separating CMYK and PMS colors for press

I am creating a label design which uses a 4 color illustration and a gradient background combined with solid stripes. The gradient background and solid stripes are PMS color. When I create the gradient background and solid stripes as the pms color it shows it as 4 colors instead of 5 in the channels pallet.

Any suggestions or people to talk to besides the printer I have to use because they know nothing!

Are you wanting to do a CMYK + 1 spot color printing job?

Can you replicate a passable version of the Spot color just using CMY&K, or is the use of a Pantone color critical? If you can get away with just CMYK, you'll save a bunch of money....

Do you know about DCS 2 file format for printing? Look that up if you don't, and get back to this thread with a little more info, please.

As Utopian Says... you should consider going to CMYK.

In my opinion it is better to go for CMYK if you plan to use 3 color or more...

It look like Photoshop only see 4 chanels.. this could have two explanations

1)You used the smae color twice...so PS make only one chane for both...

2) One of the color is a combination of two or more color

3)One of you layer is not selected...so any color in it may not show in the palette (im not sure of this one).

Also... if your printer cant find the source of the problem... maybe you should wonder how competent he his...

See if THIS ARTICLE at MacMerc.com sheds any light on your question.

i sorry, i have no idea what this is about, but i hadta say it again.....teehehehe awatkins said PMS teehehehe ;)

lol silent,
anyway just flatten the img and change to CMYK then save it as a tiff or whatever

Originally posted by Silent85
i sorry, i have no idea what this is about, but i hadta say it again.....teehehehe awatkins said PMS teehehehe ;)

PMS = Pantone matching system

Utopian is all too right, if you are separating an image into CMYK + 1 PMS color you'll have to use Photoshops DCS 2 .eps file type. There isn't an easy way to tell you to go about it other than doing some research on the DCS 2.