need to convert this specific pic, but it's indicative of my colouring style, and might be a good one to practice on.

Now, if it will take a kazillion steps, then meh, nevermind. But if it is relatively simple (say 10 or 15 steps,) I'd be interested.

In photoshop.

Your other advice has already been most helpful!! Thanks.