What have you printed lately?

[Doug S]

Here is one that I was informed we had to print for tomorrow at the last minute.  Thank God, I had just retensioned yesterday evening so this morning I got to the shop at 4:45 and started degreasing, drying, coating, drying and then to printing screens.  We printed this 8 color, dissolved, degreased and recoated for another 8 color simulated Monday.  It's nothing spectacular but I was proud everything went so smooth. 

[Dottonedan]

Wowzers!  Doug, that's fantastic!  I like the look. Seems as if all seps worked together just perfect.

[Doug S]

Thank you!  I was just lucky that this print went on natural color gildans so I didn't need a highlight white. 

[Prince Art]

That's a cool design, and well executed. Unusual to have the "watercolor" look in the background, and crisp foreground. The dimensionality really comes through in the print.

[Doug S]

Thank you!

[dirkdiggler]

One from today, art and seps by us.

[DannyGruninger]

Looks great dirk!

Nice colors there, how many screens what that?

[Doug S]

SaWEET Dirk!

[dirkdiggler]

Looks great dirk!

Nice colors there, how many screens what that?

8 screens!

[Atownsend]

7 Screens, index color via Ultra Seps. Could have been 6 if I put more work into the sep, but this had to get out the door! Im happy!

[Dottonedan]

Great job Aaron,

Nice call on the index approach.

[Doug S]

Nice print!  I’m going to have to read up so I’ll even know what index printing is and when to use it.

[Atownsend]

Nice print!  I’m going to have to read up so I’ll even know what index printing is and when to use it.

An index separation just separates out the pixels of each individual color. So each channel is 100%K, no halftones other than in the base. This image was very grainy to start with so I think if we went sim process some of the colors would have probably muddied up and been difficult to control. Index has always been pretty accurate for us, but you do usually need a decent # of screens to get there. Although a one color index can be interesting as well! Just don't ever resize them!

[Doug S]

Thanks for the info.  I get it now

[Colin]

To expand a touch on indexing

when you index a design:  You are - in essence - turning the image into a multi color bitmap.  Photoshop gets to decide where the colors you chose go and how they will combine.  You need to make adjustments either to you image or to your seps to clean it all up.

You can turn index seps into a sim-process like print, but you need to understand color fairly well to get away with it.

When a index design is started all the dots are square and are butt fit right next to each other.  NO overlapping will happen unless you choose and create any.  The dot size is directly related to your image resolution.  One dot = 1 pixel.

Its no a bad option when pressed for time and the colors are simple with very little real blending.

As for blends - photoshop has a bad habit of creating whats called "worm" patterns when it tries to blend 2 colors (or more) together.  So you need to make selections and add 6%-ish noise to it to make the blends cleaner...

I want to say John Lean had - has? - a really good tut up for starting off with index seps.  But the last time i looked at that was like 10+ years ago.  Someone else posted a really nice tut based around a nascar design that showed you how to break things down and clean up the image.  Anyone remember that?