TSB

screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: tonyt79 on December 16, 2015, 11:33:25 AM

Title: Greyscale printing help
Post by: tonyt79 on December 16, 2015, 11:33:25 AM
I guess my customer and I do not agree on what would be greyscale. We are looking at doing a texas flag in greyscale. My first toughts were to print it black,grey, and white, but the customer doesn't want any black. I made a sample with halftones (80%, 55%, 30% black) the contrast was good but the customer thought it looked to much like a newspaper. They want 3 different greys solid. I am not sure how to go about this without alot of trial and error. I thought about manipulating the underbase, but the greys dont seem to be affected by the underbase besides just making the print smoother. Any ideas?
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: mimosatexas on December 16, 2015, 11:45:27 AM
If they want specific grays, I would bring a flag into photoshop, hit grayscale, eyedropper each section and get the pantone, show them the book, charge them for the custom mix, and shake your head when it doesnt look as good as black/gray/white.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: Sbrem on December 16, 2015, 12:00:37 PM
What's the shirt color? And, don't let the customer tell you how to print, just wow them. This image is 2 Whites (one under the red, the other in the grayscale), Gray and Red. the face is gray first, white second.

Steve
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: ravenmark on December 16, 2015, 12:03:16 PM
2 ideas, Vector it by hand. If it is a photo, mess with the levels turning adjusting the black to about a cool grey 11 shade and index it. Or do the same and run a vector trace. Totally depends on the look they are wanting.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: Sbrem on December 16, 2015, 12:06:34 PM
Sorry, here's a photo of the real print... (iPhone photo a bit brighter than real life)

Steve
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: Colin on December 16, 2015, 12:13:06 PM
Can you post a jpeg of what the flag looks like?

It will help a lot with suggestions.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: tonyt79 on December 16, 2015, 12:43:29 PM
the problem is that it is not a true picture. It is a Texas Flag. Attached is a color image of what they are looking for.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: tonyt79 on December 16, 2015, 12:49:15 PM
here is how i did it for the test print. The darker color doesnt look real smooth in the picture.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: mimosatexas on December 16, 2015, 01:17:27 PM
Only real question I have is why is the white in the flag not white?  As for the other colors, they would work for me and look like half a dozen similar texas flag and american flag grayscale prints I have done.  What exactly do they want?
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: tonyt79 on December 16, 2015, 01:24:29 PM
They are wanting 3 greys, no black no white. That was not my initial thoughts but came up when sending over a digital proof.   I told them I thought it would look best black grey white and I think I am going to back to that conversation with them.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: Frog on December 16, 2015, 02:59:39 PM
Like was mentioned, three spot colors if he doesn't want "dots"
Show him your stock grays, or/and whip out the Pantone book and charge accordingly.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: 3Deep on December 16, 2015, 04:37:37 PM
When customer's tell me how to do my job I charrrgge them for it, with a smile on my face
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: kingscreen on December 16, 2015, 06:27:05 PM
What about this?

White = Cool Grey 4
Red =  Cool Grey 7
Navy - Cool Grey 11

All spot.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: tonyt79 on December 16, 2015, 07:45:55 PM
What about this?

White = Cool Grey 4
Red =  Cool Grey 7
Navy - Cool Grey 11

All spot.
Talked with them and think we are going with
White= white
red= light grey
Blue= dark grey
Standard wilflex colors
On a Navy shirt. Still think black,grey, white would be the way to go. I don't think the dark grey will be dark enough. But oh well

Sent from my SM-N915T using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: LoneWolf2 on December 16, 2015, 07:51:37 PM
Sometimes you just can't fix stupid.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: dirkdiggler on December 16, 2015, 08:10:17 PM
it wont be right, wilflex light grey next to white doesn't work well, its toooo light!  we use white, wilfex dark grey, and cool grey 11.
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: tonyt79 on December 16, 2015, 08:19:35 PM
it wont be right, wilflex light grey next to white doesn't work well, its toooo light!  we use white, wilfex dark grey, and cool grey 11.
Dang you are right, and I knew that but didn't think about that. It's so light it will washout the look. I don't want to mix, but I will or just print black. not gonna spend to much time on it.

Sent from my SM-N915T using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: Sbrem on December 17, 2015, 09:10:44 AM
This is not exactly the classic grayscale image is it? We have to correct our customers ideas a lot too, after all, they aren't printers who have done hundreds or thousands of jobs, and in the end, you want them to be happy.

Steve
Title: Re: Greyscale printing help
Post by: Frog on December 17, 2015, 09:38:41 AM
Yeah, rather than gray scale, this one falls more into the Fifty Shades of Gray area.

A little like back in the days of dots being actual work, explaining to a client the differences between a black and white photo being continuous tone, but to be reproduced needed to be converted to halftone.