Discussion, tips, pictures, reviews and peer to peer support for current and future owners of Belquette manufactured machines, including the MOD-1 DTG machine and the Flexi-Jet set series of printers.
does anyone have any experience building a custom white for their darks and colred shirts, I have a flexi-jet and use the power rip software and the auto mask white is just too generic for some things I want to do, I would like to build a custom white similar to screenprinting simulated process but am not sure how to send this white channel to the printer and then the colors , should I send two seperate pages ?
I take it the design is going on to a black shirt. If so, I would use Color Layer Auto Mask (Black Background) and just the send the file to the RIP with the black background there. That should do it. Maybe you can post a picture of what the white layer preview in the RIP looks like to help us better understand what your problem is.
It sounds like you know a bit about creating your own underbases for screen printing on darks using false process. Assuming that is true, I would suggest you create your own underbase, exacly as you would like it, convert it to black (instead of white), do the same for any highlight white you may want then use the following steps: (Fred jump in here if I miss something!)
I'll assume you are using Photoshop
1. Turn off all layers except the underbase layer and print it with the White Mask Layer (Soft) - make sure to select the proper White INk Resolution
2. Turn off all layers but the Highlight (Alpha channel) and print with the Highlight Layer setting
3. Turn off all layers except the color layer and print with the Color Layer setting.
All of these three will merge in the RIP and create two print files - the underbase you created will be one and the color layer plus your highlight will be number two.
1. Turn off all layers except the underbase layer and print it with the White Mask Layer (Soft) - make sure to select the proper White INk Resolution
2. Turn off all layers but the Highlight (Alpha channel) and print with the Highlight Layer setting
3. Turn off all layers except the color layer and print with the Color Layer setting.
All of these three will merge in the RIP and create two print files - the underbase you created will be one and the color layer plus your highlight will be number two.
Or just use the Black Backgroung feature, a couple of clicks and you are done
Dan
Or just use the Black Backgroung feature, a couple of clicks and you are done
No doubt that this would do a good job, but most good screenprint artist can do a better job at underbasing than even the best RIPs will (sorry Fred). There is more to it than just math, which is all that a RIP can reproduce. Several of our more experienced screen printers generate their own underbases and highlights all the time!
The white-generation algorithms are indeed very powerful. They have been refined over the years to handle just about everything you throw at them
... however...
In the case of experienced artists who like to define their own layers, I recommend the manual method (the one Don described) for printing. It takes a couple of extra steps but it gives 100% control to those who want it.
When I do artwork for myself, I use the auto-white [Color Layer Auto-Mask (Black Bkgnd) to be specific] but I wouldn't, for example, expect Dane Clements (Great Dane Graphics) to do that. He's a great artist and defines exactly what he wants where.
custom white backer / spot white channel 
