With the release of Photoshop CS5, Adobe removed the Screens button within the print functions of the application. Because? Well, for some reason, Adobe feels that it’s just not necessary to print color separations directly from Photoshop. For most users, it’s not a big problem. However, for those within the T-shirt screen printing industry, removing this vital feature presents a significant problem.

Therefore, since it is no longer possible to apply halftone settings directly in Photoshop CS5, CS5.5, and most likely all future versions, those who need to generate color separations, especially the type used in the t-shirt screen printing, they will need to save the Photoshop document as a DCS 2.0 file followed by inserting the DCS file into Adobe Illustrator to print the color separation on the film.

The initials “DCS” is an acronym for “Desktop Color Separation” and is a format based on the .EPS file format developed by Quark in the early 1990s. Simply put, a DCS 2.0 file is an .EPS file that has the unique ability to also contain spot color channels, like color separations generated in Photoshop.

Since I have found much of the information on the internet on saving, placing, importing and printing DCS 2.0 files to be a bit inaccurate or confusing, we will try to clarify the process here using a step by step process.

Step 1) When color separation is complete, either manually or by using a high-quality Photoshop plugin/action to render, it is important to remove the RGB channels along with any color channels that are not required for movie output. It is also recommended to change the name of the black channel to “Black Ink” or something other than “Black”. This will help avoid confusion with the black process when the DCS 2.0 file is placed in Adobe Illustrator.

Step 2) Once the file is in the correct format as above, select “Save As” from Photoshop’s File menu.

Step 3) When the Save As dialog box appears, select “Photoshop DCS 2.0 (*EPS). Be sure to check the “Spot Colors box” and then click Save.

Stage 4) When the DCS 2.0 format box opens, enter the following settings, and then click OK.

Preview: TIFF (8 bits/pixel)

DCS: single file with color composition (72 pixels/inch)

Encoding: Binary

The file is now saved in DCS 2.0 format and will be assigned an .EPS icon. Next, we’ll place the file in Adobe Illustrator for output.

Step #5) Start Adobe Illustrator and create a New Document using the RGB color mode along with an appropriate page size to contain the physical dimensions of the color separation.

Step #6) Select “Place” from Illustrator’s File menu. When the Place dialog opens, locate the DCS file and click “Place”. The DCS file has now been inserted inside the Illustrator document and is now visible on your page. Don’t be alarmed by its appearance! The image may look washed out compared to the preview in Photoshop. This is normal, it is just a low quality screen preview and the color separations will print as expected.

Step #7) Within Adobe Illustrator, select Print and choose your Printer. Set the correct page size and then select “Output”. Under “Mode”, select “Separations (host-based)”. All spot channel color channels from the original Photoshop generated separation should now appear and be selected in the Adobe Illustrator document ink options box.

Step #8) Change the frequency, angle, and dot shape of each channel to be sent to film. Settings that work well for most T-shirt color separations are to set each channel to 55 lpi, 26 degrees with an Elliptical dot shape. Once configured, the file is now ready to be sent to your printer.

Registration marks can also be added using Illustrator’s standard marks, or create your own custom vector registration mark, which is a great idea. Simply design a registration mark in Illustrator using the color named “Registration”. The mark can then be duplicated and placed exactly where you want and it will be printed on each channel. Save the created registration mark to use on all files printed from Illustrator.

Hopefully this article will remove some of the mystery associated with using DCS 2.0 files. Especially for those in the world of t-shirt screen printing.