[DL]

Recently we just finished our first deisgn and I got some questions about what to do next. I've been reading the boards for a while so we decided that we were going down the screen-printing route. I'll admit I do not know the limits or restraints of screen printing and was wondering if anyone could give me some insight.

Our design in a nutshell, is a monochromatic collage of images. We have two main colors then the obvious different shades of each color. Once we were done it looked like 6-7 colors at the most, but it came to 32 different colors shades and tones of the two main colors (thats what it said in photoshop...)

So my question is two-fold: what printing route would you suggest? Will screen printing this be real expensive from my description? Should we scrap this design and try to scale down the number of colors? any help would be great.

Thanks.

 

[badalou]

32 color shades lets see at 20 bucks a screen that is $640 for one shirt. yeah I think you do but what do I know I do heat transfers which for one transfer would cost 1.75 and that includes a white tee shirt.

 

[DL]

lol, yeah i figured it would be something rediculous like that...I just don't know what to do now. I guess back to the drawig boards.

 

[m26gil]

Save the file from Photshop into GIF and minimize the colors number. See what you'll get. The quality will be poor but after doing some editing maybe you'll get something. It's just an idea, I've never done it but it's free to try.

 

[Twinge]

Shades of the same color (halftones) usually are all included together in the price. You may want to check with some screen printers and show them your design and see what they would charge.

If you do need to use a ton of different colors, your only real option for low-quantity will be some flavor of heat transfer.

 

[Rodney]

Our design in a nutshell, is a monochromatic collage of images. We have two main colors then the obvious different shades of each color. Once we were done it looked like 6-7 colors at the most, but it came to 32 different colors shades and tones of the two main colors (thats what it said in photoshop...)

32 color shades lets see at 20 bucks a screen that is $640 for one shirt.

Keep in mind that just because a design seems like 32 colors, doesn't mean that it will take 32 screens or 32 colors to reproduce.

Your inkjet printer at home doesn't need 32 ink tank colors to print with, why should a screen printer be any different?

A design that seems to be 32 colors could actually be 4 spot colors (with halftones) or a 4 color process print or a simulated process print.

Maybe you could post a small picture of the image here to see if some of the screen printing experts here could give you an "accurate" color count and suggestions that you can take to your local printer.

Also, once you have 15 posts here in the forums, you can make a SERVICE REQUEST post in the classifieds section to see if any of the screen printing (or heat transfer) members of the forum can help you out with getting your design printed.

 

[Fluid]

the image can be printed traditionally(direct pl;asticol printing) using either a simulated or Index print. Essentially you will drop the colors to a manageable number with mixing on press to achieve secondary and tertiary colors.

 

[Rodney]

I knew Richard could explain it better than I could

 

[Fluid]

If I could only type correctly

 

[DL]

Thanks guys for all of your suggestions and thanks to Rodney for making me feel a bit better about the design. It makes sense though, it's not like each halftone is going to be a separate ink by itself (which is something I should have figured). I'll try and post a pic later on this evening.

 

[jimiyo]

32 color screens $640... id like to see that print machine. haha. that would be a rad and friggin huge machine.

if you are using ink, almost any image can be dumbed down to 6-12 colors. take a looksy...

the shirt below was separated into 7 colors. the printed image was almost just like the digital... although in the skies, it wasnt as saturated since only one shade of blue was used.

http://www.jimiyo.com/2006/websiteportfolio/4402-TAL-TS-64.jpg

it sounds like you have almost a tonal type image? those print great with index.

blah blah. post picture!

 

[DL]

blah blah. post picture!

LOL, here it is. Hopefully it's big enough.

 

[PrintMonkey]

Easy to screen print.
3 or 4 colors.

M

 

[Jasonda]

Wow. If you had posted this picture a lot sooner, you would have gotten your answer so much faster, and you wouldn't have been stressing out about it at all.

P.s. Nice design!

 

[Solmu]

Easy to screen print.
3 or 4 colors.

Exactly what I was going to say.

(4 if it's going on black)

 

[DL]

Wow. If you had posted this picture a lot sooner, you would have gotten your answer so much faster, and you wouldn't have been stressing out about it at all.

P.s. Nice design!

Thanks man, I would have posted sooner but the design was on my friend's computer and he was out of town. Thanks to everyone for giving their two cents.

DL