I have experience printing 4 color process lithographically, but not with screen printing. I am working with some people who have been screen printing for over 20 years, but have not done any process color work. We got a t-shirt press and we can print spot colors and tints without a problem, but now we are getting orders for process color shirts and unfortunately we have to turn them away to other printers. I printed my first test image and wanted to get some feedback. First let me say that I did check through the forum before printing and got some good help. Here is my current process: I entered the spectral data for my inks into photoshop and separated my RGB file into CMYK. Most of the incoming orders are for dark shirts so I skipped printing on white and went straight to black (too ambitious?). I manipulated the separations to subtract out the black (using the shirt instead) and create a white channel. The channels were then sent to film at 65lpi eliptical and burned on 305 mesh screens. The press is an M&R rotary 8 color. I was told to print white, flash, then print wet on wet yellow, magenta, and cyan in that order... correct??? The image looks more like a faded painting than a photograph. Follow the links bellow to see the print. The first link shows the original artwork. The second image compares the original artwork and the separations/dots as they should have appeared and the actual print. The third link is to a picture of the entire print. The dots seem smeared and although I was able to get dots in the highlights, they lack detail. Also, can anyone recomend any software or techniques for making a white separation for process printing on black or dark garments? I tried using fast films, but I could tell that the white channel was just not correct so I didn't bother to print it. Am I using it wrong? A salesman just recommended using the Wasatch SP RIP, but I looked into it and can't find anything saying that it supports these dark garment separations. Any help would be appreciated.
Tree on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Comparison on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Scan_of_Shirt on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Tree on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Comparison on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Scan_of_Shirt on Flickr - Photo Sharing!