Help converting to 2 spot colors

Question

Hello All,
I am ashamed to say I am a teacher in a vocational high school that doesn't know much about
computer programs.  I am an old camera/stripper person. I have been teaching 24 years and am well
versed in PageMaker, In=Design and Photoshop.
What I am trying to do is the following.
I am trying to convert a vector image into 2 spot colors.
For example:  I have a wreath and bow    I would like to print the wreath in a
PMS 348 and the bow in 185 Red.
I can of course do this with process colors, but often the job does not warrant
using process so I would like to be able to print using solid PMS colors.
I think that is it in a nutshell.  I have tried to work in Photoshop but have had no luck.
My questions are:
1. - I am using a Vector image from an artbook CD. - Is this good?
2. - Can I convert a picture downloaded from the internet?
3. - How can i learn to do this? - I have looked for online help and the school will not pay
for me to take a course.
Lastly, I understand layers well but have little to no knowledge of Channels
I sure would like to be able to show the students how to do this.  Does anyone know how to do this
or where I can view  tutorial on this matter.
I sure would appreciate any help.   Thanks   Print Dad

Answer 1

You don’t say what version of Illustrator, but regardless if you already have vector art I’d stay away from converting a rasterized image to vector.  There are relatively easy ways of doing what you want with a vector image with the merge swatch feature, but that depends on what sort of vector image you have.  Presumably the vector wreath you are working with is made up of a number of rgb or cmyk values.
1         OK, so you are starting with a vector image, that’s a good start.  Are you positive it is vector?  In Illustrator can you see all the points when you select the object, and not just one big square?
2         You could convert a picture from the internet, but that would not work nearly as well.
3  See below:
Delete all the swatches from you pallet.  Drag a 185 & 348 swatch from the pantone pallet to your swatch pallet.
Set the Magic Wand to a useful value (double click on the wand to bring up the dialog box).  The lower the value the more work you’ll have to do, but you’ll wind up with more shades of red and green).
Click on the most saturated area of red with the Magic Wand Tool.  Click on your 185 red swatch.  Hide the newly minted resulting 185 red (Ctrl-3).
Click on the next most saturated area of red with the Magic Want Tool.  Click on your 185 red swatch.  On your color pallet, reduce the pantone 185 red to less than 100% to taste.  Hide the result with the Ctrl-3 command again. 
Keep going until there is no red remaining visible, and then do the same with the green.
When you can see no more remaining parts of the wreath, you should be almost there.  Just to be sure, do Ctrl-A and make sure nothing gets selected (for instance white objects) when you do so.  If nothing gets selected, you should have only the items you have colored.  Use the command Ctrl-Alt-3 to reveal all the items you have hid.  (The hide and unhide are under the OBJECT menu, but the shortcuts are a bit quicker).  If you do have white objects, you can still use the pantone red/green and set the color percentage to 0%.
Select the print command and print to a postscript device.  (A .pdf output will work if you are not hooked up to a postscript printer).  In the resulting print dialog box click on the “Output” command in the upper left corner.  Under the Mode select “Separations” Hopefully if all went well, under the Document Ink Colors only 185 Red and 348 Green will have a little printer icon next to them.
No need to concern yourself with channels.