Think about this. "The fun stuff".

[Dottonedan]

Think about this. How does one get a super fine multi dimensional gray scale image on a black tee? Do you use a 45lpi halftone on a 200 mesh? Some might do something similar. Maybe you use a white and a gray and knock out the black? Maybe you go crazy and do 55 lpi. try working outside the box and do 70-75 line screen on a 350 mesh...but use 4-5 screens to achieve it. This is not a "How Too" for the average black and white photo". I'm talking about fun stuff. Stuff that pushes us to the next level and gets our blood pumping and ready to take on those difficult jobs. That's what this post is about. Think of it like this. The early, well, even today's painters.... Not Corel painter, or digital painters, but "traditional" painters that use real paint will paint in layers. The old masters would start out a painting with washes of thin paint over a pencil drawing and build from there. Photo realism or (less visible dots) on apparel can be approached the same way. Corel Draw and Adobe -Photoshop and Illustrator know that "layers" are important to building a good design and so it is on tees. 350 mesh? Do they make that? Yes. They even make higher mesh...but it's expensive and thin, therefore not as durable. If you can get used to using such a mesh, the results are fantastic. LAYERS. Keep that in mind, because sooner or later someone is going to say "we don't need to use higher than 55-65 lpi halftones because heck, they're tee shirts...and nobodies ever going to get that small of a dot to print on a garment thread!" I've heard that before...and it's true that some weaves do mess with the angle of your line screen and cause an interference, but lets start by asking this. ....If we can't put "that small of a dot|" on a tee shirt, then.....how does a 7 pico-liter ink spray (roughly equivalent to a 1% dot in a 85 line screen) work for DTG on tee shirts? Because it's layered. A single dot or a cluster of dots can indeed fall into the valley of the garment weave and be lost never to see the light of day, but the other thousands laying on top CAN be seen. Many printers (the majority of the industry) has a 6-8 color press (be it manual or auto), Others will have more. Large shops that print retail and licensed images extremely well will have a 14,16-or even a 22 color press so that they can be more versatile in their offerings. With a press like this, you can produce phenomenal work. Take the image below, with a large press, you can apply this printing method that I'm referring to...and improve the image resolution of the photo below x 2. That job below was a 10 color print on a 14 station press. For the rest of us, we can apply this method using our 6 color manual presses (on the right job). The right job might be anything limited in color count, but might be tonal in color or a black and white image that we normally call out as shooting for that "gray scale" black and white photo look. A single 1 color black ink on white tees will give you a decent image (with visible dots) at 45-55 lpi but it does not give you that immense tonal range that is available in an original photo. It seems a little flat, but if we increase the number of dots put down one might think that this will give us more tonal range right? Not exactly. The higher the line count, the more detail is available, but at the same time...this requires a higher mesh and thinner threads...and the ink lay down becomes much lighter. At 70 line screen on a 350 mesh, your solid black areas will be...less than solid black. More like black with some fibers popping though, causing it to look dark gray. This is why some people prefer to use two blacks. One for halftone work where they can print it lighter and the other for type so that can print it heavy (solid). At this point, you might be hanging with me...but you're thinking, "I lose the 5% dots at 55lpi, how am I going to make sure I can hold a 3% dot on a 70 line screen? Well, the answer lay in the mesh or "mesh threads" rather. More to come. [/color][/size][/font]

[sqslabs]

Awesome post, Dan!  Looking forward to reading more.

[1964GN]

I too am looking forward to the next chapter, thanks!

[Different]

This is why some people prefer to use two blacks. One for halftone work where they can print it lighter and the other for type so that can print it heavy (solid). [/color][/size][/font]

I'm glad you mentioned this, Dan.  So many times I run into this with printers that have never used a second black. I acquired a new freelance client who loaded me down with a ton of design work during the slow months. When I sent him the seps, he came back with comments of how his manager and printer scoffed at the way I split the blacks. I asked him to just give it a try. . .   Now 2 months later I am doing most of his complex seps with two blacks when needed!

Nice printing from the pics on your post!

[3Deep]

Good post Dan, I've printed two blacks once or twice to get what your talking about in print, but I think for most of us it's comes down to what a customer is paying for most want the job done as cheap as they can get it.  Hard to get them to spring for two to three blacks and two whites then there is the issue not a big enough press, but I still agree with what your saying....LOL I need high end customer's or just start giving away screens in my case.

[DannyGruninger]

With our shop here, if we have room we run 2 blacks. We don't even bother charging the customer more, why? Because the shirts leave the shop with our name on it and we want it looking as good as possible. If that means 2 blacks then that's what we do. If we print white shirts, 2 blacks is a must for us here. We like our black looking BLACK and the ability to control halftones on a sep screen.....If you have solids + halftones on the same 280/305/330/355 mesh it's damn near impossible getting a really halftone AND solid black. white shirts = 2 blacks no questions asked

[ABuffington]

Linearization is the other key to making great tonal spreads.  Getting accurate tonal values on film to get accurate tonal values on print is no easy task.  Add the different types of shirts out there to the equation and how they react to the tonal values complicates it even further and shows up as the missing dot problem.  Printing on air never shows up!  I am a big fan of adding half tone base to inks as well as splitting grey scale art into duo tones, tri tones to get a smoother blend, light to dark.  The final screen to tighten up the design was often a very high mesh count black screen thinned way down with half tone bases for the very subtle 80-94% dots or a thinned white depending on the dominate or troublesome tonals depending on the art.  So many paths to take, so little time!  2 screen method is a must on high end grayscale w/ solid printing.

Great write up Dan, the more I read this stuff the more I am convinced that good separators who know this stuff are worth every penny. The predictable nature of screen printing is unpredictable the longer I do this and watch one shop create stunning prints while the same seps are butchered in a different shop.  This was always an issue when I worked for Nike.  We may have printed the huge runs in China or Central America but needed a local printer to do hot market items here in LA.  One or the other would do it better, and the retailers couldn't understand the tonal shifts.  In Ink Jet Printing there is an incredible tool in high end rips called JDF.  (Job Definition Format) that can allow a press anywhere in the world to match color on an ad campaign. For screen printers the variables are too great from shop to shop but maybe Shop Definition Format is something that could get us ballpark to be able to match the control sample closer.

One question I have for separators like yourself Dan is have you ever sent the tonal ramp/5% incremental file to printers to have them output the ramp on film and then used a densitometer to see their dot gain and create curves by printer and output type?  Sounds complex but it would be neat if all the files came in pre-curved and customer specific linearized files.  CTS users can do this as well with special densitometers that can read the screens according to my friends at ACTI.