[meyerBA]

Hello All;

First post here looking for some major help.

I just got hired at a screen printing company as their new graphic artist. Doing design work is not hard but when it comes to the printing aspect, this is where I am lacking. I need to learn how to print halftone colors, mainly halftone of a solid color (like black).

Let me describe what we use.

We use Illustrator CS2 to create the vector images for the shirts. I only use spot colors in the designs. Once we are finished with a design we print to a file we can send to Wasatch SoftRIP. Within that software we rip the file and sent it to our printer which is an Epson Stylus Pro 4800.

I have looked at many, many, MANY websites on how to do this but nothing seems to work, especially in the situation I'm about to describe. We have a 1-color design, all black that we are doing for a soccer camp. They wanted some depth so my boss (who doesn't know how to do this yet told me to) told me to use a halftone black to simulate the shade. So I scaled back the pantone black to 30% and she said it would print correctly because the computer knows to print a scaled back color as a halftone. Well it did not, the solid black came out solid and the scaled back came out scaled back...not in the dots like it should (as told).

I've looked at everything and cannot figure it out. I was told to look at settings within Illustrator, within Wasatch and within the printer itself and now I'm betting everything is messed up. I got some dots to show up at one time but they are far to small for the screens.

The hardest part is seeing if any of the settings will work since within Wasatch you cannot see a clear image to begin with. I cannot keep wasting film to see if a slight setting change will work.

I read this thread and it looked promising until the last post...that option is not available for me.
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/screen-printing/t21217.html

ANY help and guidance would be GREATLY appreciated. I am so lost on this topic. If you need any further details please don't hesitate to ask!!!

Thanks in advance!
Brandon

 

[DonR]

You need to change the setting in Wasatch. Click the gear icon and go to color transforms. If I remember correctly, the halftone settings are on the right side of the window. If you can't find it, PM me your phone # and I will walk you thru it tomorrow.

 

[JantexInks]

As stated above is correct.
But I don't think version 5.3 has the setup gear button. If it doesn't have it, setup is under PRINT, then SETUP.

Wasatch is certainly capable of doing what you want to do, the key with using Illustrator is to make sure you are using Spot Colors so Wasatch can see the separations. If you want 2 screens, you should have 2 spot colors. Provided Wasatch is set up correctly.

Good luck,

 

[gmkws]

I have a client who uninstalled Wasatch software and now they are having the same problem, halftones are printing as a percentage not dots. I went through their profile it all looks ok, what could i be missing?

Thank you