Spot color stroke shape layer

[EricaSholycow]

Is there are way to set a spot colour to a stroke shape path in Photoshop? Is the only way to do this to create a spot colour channel and render the layer as a rasterized layer? I'm hoping to have a dyeline in Photoshop that has it's own layer and it's own named spot colour. Perhaps Photoshop isn't the program for this? I know you can import the .psd into illustrator and create the spot dyeline there. Is that the solution? TIA.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Hi Erica.  This is not my area of expertise, and you can search as well as I can, but I was interested so had a look, and I can see that it is interesting.

https://www.brandstand.co.nz/about/how-to-guides/how-do-i-create-a-dieline-in-illustrator-indesign-o...

Perhaps, if you describe how you would use this for people like myself who are not experts in the field, but we still might have other ways at coming at a solution.  I'll follow your thread with interest either way.

Good luck.

[Stephen Marsh · Accepted solution]

@EricaSholycow 

No, Photoshop isn't the traditional place for this, it doesn't have the native ability to set spot colour to vector elements. As you note, spot colours in Photoshop are either channel based (Spot Channels) or document mode based (Duotone mode).

If this is for wide-format printing/cutting where you need a "CutContour" path, there is a third-party option for saving this directly from Photoshop – Lightning CutLines if you wish to search it up.

If this is for more traditional work requiring die/forme cutting, then Illustrator and InDesign are the standard places to do this.

[EricaSholycow]

The wide-format printing/cutting "CutContour" path is infact, what I need the spot colours for. It just seemed so odd to need to import the Photoshop file into Illustrator to get the CutContour path but I guess that's the way to do it without the need for a third party option.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

I know you can import the .psd into illustrator and create the spot dyeline there. Is that the solution?

It is a solution. 

If you already created a Path in Photoshop you can copy/paste it into Illustrator or export it as an ai-file.