DougieN13

how do you print shades of colours?

im new to screen printing and i understand about doing bold prints but how do you do shades?

is it something to do with halftones?

any help would be great

 

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quatto

sometimes you can simplify designs into a "modified process"

i recently had a high school come to me with a complicated design, actually a photograph with all kinds of colors and block letters with gradient in them, just a real nightmare.



what I did was i broke it down into four basic colors: blues, skintones, red/yellow gradient (inside the lettering, and white on a black shirt



rather than just printing a solid white flashing underneath all the colours, I printed halftone highlights giving the illusion of multiple shades or lighter colours, and then the colours I printed with halftones to give the illusion of shadow.
For the Lettering, rather than making a red screen and a yellow screen with a halftone that blends from one to the other, I simply put both colors on the screen and let the squeegee make my gradient.

When you compare it side-by-side to the photo, the differences are quite obvious. But most people aren't that design savvy and will look at the final product and be amazed. This trick doesn't work this well all the time, but I knocked this image out in photoshop in like half an hour, so when you can make it work, it's worth it IMHO.

 

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DougieN13

Quote: Originally Posted by quatto so rather than just printing a solid white flashing underneath all the colours, I printed halftone highlights giving the illusion of multiple shades or lighter colours, and then the colours I printed with halftones to give the illusion of shadow. For the Lettering, rather than making a red screen and a yellow screen with a halftone that blends from one to the other, I simply put both colors on the screen and let the squeegee make my gradient. .

Thankyou
yea i can see the difference in pictures quite well, so by changing the shading into halftones and printing through that it greats the shade effect?
do you know any websites showing a tutorial of this process?

Whats white flashing? what is that used for?


i guess the best way for me to find out is just trying different ways

 

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quatto

"flashing" is the layer of white you put down underneath colors when printing on a dark material. You do this because most colors are translucent to some degree. so by printing detailed highlights underneath the transparent colors, you've created different shades of lighter colors.

 

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aamy98@mac.com

You have to create the shade in Illustrator or whatever program you are using then print that color out as a halftone. When you select the color that you want to print change the dot pattern to 35dpi and then use a 280 mesh screen to burn it out. Thats what I do. Hope it helps ~Amy

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DougieN13

Quote: Originally Posted by quatto "flashing" is the layer of white you put down underneath colors when printing on a dark material. You do this because most colors are translucent to some degree. so by printing detailed highlights underneath the transparent colors, you've created different shades of lighter colors.

Quote: Originally Posted by aamy98@mac.com You have to create the shade in Illustrator or whatever program you are using then print that color out as a halftone. When you select the color that you want to print change the dot pattern to 35dpi and then use a 280 mesh screen to burn it out. Thats what I do. Hope it helps ~Amy

thanks thats helped a lot
il go try it out and hopefully il be able to get t done : ]

 

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