I've been doing a little reading on this and it sounds interesting. Is anyone here doing it? From what I gather, you print CMY and K colors, each in half tones and the end result looks close to the original photo.
I read that you need very, VERY precise registration and fine mesh screens (300 or so). All I currently have are 110. Are there any other tricks? Do you have to thin the ink using a fine mesh screen? I would be printing on transfer paper, not directly to the fabric.
I've done some screen printing, but since I set up to do digital transfers, I haven't even looked at my screen printing equipment. This whole dark shirt thing has me wanting to blow the dust off it though.
There are some videos on 4 color process that you should watch before you start this.
I have one video that watched recently that convinced me that I was not ready to dive that deep into the craft.
Yet, it was fun to watch how it worked.
__________________ Insanity is when you keep on doing the same things, hoping for different results.
There are some videos on 4 color process that you should watch before you start this.
I have one video that watched recently that convinced me that I was not ready to dive that deep into the craft.
Yet, it was fun to watch how it worked.
Online videos? From what I can gather, registration is a pretty big deal, especially if you're using high frequency halftones. Other than that, I don't see it being that difficult. Creating the 4 color separation films in X3 isn't hard. I've printed 4 colors before, just not process CMYK. I figure it will cost me 4 screens, 4 quarts of ink and an afternoon to give it a shot.
you need to try printing a halftone underbase for your process. Will take it to the next level.
Major areas that need attention
As mentioned above, burning of screens and retaining the halftones
Proper angles for your plates.
Good screens
Good sharp squeegees
Good tight registration press
So it sounds like you really need a 6 color press. CMYK + white underbase. I have a 4 color press so I'd have to do it without the underbase. I have a large UV exposure unit, but it is not a vacuum unit.
I've made screens in the past by printing to a file in Corel, then printing the file to the printer using Ghostscript, which works great. My C8800 has a postscript driver installed, but I can't get it to print halftones directly from corel. It will print halftones from Ghostscript like my other printer though.
Thinking about this some more, I realize that I don't want to print to shirts, I want to print to transfers, then press those to shirts as they are needed. Would I still need to use a white base seeing as how the transfer is white? Would I lay down colors in reverse? If the proper order is CMYK, would I print KYMC on the transfer. I'd imaging ordering is important so that layer appear correctly when pressed. So if I did use a white under base, in order for that to be an under base on the pressed shirt, it would have to be the top layer on the transfer.
Personally, i believe Adobe Photoshop is essential to the production process. If you don't have it, buy it. If you can't afford it, buy an academic copy.
That simply doesn't make any sense. If you qualify for an academic copy you should buy it whether you can afford the full version or not (why not save the money?), and if you don't qualify for an academic copy, you shouldn't buy it, as you wouldn't have a legal copy of the software. Paying money to break the law is just twice stupid.
__________________ "Ah, Henny Penny," said Chicken Little, "the sky is falling, and I must go and tell the king."
Ive been using PS for years. I find the half tone filter in PS is more of an artistic effect though. It has never produced a good enough halftone to use as a screen film. Basically, I use PS to work the image, then import it to X3 and print the halftone separations.
Printing to a transfer might actually let you get around having a 4 unit press. If you custom make a platen which includes pin registration, it might be possible to print process color images, then come back and re-register the transfer to add the white underbase.
fred
Would I still need the white underbase? How would an average photo look after pressing with no white underbase? My guess is that the white makes the colors pop. Kind of the same principle as heat transfer on dark, but on the other hand, plastisol is opaque. For instance, I've printed red ink on black shirts with no problems, but that was a straight spot color, no halftones.
You don't use a photoshop filter to make the halftones. You turn on each channel by itself, change the mode to grayscale, then to bitmap, then in the following dialog boxes you put in your halftone dot shape, angle and linescreen. Save the file, then go to the history palette, select convert to bitmap at the bottom, trash it, and click okay when it asks if you want to delete "convert to bitmap". You'll have your original file back with all the channels. Do this for each channel, saving each as a separate file. I save 'em at 800 dpi to gain as much edge sharpness in the dot as possible, and the files aren't that big since they're 1-bit files. You'll get a good usable halftone doing this. The 800 dpi might be overkill, and many say 300 is fine, but if you've ever looked at the difference between edge definintion from a 300 dpi laser printer and a 600 dpi laser printer, you'll know what I'm talking about. I've compared films output this way to ones off of FastRIP and an Epson 2200 and they're as sharp. I'm currently using an HP 9800.
I'm currently in the process of perfecting my ability to print process color. So far things have been going well. It has taken at least 6 sets of 5 screens to get me to where i'm at now and expect to go though more screens in the future. I'm glad to share whatever knowledge i have.
fred
These samples are process on black tees? Not to sound skeptical, because all I've printed is process on white with a white underbase to help hold down fibrillation, but many say process on black is tough or next to impossible because the white underbase necessary to block out the black renders the process inks pastel. I'm using Union's process inks also. Is the transfer function you show here the one you used for this prints? I already have to double-stroke some stuff to get a good, rich print, so maybe I'll try these, since they're a little more aggressive on the ends. By the way, the samples you are showing look pretty damn good, especially for someone just venturing into process work. Process on black would be a hell of a lot easier than simulated on black if it works as well as these samples indicate.
There is nothing "illegal" about academic software.
If it's purchased lawfully (i.e. not obtained by deception) by a qualified user; it can't be bought and used by just anyone as you seem to be implying.
__________________ "Ah, Henny Penny," said Chicken Little, "the sky is falling, and I must go and tell the king."
I see. I think your idea about printing the underbase last using pin registration would work fine. I see the need for micro registration printing the 4 colors, but the underbase could be off a whisker and not really effect the print, meaning registration would not be that critical. Since these are transfers, the underbase would in fact be the last printed layer.
Process screen printing - Photos 
