Merge, duplicate,
undo

The automatic split is a starting point, not a verdict

Upload artwork and PrintFilmReady clusters it into inks automatically — deterministic chroma-weighted grouping, no randomness, same file always gives the same result. That is a good first guess, not a guarantee. A logo with anti-aliased edges, a scanned print, or a gradient that sits near a cluster boundary can come back as four inks where you'd count three, because two closely related shades landed either side of the line the algorithm drew.

That used to mean re-exporting a flatter version of the artwork and uploading again. Now it means three buttons next to the ink list: merge, duplicate, undo.

Merge: when the algorithm was almost right

Tick two or more inks and click Merge selected inks. The result isn't just “pick one and discard the rest” — the new ink's colour is a weighted average of the merged ones, weighted by how much of the image each ink actually covers, and it inherits the union of every pixel channel the merged inks were assigned. A ten-pixel sliver of a near-identical shade doesn't drag the merged colour away from the ink that covers most of the design.

The practical case: two reds that read as one colour to your eye but got split by the clustering. Merge them, and the film count drops by one screen — without touching the source file or spending another separation.

Duplicate: printing the same ink twice on purpose

Duplicate selected clones an ink exactly — same colour, same pixels assigned, a “copy” on the name. That sounds redundant until you need a double hit: heavy coverage on dark garments, or an opaque colour that needs two passes to lay down fully, prints best as two identical films registered on top of each other rather than one pass pushed too hard through the mesh. Duplicate gives you the second film in one click, correctly matched to the first, instead of re-running the separation and hoping the two results line up.

It pairs naturally with underbase work on dark fabric — see the underbase guide for when a second hit is the fix and when it's a choke or mesh problem instead.

Undo: freedom to experiment

Every merge and duplicate pushes the previous ink state onto a history stack first, so Undo walks back exactly one step at a time, however many you've made. There's no “are you sure” dialog to click through and no risk in trying a merge just to see whether it looks right — if it doesn't, undo costs nothing and loses nothing.

The live comparison closes the loop

Since the on-press preview went side-by-side, your original artwork sits next to the live separated result as you work, not just after you generate films. Merge two inks and the preview updates immediately. Click a swatch to try a different ink colour and the same thing happens — that click only changes the preview and the hex label on the film, never the film itself, so it costs nothing to audition colours before you commit to inks and burn a screen.

None of this touches your free-job quota

The free tier's three jobs are counted at the moment you generate a film set, not before. Uploading, merging, duplicating, undoing, recolouring swatches for the preview — all of it is free and unlimited, on the free tier exactly as much as on a paid one. Spend as long as you want getting the ink list right; the counter only moves when you commit to output.

When the fix isn't in the editor

Sometimes what the live comparison shows you isn't an ink-list problem at all — a detail is too small for the mesh, or an edge needs to be harder before separation, and no amount of merging fixes that. PrintFilmReady doesn't remember anything between uploads, which is a feature here: fix the source file externally and upload it again. A re-upload is a fresh pass, seconds long, and still doesn't touch your job count — only the eventual Generate does.

Common questions

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