I've just started messing around with process colors, and while my results have been okay, I can see where you have to understand how the final print will look and know where to beef up some areas and tone down some others. The most recent print I did was of an old Ford coupe I used with some other graphic elements, including my logo, which has a lot of red in it. I had to hit the magenta a couple of times to get the red in the logo to pop, but then it was too heavy in the photo. I also had to go into separate channels to punch up the contrast in some areas. I'm gonna redo the seps and either go into the logo area and give it 100% magenta and 100% yellow, or make it a 5th color. I've also discovered that to really get a good print, certain types of photos will reproduce much easier and be more striking than others. Broad areas of bright color, and a minimum of really fussy detail look a lot better. Plus, on a manual press, no matter how good your seps and screens are, getting consistency from print to print is tough, mainly due to the transparent nature of process inks and the difficulty of maintaining even squeegie pressure from shirt to shirt. Opaque plastisols are a hell of a lot easier to print. I can see a lot of opportunity in learning process color printing for photographic type stuff, and have had just enough success with it at this point to remain deteremined to get good enough to market shirts done as process.
Last edited by tpitman; August 24th, 2007 at 12:53 PM.
Charlie Taulieb in a workshop I attended at SGIA put us on to "PUSH" type squeegees for manual printing. They are a little funky looking but you have better control and can put more pressure on the squeegee than with pull type squeegees. I tried it with a regular squeegee on a recent job and it does WORK, especially printing through a bunch of small dots!!
I do have one question for you seasoned process printers. On separation set-up what line count do you use and what is the angle and dot gain. I set it at 25degrees and put in 50 LPI. I tried 100 LPI but the ink will hardly go through the screen due to the small dot size, I think. Any suggestions will be greatly be appreciated.
cmyk seps warrant specific angles for each plate/screen. this helps to achecive the rosette pattern and minimize moire. Depending on the design 45-55 is a good dot size. Anything higher and manual printing might be tougher than usual. (burning as well)
Scott F from usscreen offers these angles to the general publicv. I will state that a lot of artists/printers have their own special angles that work best for them.
y 75
m 45
c 15
k 75
is micro registration a definite necessity to achieve accurate and crisp process prints? can anyone explain how it works? i am planning to get a press and possible upgrade myself to printing designs other than spot colour prints. Is a press with micro registration really necessary to get rid of moire and any misalignment?
Micro registration isn't absolutely necessary for any printing technique, but it makes set up so much easier and quicker that it's worth it. There are several variables in the whole process of screenprinting, any of which can render good registration impossible, that it only makes sense to eliminate any headaches you possibly can. Micros really have nothing to do with moire, unless the moire is somehow caused by misalignment. I can't say that I've ever read of that as a cause for moire. What micros do is allow you to move the screen incrementally without loosening the frame clamps, which often results in a slight shift of the frame due to the tightening of the clamp bolts. The frames tend to turn in the same direction as the bolts, throwing your registration off. They make any kind of job that's more than one color much easier to register, not just jobs involving halftones.
But . . . get a good press. There are some crappy "micros" out there that are no better than no micros.
You might want to do a quick search of these forums looking for which press to buy. Most will tell you to get a 6-color press (I would) and if you're just getting started, or if you're trying to upgrade from a crappy press, to look on the classifieds here, at screenprinters.net, on Craigslist, and if you have a local screenprinting supply vendor, ask them to let you know of any shops going under or replacing equipment. Look for a used, cared for name-brand press such as Workhorse, Vastex V-2000, M&R, Hopkins BWM, or Antec Legend. Don't succumb to the lure of cheap crappy presses on Ebay. You're gonna have to spend $2500 and up on a decent used 6-color press.
Re: Full Color, 4 Color, 6 Color, Seps, halftones oh my! 
