Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printing)

[printinghell]

Hi Guys,
Im new to the forum and have a tricky question.
Ive been given a large amount of designs that have been colour separated for use by screen printers.
I will go through the image details below but history of the images is sketchy to say the elast.

The layer shows a black and white image and has been saved in grayscale mode.
There are numerous colour channels which are unselected. When you select them all the colour fills in gradually until its looks great. But this doesnt actually change anything eg Layer, so that is always black and white.
How can I get the printed output to look like the image when all colour layers are selected.
Im not screen printing, I am digitally printing so dont need sep colours.
I have attached an example design so you can understand better what I mean.
Any help will be massively appreciated guys.
If I can find an easy way to do this I will hopefully get a script designed that will convert 100s in bulk. Fingers crossed as right now Im lost.
Thanks guys
Neil

 

[ALB68]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

What you have here is an image that was probably a color RGB image (or CMYK) in the beginning. Now, the color names you see in the channel pallet were assigned by the separator. This is done by masking each area of color with the selection tool. (I use the Magic Wand set to select all that particular color in the image, then in the channels panel, you make a new channel for each. I then print each individual channel with registration marks for the screen. These are all black ink prints, on transparency (paper),as this is the way screen printing screens are made with the black ink obscuring the light from passing through the emulsion. Your not going to be able to bring this image back as a color image by simply using the channel info. This has been separated for a six color press and the names on the channels are just names, they are not color data.(they tell the printer what color of ink to use when applying the ink to the screen he made)

 

[printinghell]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

Thanks for your reply, I was hoping the images could be salvageable.:sad:
what i cant understand is i can actually see the image as it should be when all channels are selected, is there no save as function that will just save as is. Or a flatten image setting that will just print whats there. Simplistic I know but so am I

 

[ALB68]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

I just noticed this is a multichannel mode image. Suggest you do some research on that and there may be hope yet. I don't use that mode so I will do the same ,

Thanks for your reply, I was hoping the images could be salvageable.:sad:
what i cant understand is i can actually see the image as it should be when all channels are selected, is there no save as function that will just save as is. Or a flatten image setting that will just print whats there. Simplistic I know but so am I

 

[ALB68]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

This image started out as RGB and has been converted to CMYK via the Multichannel method to separate it for print it as such. I don't believe you can bring it back to the original RGB image in it's present form. Usually you can get some real funky looking colors though. This image does have 240ppi resolution, so it's a good quality image. If you were just going to use it online you could just do a screen grab of it with all the colors turned on. May be another way and possibly some of my more learned gurus will contribute to this. Good luck.
(There are some YouTubes on the Multichannel mode to check out too.)

Edit: Here is an article about the use of the Multichannel Mode.
http://planetphotoshop.com/duotone-vs-multichannel-round-2.html

 

[sprucemagoo1]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

I believe this is what it was supposed to look like, going off a bit of research.



As for finding who has the rights to use this image, I doubt any of the Asian and Russian t-shirt companies already using this have any. Which I guess would give you just as much right as anybody else.

 

[ALB68]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

No question about what is supposed to look like. OP knows that. What he is asking is whether he can recover a working RGB image from the file he has. The answer to that is no, unless he does a screen shot. Multichannel mode does not allow you to do much of anything beyond transfer info to a commercial printer.

I believe this is what it was supposed to look like, going off a bit of research.

View attachment 45047

As for finding who has the rights to use this image, I doubt any of the Asian and Russian t-shirt companies already using this have any. Which I guess would give you just as much right as anybody else.

 

[chrisdesign]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

I believe this is what it was supposed to look like, going off a bit of research.


As for finding who has the rights to use this image, I doubt any of the Asian and Russian t-shirt companies already using this have any. Which I guess would give you just as much right as anybody else.

This is my version after intensive work.
I only saw your post just now Spruce, I have to admit your image looks more natural. Very nice!

 

[sprucemagoo1]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

Let's face it, if there wasn't an issue about ownership of the image, there wouldn't be this problem.

 

[sprucemagoo1]

Re: Can I easily convert grey channels to colour layer (these were for screen printin

What he is asking is whether he can recover a working RGB image from the file he has. The answer to that is no, unless he does a screen shot. Multichannel mode does not allow you to do much of anything beyond transfer info to a commercial printer.

Even a screen shot would not help in this situation, which is why I showed the only way of recovering the image. Finding other instances of it on Google!