Week 7: Hollywood Effects, Spot channels, Pantone colors,

and Duotones
OBJECTIVES
1. Prepare an image for 2 color printing
2. Screen custom spot colors.
3. Create and edit duotones.
4. Create a Movie Poster.

The following assignments are due on Tuesday, February 18 at midnight

ASSIGNMENTS
1. Duotones are monochrome grayscale images that support specific tonal ranges in the gray. Duotones
increase the tonal range of a grayscale image. Although a grayscale reproduction can display up to 256
levels of gray, a printing press can reproduce only about 50 levels of gray per ink. For this reason, a
grayscale image printed with only black ink can look significantly coarser than the same image printed
with two, three, or four inks, each individual ink reproducing up to 50 levels of gray. Because duotones
use different color inks to reproduce different gray levels, they are treated in Photoshop as singlechannel, 8-bit, grayscale images. In Duotone mode, you do not have direct access to the individual image
channels (as in RGB, CMYK, and Lab modes). Instead, you manipulate the channels through the curves
in the Duotone Options dialog box.
Duotone Web Resources
Luminous Landscape
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/duotone.shtml
DPS
http://digital-photography-school.com/convert-duotones-photoshop
Video Tutorial Zone
http://www.videotutorialzone.com/graphics-software/adobe-photoshop/how-to-work-with-duotone-inadobe-photoshop-cs3.html

How to convert an image to duotone

1. Open a photograph in Photoshop.

2. Convert the image to grayscale by choosing Image > Mode > Grayscale. Only 8-bit grayscale
images can be converted to duotones.
3. Choose Image > Mode > Duotone.
4. Choose Duotone from the Type box. In the Duotone Options dialog box, select Preview to
preview the image.
5. For the Type option, select Duotone.
6. Click the color box (the solid square) to open the color picker, then click the Color Libraries button
and select an ink book and color from the dialog box.
Note: To produce fully saturated colors, specify inks in descending orderdarkest at the top,
lightest at the bottom.
7. Click OK.
8. Upload the duotone image to your gallery.
4. Spot Channels: Process color separations are films used to print a full color image.
These four sheets of film have been separated into their individual color channels in
Photoshop so they print properly using CMYK inks (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black).
A spot channel is an additional color channel added by the designer or printer in
Photoshop. The more channels you add to an image the higher the printing cost. On
the other hand you can reduce the printing costs by converting an image to a single grayscale image and
one spot color channel.
Color Separation: Artwork that will be commercially reproduced
and that contains more than a single color must be printed on
separate master plates or film, one for each color. This process is
called color separation and in most cases uses cyan, yellow,
magenta, and black (CMYK) inks. The plates are referred to as
channels in Photoshop.

Design a 2 color merchandise tag with Photoshop

You have been asked to prepare a merchandise tag and you only have a budget for only 2 colors. One
color is black the second you will choose. Take advantage of custom colors and have precise control of
the printing plates.
1. Open Photoshop and a photograph with the theme of your merchandise tag.

2. Click File > New and set the width and height to 4 x 4 inches, resolution 200ppi and color mode
RGB.
3. Drag the photo onto the tag and resize it as needed.
4. You can refer to the tutorial on page 199 for another design idea. Use the rectangule shape tool
to draw rectangular sections for the design of your clothing tag. See page 199 for ideas. Use the
rectangle tool to overlap areas of the photo you want covered. Leave some sections white for
your logo and text. As you draw your shapes remember The Rule of Thirds.
5. Remember this is a 2 color design and one of the color channels must be black. Use white text on
black or black text on white.

6. Click Layer > Flatten Image. You will now be unable to edit the layers.
7. Click Image > Mode > Grayscale. Look in the channels panel and you will see just one gray
channel. Use the Curves command to increase the contrast of your photograph if needed.

8. Go the channels panel and click the flyout button (3 dashes in the upper right corner of the
channels panel)
9. Choose New Spot Channel.
10. Leave the Solidity to 0% and click on the Color square under Ink Characteristics.
11. Chose a light or bright color from the vertical color bar. A dark color will not have much contrast
with the black channel. Chose a specific pantone color on the left. Write down the pantone
color you chose. You will list that color with your project when you upload it to Weebly. Click OK.
12. You should now have a new spot channel in your channels panel. The name of the channel is the
actual Pantone color. The channel is empty because it is white.
13. Choose the brush tool and black paint. Make sure the pantone channel is active in the channels
panel then paint on a area of the photograph where you want to screen in some color. The image
below shows Pantone 115C painted on the surfboards. Painting with black screens the pantone
color at 100%. Painting with white removes the color. Painting with shades of gray produce a
smaller percentage of ink than black.

14. When using the type tool on a spot channel you will first see the quick mask (rubylith red overlay).
Don't be alarmed this is supposed to happen. Type your text and highlight it to edit. Do not use
the move tool to move it until you are done changing the font style and size.

15. Chose the move tool to reposition the text. Notice the text becomes a selection filled with the spot
color. Move the text where you want it then click Select > Deselect to remove the selection lines.

16. Press D on your computer keyboard to set the foreground color to black. With the pantone
channel active choose a custom shape for your logo. Choose the Fill Pixels option in the shape
tool option bar as shown below.

17. Draw the shape on a white area of the tag. Since you are painting on a channel instead of a layer
you will be unable to move the logo. If you want to move the logo you should click Edit > Undo
and draw it again.
18. To add color to white text on black you can paint on the text with black. Be sure that you have the
pantone channel active.

19. Save your project as a PSD. If it is larger than 5mb you will need to resize the image with the
Image> Image size command. Save the smaller copy as a PSD.

3. Hollywood Effects.

Read the textbook, chapter 6 (pp.249-302).

Create a Movie Poster, 11x17 inches using the Brush effects. You may use any film name and
actors photos. You may design a parody or make up your own film. Contact me if you have any
questions about this assignment.

4. Post a link to your gallery on the discussion board. Give feedback to 1 or more students.