Screen printing how many colors

Keep a laser gun by you to check up on the platen's temp after each flash. Next he prints the orange and then the yellow, wet-on-wet style.

The end result is magic. You have a five-color print that only needed three colors. Pretty rad, right?

If you have any nifty tricks up your sleeve, we want to know. Tag us in your posts on social media. We'd love to share your sick prints with others on our platforms! Create your account Lost password? First name. Last name. Company Name. Classes Online Classes My Courses. Lastly, pick up the screen and double check that it is centered. Rinse and repeat. After creating the artwork and prepping the screens, it's time to print.

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Previous article Next article. How to Print T-Shirts Apr 10, Sep 29, Looking For A Tax Break? Follow us. Screen printing is when the artist takes each pigment, and drags it across the image-imprinted screen, one at a time, layering the inks in a specific order to get their desired effect. Here's an infographic from shopworks. Multiply that by 9 for a 9-color screen print. It's actually quite a bit of work! Having worked a lot in print, this has become second nature, but if you spend a lot of time working digitally then it won't be quite as simple.

The example you've given uses 9 different inks to create the design. That means that some areas will be screened over or under others with differing dot patterns to achieve certain shades. This is particularly obvious in the red inside of the banner shapes: the red is laid down with the navy blue laid over it as a shading tool. Yes 9 colors are used. Shades or tints of a color don't count as a separate color and additional colors can be created by overlapping two or more colors. Sign up to join this community.

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While all good screen printing begins with good artwork, quality artwork becomes even more important when printing a four color process. In fact, many screen printers will use oversized images to achieve the level of detail they need for these screen printing jobs. First, you will need to make sure your color separation is set to CMYK. You also will need to verify that the cyan, magenta, yellow and black formulations used by your program line up with your inks.

Some ink companies offer plugin files that will sync the colors in your graphics program with their ink colors. The four CMYK colors — cyan, magenta, yellow and black — are combined to create beautiful results with four color process printing.

You also will need to adjust screen angles for each color in the following range: 5 percent for yellow, 55 percent for cyan, 22 percent for magenta and 80 percent for black. The most common line count used for screen printing is Halftone dots need to be set between 15 and 85 percent density.

Finally, the dot shape will have to be adjusted; the elliptical shape is usually used in screen printing, as it works well within the squares created by the screen mesh. In four color process screen printing, the substrate matters. Four color process printing is recommended for light — usually white or cream-colored — garments, as the different color variations do not stand out on dark garments.

However, it is possible to print a good four color process image on a dark substrate with a white underbase, but it is not commonly done. Your chosen substrate should have a tight weave so that the individual dots have a surface on which to print; though you do need to be wary of heavy-duty materials woven of thick threads, as they can interfere with the detail of the half-tone dots. Four color process work is incredibly detailed. Because of that, you will be laying down the finest coating of each ink color, and your screen printing machine setup will reflect that.

Four color process screen printing requires densely woven screens, and most experienced screen printers recommend using mesh count, or even slightly higher. The point weave, or thickness of the mesh, also should be fine — 34 micron is a good rule of thumb for a count screen.

Loose screens budge during printing, rather than snapping cleanly away from the ink, causing blurring and improper color mixing. The screen tension should be around 25 Newtons per square centimeter; screen tension should not be less than 22 or more than