Color Seperation Under Unix?

xPG2x asks: "I'm screen printing and I've tried a lot of (good) color separation programs . However, I haven't had any luck finding an open source equivalent. Are there any Slashdot readers who are into screen printing who would know if such a program exists? A good example for such program would be Screenprint Separator."

Sounds like a job for the Gimp!

[CyberGarp]

The Gimp is a wonderful tool and should be able to handle it. If it doesn't then I'm sure someone can come up with some script-fu to make it do it. Try the Gimp mailing list, http://www.gimp.org

Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp!

[davidu]

The gimp can't output to CMYK color seps because the CMYK color system is patented and covered in licensing. There is NO way to do CMYK in the open source world without a license granted by the holders. (Pantone, etc)

It's a bummer I know.

-dave

Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp!

[HerrNewton]

Ummm no.... the CMYK process is not patented in the least. Pantone yes, CMYK no. (Before anyone bitches about Pantone patenting the colors: It's not the colors, it's the inks and mix formulas to make the color. You're not going to get sued for painting your house a color that kinda' looks like Pantone 413.) Hell I can make CMYK seps with a process camera if I have to---all by hand, no computer involvment, and no one is going to come and beat my door down 'cus there's a hell of a lot of prior art, no pun intended.

Besides, this has been covered before in an Ask /.

Ask Slashdot: GIMP and CMYK [slashdot.org]

Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp!

[Juln]

not your house... maybe if you commercially painted houses pantone #420., although I agree you would have to bge claiming the color to be pantone #420 tobe sueable.

Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp!

[HerrNewton]

Exactly. Because Pantone is a trademarked name, you couldn't advertise the service with the name.

Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp!

[dstone]

You're not going to get sued for painting your house a color that kinda' looks like Pantone 413.

But Apple will sue you if you paint your house transparent with aqua trim.

Re:Sounds like a job for the Gimp!

[realkiwi]

Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black ar just colors. In the civilized world you can't patent colors.

Pantone has nothing to do with CMYK - absolutely nothing.

What you need is a color seperating driver for your printer.

I would be interested in seeing what kind of halftones you get from amateur screen printing.

I started out in life as a screen printer and then moved on to DTPresentations and did one of the first desktop color seperation here in the west of Europe with software called PhotoMac. I then moved on to Photoshop which I have used since beta.

Now I use Painter for leisure and GIMP where I can in daily work.

perhaps ImageMagick (or not)

[embobo]

ImageMagick [imagemagick.org] can separate channels and handle the CMYK colorspace. Alas, the options for extracting a channel are R, G, and B. Depending on how much of a programmer you are, you may wish to look at the its channel-separating code and see if there is an easy hack that would work for you. Warning: I know nothing about screen printing so what I have said may be nonsene.

"separate" isn't spelled "seperate"

[2ms]

There's a rat in separate.