TSB
screen printing => Newbie => Topic started by: Shanarchy on July 06, 2012, 01:07:47 PM
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I know this shouldn't be rocket science, but for some reason I do very little halftone work. I am looking at the image on the left.
What lpi and mesh count would you recommend? Should this be print-flash-printed? Or would I be better off with two screens, so I am just p-f-p'ing the solid lettering at the top.
Thanks!
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There are a lot of different ways of doing that, depending on how much the customer is willing to spend and how important accuracy is to the customer. Using just white, I'd do at least two screens, a base and a highlight.
The best results would come from the two whites and at least one gray.
(Gray to be on high mesh like 305 using 55 lpi.)
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Just gray/ flash/ white. Underbase the solid white areas with gray.
Easy Peasy.
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I would prefer to use a light gray as a base but where you see gray, it would be cut back to halftones of near 30% so that it looks darker than it is.
Then, For the top brighter areas, I'd use a top white but then also take that selection of the top white and add it to the underbase gray so that it is 100% underbased to add to the brightness.
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with ink on my auto? how you would print it manually? without ink?
you are nutz...
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with ink on my auto? how you would print it manually? without ink?
you are nutz...
^This guy is a jerk face =(
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Dan's suggestion sounds pretty nice.
The customer requested it to be printed with just white on black and greyscale it. But I just don't think the end result is going to be what they think looking at the mockup the sent. I'm thinking throwing some grey in there may be a good idea.
The file isn't the best to play with, at least not for my skill set. I'm wondering if I printed it in gray then dropped the white over it how it would look.
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For a "more accurate" mock up you can always use PS's halftone "effect".
But that is neither here nor there, just for future reference really.
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speaking of a halftone effect. What method do you use? Anything simpler than this?
I convert seps to grayscale bitmap and in put my halftone, convert back to grayscale and then drop into a RGB file again. then select that channel and add to te layers and fill it with it's PMS color. Then, send customer a jpg of that. To take it even further, you can drop it on a garment blank.
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I was talking about the dirty filter in PS "colorize" or something like that. For just grey scale it shows how ugly it may end up being.
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1. Base WHT 230 mesh
FLASH
2. Medium Grey 255 Mesh
3. HL WHT 255 Mesh
All at 55lpi
If you are not comfortable doin the seps yourself, there are plenty of artist here that can do it for you and rest asured it will come out perfect.
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Do some cleanup first, as that image is rife with jpeg artifacts.
Anyhow, this is what you're after.
Gray undercoats the white
Light Gray, *flash*, white, done.
ed:looks like I still can't type in a hurry..what the heck is a bugshug ( filename )?
There is rarely a need to underbase a gray, unless of course you're on a red or funky polyester garment.
On black, it's a non-issue.
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Dan, you should use Brent's (photoscreenprint) Simrip action.
It'll save you several minutes.
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I think i downloaded it once. I remember seeing it on an old drive of mine and in an older photoshop program. It's an action of what I described right?
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Yeah.
You could use it for a real rip as well if needed.
http://www.photoscreenprint.com/downloads/ (http://www.photoscreenprint.com/downloads/)
I think I posted this before but whatever.
He's giving it away for free now.
Brent's a good guy.
* oh..you'll have to adjust his angles/res/etc as you work through the action. Not a big deal.
He set it up for his own preferences, which is all good, but heck, he left the option open for adjustment,
which, in my book, is golden.
Quote:
Although there are a few compromises in creating output halftones within Adobe Photoshop, in many ways it is an appealing option due to its simplicity. Another benefit is the ability to see the actual halftone dot placement, edit and preview the image as it will look when printed.
When viewing a processed separation, the effect of the Spot Color Dot Gain settings will not be visible at the normal size, giving the image a washed out appearance. To view the image with the dot gain settings in effect, zoom out to about 6%, to view the actual dots as they will be printed zoom in to 100% (actual pixels).
I tend to view my sepped 'dots' at 12.5%,25%,50% or actual size.
Computers can't display these things properly at certain zoom levels, such as what photoshop will try to display at 'fit to screen' or whatever it's called..it makes it look all fubar. Understand what you are viewing and remember that most graphic programs apply some aliasing to ease the view at certain zoom levels. That's all fine and good, but it's a lie.
Make sure you are looking at the art from a 'real' perspective, not an 'interpreted to make it look pretty' perspective.
I don't need to tell Dan this, obviously, but some of you may not be aware of the limitations of digital displays.
They're not truthful, so be aware.
Cheers.
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one color, one screen, pfp and run it through the drier, but doesnt it really depend on what the customer whats and their budget?
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Do some cleanup first, as that image is rife with jpeg artifacts.
Anyhow, this is what you're after.
Gray undercoats the white
Light Gray, *flash*, white, done.
ed:looks like I still can't type in a hurry..what the heck is a bugshug ( filename )?
There is rarely a need to underbase a gray, unless of course you're on a red or funky polyester garment.
On black, it's a non-issue.
Thanks for taken the time to lay that out Chadwick!
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one color, one screen, pfp and run it through the drier, but doesnt it really depend on what the customer whats and their budget?
Not always. Sometimes a job looks like it should be done one way and you know it requires it to be done another way. Like when an artist uses a teal blue and a navy blue on a white tee and he says he only wants one blue but wants both shades.
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I'll admit that sometimes I throw in an extra screen to make a job look good, as opposed to acceptable, depending on the size of the order and the customer. It just galls me to see something go out the door that could look great but for the lack of another screen. Not the best business model, I suppose, to those who count out every spoonful of ink, and perhaps it's poor salesmanship on my part not being able to make the case to add another color, but I price stuff so that I make enough money regardless and have a bit of wiggle room if necessary or desired.
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So here i the final result. Unfortunately, due to time restraints, I just did it one color (customer did request to print it grey scale with white on black). I think it's ok, but could have been much better. I really wish I had a little more time to have been able to work the grey in as was suggested.
Quick question for the artists on this board, about what would have been the charge (and turn around time) to have had this file converted for the seps as earlier discussed? Feel free to PM me if you do not want to list a price here. I hate doing a job when I know I could have done it better.
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Not a bod job for 1 color. You achieved the look of a gray and a bright white in one color. That is what you want.
My standard turn time is getting seps back within 3 business days. That is for 1 color or 14 colors. So, on occasions, you can get your 1-2 color job back within a few hours depending on the load on my schedule at the time but I like to allow for 3 days typically.
The cost for that probably would be in the area of $15.00 for 1 color and $20.00 for 2 colors (for that). I don't charge by the number of colors. I go by job complexity. Some 6 color jobs take 45 min. and other 6 color jobs take 3-4 hours.
Pierre gave me one the other day that was 3 colors but took about 3 hours. It had a bunch o layers and it was sort of a high profile job for a very picky customer so we were careful in trying to get it right.
You can use a sep program and you get what you get and then rely on your own skills to make adjustments. If you don't have time to enhance those seps, then they don't really benefit you unless you can pay an employee to tweak them for a while. If you already know how to separate like a pro, you can improve the results you get from those programs and make those seps come out well enough. Then again, if you can sep like a professional separator, you would not need those programs any longer. Interestingly enough, roughly 80% of my customers do have some sort of separation program or even more than one. I guess I get sent the ones they don't have time for or the more difficult ones that are high profile and need to be as good as they can be.
This one was 8 colors. The cool thing is that the customer needed to get a sample off real quick but didn't have time for the seps so, he shot them off to me. Once he got them back, he printed film, burned screens and had a sample within 30 minutes. No tweaking on press or computer. Straight out of the screen room to the dryer. 15000 shirts. The sample was approved.
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This one was 8 colors. The cool thing is that the customer needed to get a sample off real quick but didn't have time for the seps so, he shot them off to me. Once he got them back, he printed film, burned screens and had a sample within 30 minutes. No tweaking on press or computer. Straight out of the screen room to the dryer. 15000 shirts. The sample was approved.
Update. Customer is running this today. Sent me this email.
"Been running this naked juice today running like a dream.
Nice comfortable 55 doz an hr right now on it....I've run over 4000 only wiped two of the screens twice.".
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This one was 8 colors. The cool thing is that the customer needed to get a sample off real quick but didn't have time for the seps so, he shot them off to me. Once he got them back, he printed film, burned screens and had a sample within 30 minutes. No tweaking on press or computer. Straight out of the screen room to the dryer. 15000 shirts. The sample was approved.
Update. Customer is running this today. Sent me this email.
"Been running this naked juice today running like a dream.
Nice comfortable 55 doz an hr right now on it....I've run over 4000 only wiped two of the screens twice.".
Nice work guys! Awesome
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Not a bod job for 1 color. You achieved the look of a gray and a bright white in one color. That is what you want.
My standard turn time is getting seps back within 3 business days. That is for 1 color or 14 colors. So, on occasions, you can get your 1-2 color job back within a few hours depending on the load on my schedule at the time but I like to allow for 3 days typically.
The cost for that probably would be in the area of $15.00 for 1 color and $20.00 for 2 colors (for that). I don't charge by the number of colors. I go by job complexity. Some 6 color jobs take 45 min. and other 6 color jobs take 3-4 hours.
Pierre gave me one the other day that was 3 colors but took about 3 hours. It had a bunch o layers and it was sort of a high profile job for a very picky customer so we were careful in trying to get it right.
You can use a sep program and you get what you get and then rely on your own skills to make adjustments. If you don't have time to enhance those seps, then they don't really benefit you unless you can pay an employee to tweak them for a while. If you already know how to separate like a pro, you can improve the results you get from those programs and make those seps come out well enough. Then again, if you can sep like a professional separator, you would not need those programs any longer. Interestingly enough, roughly 80% of my customers do have some sort of separation program or even more than one. I guess I get sent the ones they don't have time for or the more difficult ones that are high profile and need to be as good as they can be.
This one was 8 colors. The cool thing is that the customer needed to get a sample off real quick but didn't have time for the seps so, he shot them off to me. Once he got them back, he printed film, burned screens and had a sample within 30 minutes. No tweaking on press or computer. Straight out of the screen room to the dryer. 15000 shirts. The sample was approved.
Wow! This looks awesome!
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Nice job on the 1 color.
I do alot of that, p/f/p. It's quick and it works.
When doing that, I'll pull the levels ( curves ) as far back as I can to aid in the contrast,
while trying not to lose detail due to gain, which, it looks like you did as well.
A nice thing about adding the gray as a base though, is that you underprint your white to give it punch,
without double hitting it ( dot gain ),
and you get another tone to help retain a wider contrast range.
Most folks can't tell the difference unless 2 examples are side by side.
And, you're welcome.
Those seps didn't take any time, I would've spent alot of time fixing the image if it was for real.
I think you understood the example though, which was the point.
Hope it helped.
Cheers.