Abstract: Systems and methods of efficiently creating color separations for subsequent use in multi-stage printing processes to produce an acceptable facsimile of user-selected artwork on a substrate are disclosed. The method obtains an initial color palette ((i.e. an ordered list of a plurality of printing inks) from an electronic rendering and extracts a final color palette from the initial color palette by clustering the plurality of unique color values corresponding to the plurality of printing inks in the initial color palette into discrete color clusters.