[billyF]

What I am trying to do is transform pictures to artwork that can be burned to be printed. Usually I play with the Brightness/Contrast and/or threshold till I sorta get what I want. But that is the best that I get is sort of. I don't know what the title or name for this procedure (?) is. I don't mind doing my own foot work to track down how to's and so forth but I cannot seem to put together a series of words to bring up even remotely useable search results. I have spent the last 6 years learning how to print properly. Now I would like to do the same in the graphics dept. I am only doing one color at the moment as I only have one color press. So I'm not trying to seperate colors or anything. Any help would be super appreciated.
Thanks

 

[AdvancedArtist]

What I am trying to do is transform pictures to artwork that can be burned to be printed. Usually I play with the Brightness/Contrast and/or threshold till I sorta get what I want. But that is the best that I get is sort of. I don't know what the title or name for this procedure (?) is. I don't mind doing my own foot work to track down how to's and so forth but I cannot seem to put together a series of words to bring up even remotely useable search results. I have spent the last 6 years learning how to print properly. Now I would like to do the same in the graphics dept. I am only doing one color at the moment as I only have one color press. So I'm not trying to seperate colors or anything. Any help would be super appreciated.
Thanks

Billy what software are you using? And welcome to t-shirt forums!

 

[billyF]

Thankyou for the welcome.
I have Corel Draw X5, Photoshop Cs4, and Paint Shop Pro 7. PSP7 is the only one I have any experience with. I am eager to learn anything new though.

 

[MotoskinGraphix]

I think you are wanting to do halftones.

 

[AdvancedArtist]

Thankyou for the welcome.
I have Corel Draw X5, Photoshop Cs4, and Paint Shop Pro 7. PSP7 is the only one I have any experience with. I am eager to learn anything new though.

Can you post a sample image here and maybe a tshirt that has the look or effect you are trying to accomplish. Just so we can clear and provide a good answer here in the forums.

 

[LB]

Billy:
You have the software you need for editing and manipulating pictures (photographs)...Photoshop CS4 is the state of the art program. Just a suggestion, get you some solid training on PS. It is a insanely powerful program and you will be amazed at what you can create with it.
Corel X5 and companion program Corel Photopaint is very good too, but imo can't hold a candle to PS when it comes to manipulating bitmap images. I am a Corel user and really like it, but I also believe in using the right tools for the task at hand.

 

[billyF]

Image 1

Image 2

Here are two that show what I mean. How it is more of a photo instead of a stencil. Is this done using halftones?

 

[MotoskinGraphix]

Image 1

Image 2

Here are two that show what I mean. How it is more of a photo instead of a stencil. Is this done using halftones?

Yes, it is done with halftones if screen printing.

 

[billyF]

If you were to print that design, Is the image of the car as it is be what you would print to transparency to burn to a screen?

 

[MotoskinGraphix]

If you were to print that design, Is the image of the car as it is be what you would print to transparency to burn to a screen?

A halftone is what you would burn to a screen to get a continuous tone image. This image would be for black ink on a white tee. The image would be inverted for white ink on a black tee.

 

[billyF]

I never considered inverting. But if it wasn't invert it would look like a negative when it was printed on dark. Thats bizarre. So when dealing with halftones do you have to burn one screen for light and one for dark? I'm thinking then that unless a design is a flat stencil then this may be the case when not only dealing with halftones.

 

[MotoskinGraphix]

Inverted if you are printing white on black. Positive if you are printing color on white. White can be an underbase on a black tee.

 

[billyF]

Thanks for all the help! This answered my question spot on! Now just to play with it a little bit and see what I come up with.

 

[MotoskinGraphix]

What graphics app. are you using?

 

[billyF]

I've been using Photoshop Cs4 as I've used it a bit. I have Corel Draw x5 but haven't played with it much.

 

[MotoskinGraphix]

Load your photo into PS. Hit image mode grayscale and then adjust contrast. Hit image mode bitmap, method halftone screen, resolution 300 and a new window will appear. the halftone window will let you set your LPI, angle and dot shape (elipse).

 

[billyF]

This is great! Sorry for the lapse in response, I work 3rd's. Is there any sort of equation to figure out LPI & Frequency?

Actually looking around the forums I found a post that said the most you would want to go is 1/6 your mesh count. Is this pretty par for the course or can you go lower?

What I'm curious about is printing white on black. All the screens I have are 110 mesh. Should I get higher count screens and still be able to print white?

 

[MotoskinGraphix]

Yes there is a formula. I believe it is divide your mesh count by 4 or 4.5.