Not only do Palettes save you time, but they allow you to combine certain functions and actions into Automated Tasks, speeding up your workflow. When you use this Palette over the whole document it can be a great way to kick start the separation of woodgrains and textures. When used within a selection, it can be a good way to make tonal separations of a motif. Download here

The steps performed in the Separate CMYK Palette

Starting with a scanned RGB image, this Palette sets a CMYK Table to get 400% layer coverage in the separation. It then separates the file through this table while renaming the layers so that they act like spot layers, and are no longer part of a CMYK Image. Finally, the Palette assigns typical production CMYK colours to each layer. 

How to develop the initial separation achieved using the Separate CMYK Palette

After running the Palette, you may wish to edit the CMYK table (Separate Menu > CMYK Table Maker...), to increase the amount of black used or to edit the GCR. 

After this you may want to recolour the spot layers and change the Gamma. You can also use Combine to Layer to fine tune the overprint between the layers.