Process Color prints on T-shirts traditionally work well on white or other very light colored shirts. All photos printed in paper such as a magazine, newspaper or catalogs are printed using only these four colors. Process Color images are comprised of four colors: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black and are often referred to as CMYK. However, these types of designs generally have a flat, cartoon-like look and are not photorealistic. It can include a large amount of shading, gradations and detail. Spot Color separations are used for logos, school designs, clipart, hard edged graphics, cartoons or other designs that have a black or dark outline.Ī Spot Color print can be a simple one-color design or a complex ten color gem. This is one of, if not the most popular of the separation types throughout the screen printing industry today. Below you’ll find a cheat cheat that outlines different separation types in hopes it helps you navigate a variety of questions that may come up when placing your order. Hi, I’m Mark and I’m the Art Director at EF (that’s what we call it here, it’s a term of endearment). Geeking out over separations, new suppliers and products and innovative client-based projects is the norm at the Embroidery Factory, especially in my role.
We arrive at this constant through experimentation and it may be different for other printers.Fact. So, let’s say a 200 mesh screen and the constant we use is 4. To calculate the proper LPI for a particular screen count you take the count and you divide by a constant, usually between 3 and 5. You must also take into account what screen count (see next question) you plan to use. Likewise, if you view a 45 lpi t-shirt print from 3-4 feet you won’t notice the halftone dots. When reading a magazine, the 100 lpi halftones will be invisible at 12 “. The correct lpi to use is a function of the detail you want to produce and the distance from which a print will be viewed. When we are using halftones for screen printing we use 45 lpi for basic designs and 65 lpi for detailed and process type designs. Magazine pictures may have 100-130 lpi, newsprint is typically 85 lpi, a 300 dpi laser printer is around 55 lpi, and billboards might be 3-6 lpi. Various lpi numbers are used for different types of printing. In screen printing we use halftones for three main purposes: Depending on the design, 3 to 9 or more ink colors may be needed to accurately reproduce all subtle color variations. We generally use 305 mesh and 65 lpi seperations. Simulated process requires relatively high mesh counts and screen frequencies. Once the adjustments are finished, the separations are printed out as usual. This is the part that takes skill and applied experience from our art department. Now, we must adjust these chanels so that the final print on the shirt will match the original artwork. We will end up with 7 or 11 color channels to work with.
Currently, we use a plugin for Photoshop called T-seps (formerly FastFilms). Once in the computer at the correct size and resolution, we process the design through a special program that automates the difficult separation process. The image can range from something that is photo-realistic to a line drawing or illustration. When working with simulated process, we start with a design created digitaly or one that is scanned into the computer. Because the shirt colors are normally dark, simulated process generally requires the use of an underbase.
This process differs from 4-color process in that the inks are solid opaque colors usually printed on dark colored shirts. A: Simulated Process is another advanced technique that uses halftones of a few ink colors to represent the colors in the original design.