PK Pixels

A solution to solve blured edges problem in Photoshop.

// February 19th, 2008 // No Comments » // 3ds Max, Adobe Photoshop

This is not a complete tutorial, but its just a small tip witch is extremely useful in designing process.

As most of you know photoshop is not a Vector Graphics tool, so sometime we get some weired problem like a draw a rectangle shape and its edges are not sharp as they should be.  Or you draw a shape and its got blurred edges.

The solution is that just do not use the shapes where they are not necessary..for example if you want to draw a rectangle as background dont use shape rather use the Marquee Tool and the fill it with the color on new layer.

Another solution is that if shapes really makes your work easier do Rasterize them in your design. A common problem could be that if made a shape by using pen toll and given a stroke to it. Some edges get distorted ….That could be solved by Just Hold down the Ctrl Key and Click the shape layer. The outer border of the shape should get selected. Now Make a new layer and go to Select—> Modify —> Contract, and do a contract it 1px. and now fill the design with the color you want.

In this way the shape edges are sharp rather to use it as the Vector mask.

Well i hope that suggestion is useful.

Thanks

CMYK to pantone color conversion in Photoshop

// February 7th, 2008 // 13 Comments » // Adobe Photoshop

hi visitors some days i come across a project in which my client ask me to convert their logo in Pantone colors. So i thought why not to add a tutorial on how to do that in photoshop.

1- First open your image, if its in psd format then you should flat it.
2- Convert it to CMYK if it is not.
3- Duplicate your image and rename it, in my case its “design_pantone”
4- Go to its channel palette, you should see four channels there named as Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and black there.
5- Select Cyan,Magenta and yellow channel and delete them individually.There should only black channel left there.
6- Now Click on the new channel button as shown in the image below , a new channel named as alpha1 should be there.

7- Double Click on it and a channel option dialog box should appear.
8- Select the spot color from the option and Click the color to assign the new color.

Now For CMYK, we first select the Global value of Cyan color which is #00FFFF and then find the nearest pantone match of that color.

9- So enter the value #00FFFF in the dialog box
then click the color library button to access the nearest pantone color match, Photoshop will automatically select nearest pantone color.I use the same as photoshop selects but you can change that if you want.Click OK when you  are done.

10- Now you should see the pantone color in the name field, click OK again.

There should be a cyan tone over all the picture now.

11- Make sure you selected the current pantone color channel, now go to image menu and then select the apply image.

Apply image dialog box appears.

12- In source drop down select the orignal image in CMYK,  in my case that was design.
In layer there should be background
In Channel field select the Cyan channel.
blending should be set to normal.Opacity  100%
Click OK when you are done!.

Now you mapped the Cyan color to pantone, next you would repeat steps from 6-12 for mapping both the Magenta and then the yellow.

The Hex value for magenta is #FF00FF and Yellow is #FFFF00.

When you mapped all channels to Pantone…..You are done!

If you see big difference in the colors double click the channels and change pantone spot colors until you are satisfied from the result.

Save the file as PSD or DCS 2.0(eps)

At the end i want to say that this is just the one way i done my work because it gives you quite a control over the colors so you can adjust them by your self..

Thanks, Have a GOOD DAY !