How to Apply Spot Color and Spot UV Channels in Photoshop

Posted by An nguyen on 7:32 PM


If you use Photoshop® extensively, you should be familiar with Channels. Channels are used to masks areas of an image, cut specific areas from an image or apply adjustment or effects to specific areas of an image. Channels are one of the most powerful tools used to achieve simple or complex results in our work. We will use this tutorial to show how to apply two spot channels to a poster design. One spot channel will be used to print a 5th color to the piece, a spot color (pre-mixed ink) and the other will be used to apply a spot UV Coating to the statue on the finished printed work.


What is Spot UV Coating?

If you want to achieve a glossy coat on a certain image on the page, but don’t need or want the entire page to be coated, then you should use spot UV coating. Printers can place UV coating on specific areas of a page, to make a design element or photo more dramatic and eye-catching. Spot UV coating is superior to spot coating of varnish and it is also less expensive than coating the entire page. However, not all printers offer this service, so if you think you might be interested in spot UV coating, make sure to discuss it with your printer first. Also, know… the UV coating requires a special, wax free ink.

So as yo can see, this is not about applying fancy effects, but rather about preparing the file so that two solid printing agents can be applied to the job, while it’s being produced by a commercial printing shop. So, here we go. Let’s dig in.


File Provided as .PSD

Dead Gods Don't Cry


Skill Level

Advanced

Programs

Photoshop
Indesign

Photoshop File

Dead Gods Don't Cry .PSD (8.3 MiB, 646 hits)

Images Used

Stadium, Egypt 5


Step 1

Open the provided Photoshop® file. This image is in RGB mode, but don’t worry, Indesign will be used to automatically convert all RGB color channels to CMYK mode later.

Select the “Statue Layer” first – Ctrl Click (pc) or Command () Click (mac) the layer.

Tip: If you are working on a project that will be printed commercially, but you must apply many filters and adjustment layers to it, us the Adobe RGB (1998) Work Space. Go > Edit > Color Settings or you can set the workspace across your entire Adobe Suite from Adobe® Bridge.


Select the "Statue Layer" first


Step 2

Create a new spot channel for the Chanels palette,


Create a new spot channel for the Chanels palette,


Apply a Pantone Color to the channel, I used Pantone 185 C. This will provide a solid identical shape for the printer to apply the spot UV Coatng (Ultra-violet cured coating for a translucent glossy finish) over the Statue.


Apply a Pantone Color to the channel


Rename the channel to “SPOT UV”. (Click the layer name to edit it)


Rename the channel to "SPOT UV"


Step 3

Select all the blue areas in the logo area, create a new layer above the Logo Layer and fill the selection with white. The blue in the logo area should now be hidden completely by the new White Layer.



While the selection is still active, create a new Spot Channel and apply PANTONE 7510 C to it (This is the Pantone color the church ask to be applied to their logo on this job). Make sure this new channel is named PANTONE 7510 C.



Now let’s save the document and then import it into Indesign and take a look at the color separations.

To view the color separations, open Indesign’s Separation Preview Panel – Windows > Output > Separation Preview. Select “Separations” from the drop dwon menu. You can now turn off and on each color in your document. Notice that the separation panel now shows your document channels as CMYK, plus the two extra Channels that we created in Photoshop.


Separations

Separations


Final Image (with simulated UV coating)

Final Image Simulation


Conclusion

This method of using Channels can be applied to RGB, CMYK or Black and White jobs. It’s a very effective way to transport Pantone Colors and Spot Shapes in a Photoshop file while still maintaining the actual color mode of the job.

Source : photoshoproadmap.com