Another cheap customer wanting a miracle one color print.

[Gilligan]

Here is the file.

They want this in gray... I assume the gray they have the text in... which is stupid as the whole print will be extremely muted at best.

I was hoping to do a "here is what you are asking for" mock up, then "here is if we go light gray" and then a here is one done with just white ink.

Of course they want this on a black shirt.

I'm using the Levels function to adjust the output down to make the 100% white = 67% black and then bringing the middle back over to the "new center" to demonstrate how muted it will look (any better ideas there?)

Then, anyway to truly mock up how not great the print will be as a one color?

[Frog]

Run an actual shirt for them.  They'll jump on giving you $50 bucks or so just to see how much you are saving them on a whole job looking bad.

Yeah, I believe that folks are generally noble and honest as well. Look, there's a unicorn!

[mimosatexas]

I would make the text white, flatten, invert, then generate halftones using the bitmap method, then put those as a mid-gray on a black background.  I just did it to your image and it looks like crap, and accurate to how it would print as a one color.  Adding a highlight white, or even doing the whole thing as white would make it very much passable.

[Shanarchy]

As a rule, if it won't look good due to improper artwork, I will not print them. I will also not waste my time showing them how bad it will look. Just a vocal description.

I tell my potential customers "the artwork will not work that way. It will look real bad and I will not do it. I won't feel right taking your money for it, and I don't want my name attached to bad finish product." I will offer them whatever options I can on how we can run it. They will either appreciate my professional opinion and we will make a better artwork/design, or someone else will run the job, make the quick buck and help my shops work look better. In that case the money I did not make by turning that job down is my advertising money.

[Dottonedan]

Try this art file.


1 color.  230 mesh to help provide coverage. 45lpi to help make sure you maintain the 3% dots.
22.5 screen angle, ellipse dot shape.


Use a very light gray (mostly for the bright white area) and let the shirt come thru for the dark tones.
the type is a 10% halftone. Using light gray, that should come visible as a dark gray. If they complain about that, then they need another color.


Is should also have some deeper black areas knocked out to help give it more tone/shape from one end of the spectrum to the other, but the art is not that good once you open it up. (low rez jpg). It looks good if you don't mess with it to open it up, so I'm relying on some dot loss at the smallest ends like 1-3% to help create that. Assuming you won't hold the 1% but it's possible at 45lpi on 230.

[Gilligan]

Cool... I'll check it tomorrow.

Rough day at the shop today... AC was out, got up to 97.

$2,500 later and few favors called into some friends and we are back in business!

[1964GN]

Try this art file.


1 color.  230 mesh to help provide coverage. 45lpi to help make sure you maintain the 3% dots.
22.5 screen angle, ellipse dot shape.


Use a very light gray (mostly for the bright white area) and let the shirt come thru for the dark tones.
the type is a 10% halftone. Using light gray, that should come visible as a dark gray. If they complain about that, then they need another color.


Is should also have some deeper black areas knocked out to help give it more tone/shape from one end of the spectrum to the other, but the art is not that good once you open it up. (low rez jpg). It looks good if you don't mess with it to open it up, so I'm relying on some dot loss at the smallest ends like 1-3% to help create that. Assuming you won't hold the 1% but it's possible at 45lpi on 230.

How did you do this? I would go to Lab, dup the lightness channel, invert, adjust everything as needed, blah blah blah etc... just wondering if you used a different method.

[Sbrem]

Run an actual shirt for them.  They'll jump on giving you $50 bucks or so just to see how much you are saving them on a whole job looking bad.

Yeah, I believe that folks are generally noble and honest as well. Look, there's a unicorn!

I stopped believing that a long time ago. And there's another unicorn, where are they coming from?

Steve

[Gilligan]

Is this a fair enough Representation?

[Dottonedan]

Looks very good for one color. Is that one hit or two?

Is that my file?  The type looks a little heavier (brighter) than the 10% I have you.
Maybe it should have been 6%

[Gilligan]

Lol... My bad.

This is just a digital proof.

It's not printed.  I was just wondering if this would be fair to show a "best case scenario" proof of one color.

Dan, I just used curves to mimic what yours looked like a bit to then convert to bitmap/halftone.

[Prosperi-Tees]

I think it looks too good for a 1 color but then again what do I know lol

[Gilligan]

Ok... they opted for adding a second color... I'm guessing they really want the text to be solid.

I'm trying hard to do this... but any gray I'm adding ends up making it look worse (all just in Photoshop of course).

Any ideas for adding that gray in and ADDING to the image vs subtracting the way I'm doing?

[Gilligan]

Throw me a bone... my artist are great at art... just don't know jack squat about seps... so I have no one to bounce ideas off of.

[kingscreen]

Try this.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61484495/shirtrear2-SEPS.psd