I needs screenprinting advice

[Raoul Duke]

I guess this stuff doesn't necessarily count as graphic design technically. Right now I'm in the works of making posters, T-shirts, hats and other screenprinted goods. I have found it difficult to find a good way to separate tone. If anybody has any experience in this department I will be eternally grateful. This being crit week brutal honesty is encouraged.

[Diarum]

can't see the pictures

[thespirals]

this is THE best forum for screenprinting advice EVER, there's tons of pros there who have been doing it for years and so much information your eyeballs will pop out
http://www.gigposters.com/forums/screenprinting/

not sure what you mean by tone, do you mean halftones, or cmyk seperations?

[Raoul Duke]

Thanks Spirals. I'll have to spend some time there.

can't see the pictures

Neither Can I!

[kab]

You say that you are making these goods, are you printing them yourself and do you have any experience doing so?

Gigposters is without question the best place to learn and get advice with any questions you might have regarding screenprinting, however, being that most people there are experienced professionals they have very limited patience for people who refuse to listen to advice and can't use the search button.

They pride themselves in being tough on noobs and the inside jokes are never ending, therefore I reccomend that you read some threads and look if your question has been answered before you post. Most importantly, pay the 15$ to go premium and grow a thick skin, otherwise you will get eaten alive and never get any real help.

For separations of pixelart, there are commercially available software, however you can also do it in PS. By converting your image to a indexed color palette you reduce the single tones in your image to a managable number and then it's a matter of picking out each color and compiling your separations. It requires some practice and you will quickly realize that screenprinting is harder than it looks, separations of complex images (getting good halftones and factoring in overprinting) can be very time-consuming.

My name on the GP forums is kim_a, feel free to PM me over there.

[Raoul Duke]

Thanks Kab. I'm pretty damn noob. I was going to have a friend screen print them for me, but now I'm not so sure how I'd market the prints. I haven't signed up for gigposters yet. I did notice that it is not user friendly, but it seems to get some serious user traffic.

[kab]

The place is awesome, but there is a constant influx of lazy people who don't know what they are talking about that ask dumb questions and refuse to follow advice of people who have run printshops for decades and given them free instructions on how to compete with them.

GP is very different from CA, but as long as you do your research and can take advice you'll learn a whole lot. Thing is, you can know a lot about screenprinting, but every image is different and it takes a LOT of trial and error before you can actually DO screenprinting. There are tens if not hundreds of variables ranging from the obvious such as meshcount for your screen and correctly exposing your emulsion to things like varying humidity throwing off your registration. Screenprinting is 90% hard work, experience and troubleshooting skills, 9% preparation and 1% printing, it is fun, but profit doesn't come easy =)

I have a couple of years of experience printing and I've got a decent grasp of the common issues, but I'm still very much new when it comes to color separations and overprinting.

[RoyaltyScreenPrintin]

Good afternoon I am a screen printer that work with color seperation. Your friend that is a screen printer should be experienced in printing this type of "simulated process" because if he is not experienced the print will not come out correctly. Color seperation is tedeous unless you have programs that are pricy. It is a little complicated to explain but youtube, some blogs can explain color process. If you interested I may be able to help you out if you don't want to deal with color seperations. Contact me if you have any questions.