I have a couple of questions about screen printing. I don't think they're general enough to have been covered frequently before, and I couldn't find the answers to them by searching the forums, so hopefully this won't be redundant:
Firstly, how are black-and-white photographs and other single-color images with complex gradients screen printed?
Also, I see a lot of major clothing brands that print tee shirts that seem like they could have only been achieved with screen printing but you can't feel the emulsion at all on the shirt. They seem to have been dyed with the design, but many shirts are too dark to be sublimation. Can someone explain this?
Re: a few questions about screen printing techniques
Quote:
Originally Posted by moral
I don't think they're general enough to have been covered frequently before
Guess again. It's just a matter of needing to know enough to know what to search for (which, at first, none of us do).
Quote:
Originally Posted by moral
Firstly, how are black-and-white photographs and other single-color images with complex gradients screen printed?
Search for 'halftone'
Quote:
Originally Posted by moral
Also, I see a lot of major clothing brands that print tee shirts that seem like they could have only been achieved with screen printing but you can't feel the emulsion at all on the shirt. They seem to have been dyed with the design, but many shirts are too dark to be sublimation. Can someone explain this?
Search for 'discharge'
(and emulsion covers the screen, so you won't feel it on the shirt; the shirt generally is printed with ink, or occasionally with dye)
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Re: a few questions about screen printing techniques
Thanks a lot, discharge printing seems to be exactly what I was looking for. As far as printing gradients; I meant more along the lines of a direct representation of the photograph, like this shirt: 80's Purple - Online Boutique I'm guessing it's a method other than screen printing, but I'm kind of in the dark as to what it could be. Thanks in advance!
Re: a few questions about screen printing techniques
Quote:
Originally Posted by moral
Thanks a lot, discharge printing seems to be exactly what I was looking for. As far as printing gradients; I meant more along the lines of a direct representation of the photograph, like this shirt: 80's Purple - Online Boutique I'm guessing it's a method other than screen printing, but I'm kind of in the dark as to what it could be. Thanks in advance!
More than likely, that was done DTG. It's an inkjet printer you feed shirts into.
Re: a few questions about screen printing techniques
Quote:
Originally Posted by moral
Alright then; I guess I've been underestimating how capable screen printing really is. Is there any disadvantage as far as price or quality with DTG?
DTG is much more expensive. The machines used are like 7,000$, and the per piece price is generally higher. It's a bit easier, especially for photo realistic images. Pressing 'print' is easier than cmky screen printing.
I guess it depends on what you want to do. If you want to do large runs of shirts, go with screen printing. If you want to print one-off shirts in a mall kiosk, go with DTG.
But yeah, there's very little screen printing can't do. And it's much more versitile than DTG.
a few questions about screen printing techniques 
