How to Apply Spot Color and Spot UV Channels in Photoshop

If you use Photoshop extensively, you should be familiar with Channels. Channels are used to masks areas of an image, cut specific areas from an image or apply adjustment or effects to specific areas of an image. Channels are one of the most powerful tools used to achieve simple or complex results in our work. We will use this tutorial to show how to apply two spot channels to a poster design. One spot channel will be used to print a 5th color to the piece, a spot color (pre-mixed ink) and the other will be used to apply a spot UV Coating to the statue on the finished printed work.

What is Spot UV Coating?

File Provided as .PSD

Skill Level

Advanced

Programs

Photoshop
Indesign

Photoshop File

  Dead Gods Don't Cry .PSD (8.3 MiB, 2,180 hits)

Images Used

StadiumEgypt 5

Step 1

Open the provided Photoshop file. This image is in RGB mode, but don’t worry, Indesign will be used to automatically convert all RGB color channels to CMYK mode later.

Select the “Statue Layer” first – Ctrl Click (pc) or Command () Click (mac) the layer.

Tip: If you are working on a project that will be printed commercially, but you must apply many filters and adjustment layers to it, us the Adobe RGB (1998) Work Space. Go > Edit > Color Settings or you can set the workspace across your entire Adobe Suite from Adobe Bridge.

Step 2

Create a new spot channel for the Chanels palette,

Apply a Pantone Color to the channel, I used Pantone 185 C. This will provide a solid identical shape for the printer to apply the spot UV Coatng (Ultra-violet cured coating for a translucent glossy finish) over the Statue.

Rename the channel to “SPOT UV”. (Click the layer name to edit it)

Step 3

Select all the blue areas in the logo area, create a new layer above the Logo Layer and fill the selection with white. The blue in the logo area should now be hidden completely by the new White Layer.

While the selection is still active, create a new Spot Channel and apply PANTONE 7510 C to it (This is the Pantone color the church ask to be applied to their logo on this job). Make sure this new channel is named PANTONE 7510 C.

Now let’s save the document and then import it into Indesign and take a look at the color separations.

To view the color separations, open Indesign’s Separation Preview Panel – Windows > Output > Separation Preview. Select “Separations” from the drop dwon menu. You can now turn off and on each color in your document. Notice that the separation panel now shows your document channels as CMYK, plus the two extra Channels that we created in Photoshop.

Separations

Final Image (with simulated UV coating)

Conclusion

This method of using Channels can be applied to RGB, CMYK or Black and White jobs. It’s a very effective way to transport Pantone Colors and Spot Shapes in a Photoshop file while still maintaining the actual color mode of the job.

Scripture that inspired the poster

“Now Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met Him. Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and comforting her, when they saw that Mary rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. ~ John 11:30-35