Question about CMYK underbase - Level: Newbie

[Prince Art]

Same job I've mentioned before: Printed the design CMYK on white, customer now wants it on black.

Getting ready to create the underbase, about to dig into all the advice/tutorials I've been able to find, and try to create a proper halftoned base. BUT BEFORE I DO... I'm wondering if it's necessary with this design. Because the print is a pattern fill for block letters, would it be safe to simply do a complete white fill under the whole thing (per letter)? Or is there some other appropraite shortcut for something like this? (Not trying to shirk the work, but if a simple approach will work, it'd be nice to know that upfront.)

The pic shows an example of the art.

[zanegun08]

I'm by no means any good at printing CMYK, but generally you can just take the original CMYK image, inverse it, and then adjust your curves and that works as the underbase.

For this a full base would work well, but maybe cut out your blacks from the base unless you are using a real rich black, or second black.

I would use a discharge base if you can as it prints much smoother, and you'll get more consistent results for printing.  Add a highlight white and call it a day.  I think the image looks forgiving for CMYK so it should be pretty straight forward.

[Prince Art]

For this a full base would work well, but maybe cut out your blacks from the base unless you are using a real rich black, or second black.

Are you saying fill everything, then just knockout the entire black screen [out of the white base layer]? That had occurred to me, but I didn't know if there might be negative side effects to that.

[ebscreen]

If the rest of the art is similar it screams sim-process and if the fabric will discharge it screams discharge.

Process has its place but it's very narrow as far as I'm concerned.

[zanegun08]

For this a full base would work well, but maybe cut out your blacks from the base unless you are using a real rich black, or second black.

Are you saying fill everything, then just knockout the entire black screen [out of the white base layer]? That had occurred to me, but I didn't know if there might be negative side effects to that.

Exactly.  If you have room on press I would setup a full under base, and then one with the black knocked out (tone it back so there is some base under the black, only the truly solid blacks are knocked out.

Then you can try both and see what you prefer.  Since it is going on a black shirt, maybe you want some contrast of the black on black and you'll get that better with a full base as it will complete out the shape of the letter.

Ebscreen - he has already printed this CMYK on white, so he wants to print it the "same" but on black.  If it wasn't already printed on white with process, I would recommend going sim process as well.

[Dottonedan]

Same as these guys. I concur.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5j1wWY-qus

Try not to knock out the grey tone of the black (that mixes with the cmy colors for darker shadows.

What I would do is copy the black screen, use curves and burn out the grey tone to down to the most solid areas (and that) is what I would use to delete out of the base, allowing some black (tone) on the real black sep... to still be slightly underbased and mix with color.

[Prince Art]

Thanks guys! I'll be taking this advice & creating the knocked-out underlay, plus a white highlight. Going to give the discharge base a shot, too. This will be our first time working with that, so plastisol will be the backup if we can't get it dialed in fast enough. Even though we're doing this under a bit of time pressure, I'm looking forward to trying something new. Hopefully, we'll come out the other side with a good print, and some new skills.

[redwoodtees]

Same as these guys. I concur.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5j1wWY-qus

I got all excited.. thought that was going to be a tutorial video

Good movie though