# color seperating, distress, and illustrator



## Dave 2006 (Apr 13, 2006)

hey yal, 

i have a question for those familar with screen printing and illustrator. i found this link below (which is actually pretty useful in helping with distressing images) but there is something i dont understand. 

it pretty much describes how you can turn a texture into a bitmap file in photoshop, transport it to illustrator, change the texture to the same color as the background color, and place that texture layer above the image that your trying to distress, and voila! there you have it.

ok i understand that part, but what i dont understand is, how would one use this in creating seperate films for a silk screen. for example: if you look at the image being used in the tutorial, it looks to me like it would be a two color image (white and a darker blue), so if i was to get a screen made for that image, i would get the white part, and the darker blue, but what i dont understand is that the distressed layer, is basicly a colored layer itself, covering the image. so how would one get films made for this.


is there away to use some type of color seperating in illustrator, to where it would automatically incorporate the distress in the image, and allow you to seperate colors with the distress method?

i hope im explaining this clear, but if not let me explain it another way. if i was to take an image in photoshop, use the selection/color range, and select the dark parts of a distress texture, then use that selection over the image and just press delete, it would give me a destressed effect, i could take it to the screen maker, and get seperate screens made. i understand this method, but i cant grasp it in illustrator.

so can someone check out the link, and tell me if there is a step that im missing to where one could take that image and have films made for seperate colors, and it would still have the distressed effect.

thanks in advance, and any explanation would be appreciated.


Volo: The Blog » Blog Archive » Get Distressed in 3 Easy Steps


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## John S (Sep 9, 2006)

Dave, the concept behind distress is to make the image look 'old'. 
Walk thru the steps but try it on a line of text. 
(Grab a free texture, convert to grayscale, adjust the levels, make a bitmap with diffusion dither, save as .tif)

Open Illustrator, make a word, 'DAVE' in all caps, about 400 pts big. Leave it black for now. 

Place your tiff file. It should look like a bunch of black spatter all over your page. You can resize it if you need to. The .tiff now adds black to the white pallet, not the affect we want. Dave is still solid black. Now for the fun. With the placed tif still selected, click on the white color swatch in the color pallet. Ta Da, the pallet is now clean, and 'Dave' is full of holes. (not you of course) In the tutor, they hid the mess by selecting the background color. For our test, the background color is white, so we chose white.

Dave looks like a bad print job (distressed) If you want it on a shirt, you would print it out on your black and white printer, take it to your screen printer and tell him what color ink you want DAVE to be. (White ink on a black shirt, or Red ink on a white shirt etc) When you get it back, whatever was black on the printout is now screenprinted on the shirt.

If you had two colors for your DAVE design, you can create the second color image or text you need on a second layer, print out the second layer (color) by it self and give two sheets to the screen printer. One black and white printout for each color of your design. 
Page one would be a distressed DAVE, and the second sheet might be the text "ROCKS" that you want in a different color. 

Does that answer your question?


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## Dave 2006 (Apr 13, 2006)

thanks john S, i understand now.
actually a few hours after leaving the post and thinking about it, i came up with basicly what you just said. 
it just kinda threw me off because the times that i have had screens made, have only been one color and i would provide a file for someone to print out on a transparent sheet for me.
but it sounds to me like the person who i have printing on the transparent sheet should understand how to do this just as long as my colors are on seperate layers, right?


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## John S (Sep 9, 2006)

Dave 2006 said:


> ...but it sounds to me like the person who i have printing on the transparent sheet should understand how to do this just as long as my colors are on seperate layers, right?


Ask them, don't assume. 



Glad you have it figured out.


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## Dave 2006 (Apr 13, 2006)

thanks john, 
i continued to play around, and experiment through the night, and im sure i got it down. there is a lady who i take my designs to at the location where they make the screens for me. she charges between 10 and 15bucks to print it out on the transparent sheet. 
there is somewhat of a language barrier between us, and so i will have to try and make it as understandable as possible for her. i might just save each color in seperate groups, with the distress effect duplicated. in that case all she have to do is print group one, and print group two (in illustrator).

thanks again, and i appreciate you taking the time to clearify.


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## John S (Sep 9, 2006)

One other option is to save each color layer out to a .pdf. (Save As...)

The lady would just open each pdf and print it.


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