How to set up a file to print Silver Ink only in Photoshop

How to set up a file to print Silver Ink only in Photoshop

Note: This is for printing with silver ink only. It's a great way to print on darker papers as the silver is opaque enough to show well. This works when the file is set up so that the items that you want in silver are in black like the example below. This will not work if you are printing various colors on top of the silver ink.


  1. Bring the file into Photoshop. For the best quality for simple files, we recommend bringing the file with the same settings as the screenshot below
  2.  Go to top tab and click on image - mode - duotone.
  3. In the Duotone Options window type in the word "Silver" with a capital S like shown in the screenshot, then press OK.
  4. Save the file as a photoshop PDF. Settings don't matter too much except for the compression section. Make sure to select "Do Not Downsample" like the screenshot shown or your text/vector art will become pixelated!
  5. Save the PDF. Check if you did the conversion correctly by using "Output Preview". You can check out that guide by clicking here.

    Note: The color of the ink will not turn silver on screen. What you've just done is assign the color to be a "spot color" so that our machine knows to use our special spot color ink named "Silver".