I have seen a lot of shirt have a gradient fill on them. I was wondering how to make prints like that. I use illustrator and I don't even know how to make a gradient fill on there. Could someone please help me learn how to do this? I also see a lot of shading, like on sports balls, How do they do these?
As for your questions regarding specific uses of Illustrator, you may have better responses posting all of your questions together in a single post in the graphic design forum.
But I'll answer for you how to print gradients:
Once you've got your gradient in Illustrator (usually just by using a "gradient" tool, however I'm unfamiliar with Illustrator specifics) you seperate the image into the two component colours that make up the gradient, using "half-tones". Let's say you're making a gradient of orange and blue: your original gradient image has all orange up one end, all blue up the other, then toward the middle it's a mix of the two. When you seperate it into the two colours and apply half-tones, you'll have two seperate images, one for each colour. One image will have lots of dots where the orange goes, and the other will have lots of dots where the blue goes. These are the two images you'll use to make your screens.
From there, it's a matter of creating your screens using the two images, making sure they register, and printing away. Since you seperated and half-toned the image, instead of printing (as per example) the blue on top of the orange, you'll be printing little blue dots in between the orange dots, to create the effect of a gradient.
While the specifics of this procedure vary based on graphics suite you use, mesh count of your screens (ie: the detail of half tone you can use), etc, the process remains the same as I described above.
I guess you'd end up with an entire solid region of a sort of brown colour
What I was trying to say was, these half-tones seperate the orange bits from the blue bits. By splitting it into two screens, you're putting blue only where it's needed, and orange only where it's needed. Sort of like two halves coming together, and thus forming the gradient.
I usually print the less-opaque ink second, and allow the first color to gain a bit. That way the colors blend together more naturally, avoiding that ugly sudden color change halfway through the gradient.
Chance:
The best way to learn Illustrator, is to buy a training dvd, you will learn how to use the program and you will be doing designs in no time. It is worth the investment. Also there are some websites like Lynda.com, you tube, and others where you can watch free lessons or tutorials.
Hope this can help you
Challenger
Gradient printing 
