This one may seem silly- clearing ink versus trapping art

[andyandtobie]

Thanks to everyone for helping me with my last rookie question, so at the risk of seeming too greedy, here's another one.  I actually should've asked this one a long time ago, so now it seems even more dumb since I didn't ask earlier.

Okay- so let's say I've separated a multiple color job, with a solid white base, several colors, and a black keyline to go on top of the whole thing.  So, I've been choking the white by a few pixels so that it's trapped under the black keyline.  White goes down with a couple of strokes through a 225S, either as two strokes and a flash, or as a tedious p/f/p/f maneuver (thereby reminding myself that I'm still a rookie).  Then it comes time to lay down the colors with as little pressure as possible so that they don't dot gain (as per my last post).  Finally I print the black on top, but since the white is choked under the black keyline, those few pixels-worth of black that extend past the edge of the white just hang in the screen and it starts to build up, since it can't transfer to the shirt without adding more pressure, "squishing" the print and blowing out the image with dot gain.  Am I just being a knucklehead and missing something?

[Printficient]

As a rule you should cut out the black from your underlay.  Print the black directly on the garment.

[Doug S]

I'm with Sonny on that one unless I'm creating a gray using a white under black.

[Frog]

Andy, you mentioned choking the white base so that it's trapped under the black keyline, but aren't you actually choking it to help registration with the overlay colors?
Then, does your black extend over these colors a tad. but is mostly going on bare fabric?
I don't understand your problem with clearing the ink in those areas (of course, neither do you, hence your last two threads)

The other suggestion that I can make is a very general one. The times that you do clear the screen, whether from more pressure, more strokes different angle, or whatever voodoo you may try, you mention that you get dot gain.
Is this quantifiable and fairly consistent?
Can you compensate in your artwork?

We all get a certain degree of dot gain.

[andyandtobie]

Thanks guys.  I know I'm being a little obnoxious, but I do appreciate you all taking time to look at this.  I hadn't ever thought about putting the black down first, but I suspect that would be difficult until I can figure out how to make better art.  I'll attach a photo of a typical shirt that I ran a couple years ago.  Since I'm not much of a painter, I rely on the black keyline to make the image clear and provide detail, and also to create some of the shadows in the separation.  You can see that the pickup in the background does not have a keyline, to push it towards the back, but I still have black halftones in the shadows.  Also, I've made a very crude diagram of the problem I'm talking about.  It's not the best, but maybe it'll make sense to someone.  Thanks again!

[ZooCity]

I know just what your talking about. The elevated area of flashed ink frustrates your ability to eject the ink into the canyon you've created.  Leads to printing slowwww strokes with too much pressure in an attempt to clear the image which makes everything a little worse of course.

Try printing the black earlier in sequence, doesn't necessarily have to be first, but definitely before your hilite white in this case.  Use the hilite to trap out and clean up the image v. the black in a case like this.

Some like to hit black before the ub, saving a flash.  I like that, in theory.  In practice, especially with quartz flashes and various blend Ts, the black absorbs heat so much faster than the ub white that you are incinerating the black/shirt before that white ink will gel.

Another trick that may help is placing gutters in your underbase so that your top colors fall into them v. butting up against each other.  This can ease your issue a little as well, less of a sharp canyon wall to the ink, more of a slope.  Guttering a ub can take up some time in prepress however and there's a fine line to too wide or narrow of a gutter. 

[Squeegie]

I would knock out any base white that is printing under the black in my shop.
Also, I just might print the black first, depends on the image though. But this still requires the base be knocked out of the key line ares.

Brest of luck.

[ScreenFoo]

Although it's what many would call a 'band-aid' solution, you can print the black first and spot it, then print ubase and top colors as you're talking about, then when you drop black again you don't have to push so hard to clear.

It means the black will more likely be glossy after curing, so be mindful of that if you're picky on finish.

[andyandtobie]

Thanks, guys!  I appreciate everyone taking the time to help me out with this.  I'm starting to get the feeling that maybe I just need to be trapping less in the first place.  Zoocity, one of these days I should drive a couple hours over to your town and try to bribe you into letting me see your magical shop that I always read about- though I can't imagine you'd have time for tourists.

[ZooCity]

Lewiston eh?  Come on over anytime and I'll give you the nickel tour of this nightmare.

Also,  I misread the question- print black to shirt is the main solution.

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