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Color Seperation Under Unix?

Posted by Cliff on from the beyond-RGB-and-CMYK dept.

xPG2x asks: "I'm screen printing and I've tried a lot of (good) color separation programs . However, I haven't had any luck finding an open source equivalent. Are there any Slashdot readers who are into screen printing who would know if such a program exists? A good example for such program would be Screenprint Separator."

12 comments

  1. Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by CyberGarp · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Gimp is a wonderful tool and should be able to handle it. If it doesn't then I'm sure someone can come up with some script-fu to make it do it. Try the Gimp mailing list, http://www.gimp.org

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    I used to wonder what was so holy about a silent night, now I have a child.
    1. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by davidu · · Score: 3, Informative

      The gimp can't output to CMYK color seps because the CMYK color system is patented and covered in licensing. There is NO way to do CMYK in the open source world without a license granted by the holders. (Pantone, etc)

      It's a bummer I know.

      -dave

      --

      # Hack the planet, it's important.
    2. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by HerrNewton · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ummm no.... the CMYK process is not patented in the least. Pantone yes, CMYK no. (Before anyone bitches about Pantone patenting the colors: It's not the colors, it's the inks and mix formulas to make the color. You're not going to get sued for painting your house a color that kinda' looks like Pantone 413.) Hell I can make CMYK seps with a process camera if I have to---all by hand, no computer involvment, and no one is going to come and beat my door down 'cus there's a hell of a lot of prior art, no pun intended.

      Besides, this has been covered before in an Ask /.

      Ask Slashdot: GIMP and CMYK

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      Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
    3. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You clueless twit, why bother responding if you
      don't know wtf you're talking about?

      GIMP has absolute shit for colorspace support, despite all the clueless wankers who claim it can do "everything Photoshop can do". Maybe that's true if you only use Photoshop for things you could do in Paintbrush.

      I've not found any open source software to do color separations. Many commercial systems are based on Solaris, however, so commercial software should exist and may be available for Solaris/x86 (which can be run under Linux/BSD on x86 with iBCS)

    4. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by realkiwi · · Score: 1

      Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black ar just colors. In the civilized world you can't patent colors.

      Pantone has nothing to do with CMYK - absolutely nothing.

      What you need is a color seperating driver for your printer.

      I would be interested in seeing what kind of halftones you get from amateur screen printing.

      I started out in life as a screen printer and then moved on to DTPresentations and did one of the first desktop color seperation here in the west of Europe with software called PhotoMac. I then moved on to Photoshop which I have used since beta.

      Now I use Painter for leisure and GIMP where I can in daily work.

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      realkiwi
    5. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *shrug* i dunno if this helps but try : http://www.arahne.si/openApaint.html...its supposed to do 6 color separation.

    6. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by Juln · · Score: 1

      not your house... maybe if you commercially painted houses pantone #420., although I agree you would have to bge claiming the color to be pantone #420 tobe sueable.

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      Juln
    7. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by dstone · · Score: 2

      You're not going to get sued for painting your house a color that kinda' looks like Pantone 413.

      But Apple will sue you if you paint your house transparent with aqua trim.

    8. Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp! by HerrNewton · · Score: 1

      Exactly. Because Pantone is a trademarked name, you couldn't advertise the service with the name.

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      Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
  2. perhaps ImageMagick (or not) by embobo · · Score: 2

    ImageMagick can separate channels and handle the CMYK colorspace. Alas, the options for extracting a channel are R, G, and B. Depending on how much of a programmer you are, you may wish to look at the its channel-separating code and see if there is an easy hack that would work for you. Warning: I know nothing about screen printing so what I have said may be nonsene.

  3. "separate" isn't spelled "seperate" by 2ms · · Score: 1

    There's a rat in separate.

  4. tricker than just seperating into CMYK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for a proper 4-color process screen print the screens need to be angled away from the 45s to prevent Morrie pattens. More importantly the dots need to be Eliptical. Do yourself a favor and pick up an old mac on the cheep and use photoshop.

    Plus is you ever wanted to add a 5th channel, like process blue or red, you'll definatly need photoshop!