Yes, You Can Use Spot Colors in Photoshop
Creating Your First Spot Color
- Turn off the visibility of your rough sketch layer.
Turn off Sketch Layer
- Ctrl+click (Mac: Cmd+click) on the “cat shape” path. This will create a selection in your image window (the “marching ants” phenomenon”.)
Select the cat outline
- In your Channels panel (Window > Channels), click on the Panel Menu icon. Select New Spot Channel…
Panel Menu icon
- In the New Spot Channel dialog box, click on the color swatch.
New Spot Color color swatch
- Use the dropdown menu to choose another color book, if necessary. I am using Pantone Solid Coated.
- You can scroll around for your Pantone color, or simply type in the number. I typed in 130 for Pantone 130 C. If you don’t know the exact color number yet, find something close. It is not critical to have a precise color in mind until you talk to your professional printer.
- Click OK.
Select a Pantone color
- Give your new channel a descriptive name. If you know the Pantone number, include it. Click OK.
Name the channel
Because printing inks are translucent, we do not want to lay any colors over each other except at the very edges. This tiny bit over overlap is called “trapping“, and it allows for the minute misalignment which can often happen as sheets of paper run through a press. First, we will delete the eye shapes from our cat shape/Pantone 130 channel.
- Keep this channel selected, then Ctrl+click on the eyes path to create a selection.
Select the eyes path
- Select > Modify > Contract.
- Enter 5px and click OK. This will give us a 5px trap. You may need more or less, depending on your printer.
Contract the selection
- Edit > Fill.
- For Use:, select White.
Fill with white
- Click OK. This fills the eyes shapes with white in this channel so that Pantone 130 will not be printed there.
- Ctrl+D (Mac: Cmd+D) to deselect.
Deselect the eye shapes
- Repeat for the nose shape.
Repeat for nose shape
- Save your file.
Next: Your Second and Third Spot Color
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I’d love to hear from you!
By Sara Smith, 09/01/2011 @ 7:58 am
I would just like to thank you so much for the tutorial. I have been struggling with a new project for a couple of weeks, asking for help from many of my friends, doing research…endless reasearch!….until I finally found you. Your explanation was just perfect. I cannot thank you enough:) Sara.