How to label proper PMS colours and separated files for screenprinting

Question

hello,
I have to submit an Illustrator document to have a t-shirt screenprinted and the instructions ask that I "label the proper PMS colors that you expect the ink to be on the finished design." I don't know what this means, let alone how to do it. I've googled it and it seems to have something to do with Pantone colours., but I couldn't find how to do this. The design is all one colour, so I hope that helps me! Also, it asks for separated Illustrator files. I know this means separate it into layers, but I didn't design it in layers. If I submit it in eps format does it matter that it's all in one layer?
Could anyone please help me out with some details on this?
Thanks for any help you can offer.
Mary

Answer 1

...the instructions ask that I "label the proper PMS colors...I don't know what this means...
It's an example of self-proclaimed "experts" in the various print industries using inaccurate terminology which confuses their would-be customers, even when they are ostensibly trying to provide instruction.
PMS is abreviation for Pantone Matching System. Pantone is a company which produces inks for commercial offset printing, and which publishes color specifications and swatch books for those inks. Because it has long been the predominate player in that market since long before mainstream graphics computers, it has become used as a sort of defacto "standard" for conveying desired colors. But Pantone is not the only such system.
To my knowledge, Pantone doesn't even produce silkscreen inks (which are more like paint, really). When people throw around the "PMS" and "Pantone" words like this, they often reveal their own misunderstanding about what Pantone really is. In all likelyhood, the screen printer you are using thinks that Pantone Matching System is some kind of universal color standard. They will most likely look up the Pantone color number(s) you give them, then either look at a cross-reference or just manually mix their screen printing inks to obtain a match.
... I've googled it and it seems to have something to do with Pantone colours., but I couldn't find how to do this...
In most screen printing, your concern is to use spot colors in your design as opposed to process colors. Pantone produces color specs for more than just spot color inks. It produces inks and references for process color inks, metallic inks, and even flourescent inks. The various Pantone standards are represented in Illustrator as "Swatch Libraries," which are accessible via the Swatch palette's flyout menu.
You can define any color Swatch you use in Illustrator as a spot color. When you do so, all this means is that when the file is printed as color separations, each spot color is printed to its own separation plate. "Plate" is a throwback term which refers to the metal sheets on which reside the images for individual inks in commercial offset printing. In screen printing, a separate screen is built to carry the image for each ink used in the design.
You can also name any Spot Color Swatch you define, using any name you want. The name has no functional effect on the printed result. Each color separation plate is a black image, regardless. The actual color is determined by the actual ink that is loaded into the press (or silkscreen) when it is printed. This is why, when you work in a program like Illustrator for any project destined for print, you should think in terms of inks, not in terms of colors.
For example: You can define a Spot Color Swatch in Illustrator. It can be set to display any color you want. You wouldn't want to, of course, but for the sake of explanation, let's suppose you set the Spot Color Swatch to display in Illustrator as a green color. You then name that Swatch "Pantone 185", which is actually a red. If you now print the file as color-separations to a PostScript printer (or "print" it to a color-separated PDF), everything to which you have applied the Swatch named "Pantone 185" will print to a single sheet (or PDF page). That sheet will contain a black image, and will be labeled "Pantone 185".
In fact, when working with a local screen shop, I typically create spot color Swatches, and name them not according to Pantone (or any other) references, but to the names of the actual brand of screen inks that the screen shop will be using.
So really, your screen printer is just instructing you to build your design using a limited number of color Swatches, with each defined as a Spot Color. He is further implying that you should name your Spot Color Swatches according to color numbers used in the Pantone Matching System, just because that's the color-naming library most commonly familiar to designers.
The simplest way to do this is, for each ink you want to be printed on the T-shirt:
1. Go to the Swatches palette flyout menu.
2. Select Open Swatches Library>Color Books>Pantone Solid Coated (or Pantone Solid Uncoated; it doesn't really matter much for screen printing).
3. Browse through that list and select the color you want. It will be added to your document's Swatches list.
The design is all one colour, so I hope that helps me.
As someone else mentioned, because your design is all one color, you could simply design it using only black, and then tell the screen printer what color ink to use. But there are some caveats.
You would need to print the file as composite (normal, full color), not as separations. This is because if you merely use a Swatch that looks black on your screen, that "black" swatch may in fact be built up out of a combination of RGB or CMYK values (depending upon the color mode of your document). Printing as color-separations may not result in a solid black image on the black plate. The same goes for the advice to design using just one color. If you want the ink to be red, and you want to design using red, then the red Swatch needs to be defined as a spot color. Otherwise, printing that red as either separations or composite will not yield a solid black image.
Also, it asks for separated Illustrator files.
Again, imprecise language. There is no such thing as a "separated Illustrator file." Any Illustrator file can be printed (or saved as PDF) as color-separations. Again, what the printer should be specifying here is that you build your Illustrator file such that it can be printed as separations, with each separation corresponding to one ink that will be loaded into his silkscreens. In practice, this simply means be sure to use only spot color Swatches in your artwork.
Also again, this exemplifies the fact that just because a technician working in a particular print environment may be "expert" in his shop, does not mean he knows didly about software and workflows used on the design front-end.
For most commonplace local screen shops, the safest way to prepare an Illustrator file that leaves nothing to question is to:
1. Make sure you know how many different inks will be used to print the design. (Remember: Think inks; not "colors.")
2. Build your design using nothing but Spot Color Swatches, and only one Swatch for each ink. Don't use any process Swatches. In fact, best practice is to remove all Swatches not actually used in your design.
3. "Print" the Illustrator document, using Adobe PDF as the "printer." (I think you may have to have Adobe Acrobat installed in order to see the Adobe PDF as a printer selection. I'm not sure, because I'm never without Acrobat Professional.) In the Output pane of the print dialog, specify Separations, not Composite.
Doing this will result in a PDF which contains a separate page for each ink. The image on each page will be black. That's exactly what the screen printing shop needs to print to "film positives" (which nowadays are often translucent paper, not film) which he will in turn use as masks when "burning" his screens.
...I know this means separate it into layers, but I didn't design it in layers...
Don't confuse color-separation with Layers. They are completely independent functions. Layers is just a way to organize the objects you create in your file. Color separation is a print function. It occurs when you print to a device that understands color-separation (i.e.; a PostScript device), or when you export to a color-separated PDF, as described above.
This is a common misconception (miss-assumption) among beginners. If programs like Illustrator required you to design with each object that is colored with a particular separation ink to reside on a Layer dedicated to that particular ink, it would be absurdly debilitating. Again, Layers is just a "bracketing" of the stack of objects in your file. Those objects can be in any stacking order, and on any number of Layers. That has nothing to do with printing to color separations. (Stacking order does come into play when overprinting is involved, but even that still does not require Layers to correspond to separation inks.)
If I submit it in eps format does it matter that it's all in one layer?
EPS does not help you here. Think of EPS as nothing but a file format which puts the content of your Illustrator file into a "black box" so that it can be "passed through" to the printer by programs which don't really understand PostScript. If the content of your Illustrator file is built wrongly for the target printing method, so will be the content of the EPS. Nowadays, PDF is more versatile and easier to work with than EPS anyway.
JET