What would you recommend vs this fade to nothing?

[Gilligan]

A friend of mine's band wants some shirts... they send me the art and I inform them that this fade to shirt won't look right.

They want to know what kind of options/limitations we are talking so they can figure out where to go from here.

[ol man]

For the two that print on black -- just adjust your curves/level on you underbase so the over print color print directly on the shirt at  eh "edges" of the fade. "choke the under base" hope that makes sense.

[Homer]

you can do this, if you aren't comfy with the seps, send them to Scott or Dan, we do this all the time, almost every job we run fades to the shirt...it's all in the seps.


ok I give up, what's it say...?

[3Deep]

These bands have some very interesting art, had a guy that did tag art we printed for , always had to ask him what the hell did it say just in case it was something bad and we posted it or hung it up in the shop.

[GraphicDisorder]

Fading to shirt like this is VERY common, most all or work is like this.  Nothing there that can't be printed.  Like Homer said have Dan or Scott do your seps for the first one you do.

[Dottonedan]

I'm trying to grasp why you might think it won't look right. Maybe we are missing some other detail.

It seems to be a typical print. I'd imagine you've done this type of work many times before knowing how long you've been printing. If not, that would be rare and surprising to have never come across needing to do this. That's what leads me to think maybe there might be something we are still missing.

[sqslabs]

I've printed almost this exact same (matrix-esque) style design in the past with 1 color discharge and it came out great.  With no underbase!!

[Gilligan]

What about the black on blue?

[mimosatexas]

I've been doing a lot of work like this lately.  My suggestions are basically in line with what others have already said.

for the black shirts:
choke in your underbase using curves.
expand the glow using curves so it covers the base and about 20-30% more. 
This will depend a lot on the color being printed and dot gain etc.  I recommend testing if possible by making a square, applying a gradient from 100-0 on it, duplicating, then adjusting the curve as suggested (down for base, up for glow).  Do this to different extremes, but tile them on the same two screens.  Print and see what gradient combination looks the best.

For the blue shirt:
use two screens if you want the best outcome, one for the solid black, one for the gradient.  Bring down the curve of the gradient AND adjust it so there is no solid black.  I would start around 75% (depending on your dot gain on press).  This way you can print the gradient with whatever pressure produces the best results while maintaining a rich solid black.  If you have your crap dialed in, you can do this with one screen, but it takes a lot of control over variables.

I would suggest using a discharge base or even two bases on the black shirts so you have finer control over it with less gain etc.  I would also base down your top colors to produce more opacity, which will aid in smoothing the gradient over the unbased areas and into the black.