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Lack
of print head for highlight white, how…?
Lack
of print head and you want the highlight print head reserve for another
color to increase the color richness of your design. If
you don't print highlight white, most probably you're going
to face,
2 problems if you're printing dark color t-shirt,
1 problem if you're printing light color shirt.
No problem after reading this page.
The
problems are :
1st > Highlight portions look dull, covered by color ink.
The design looks less interesting.
2nd > The white underbase lack of coverage to completely cover
the t-shirt's color (when printing on dark t-shirts).
Don't
worry, you can still produce good result without a highlight white with
only couple of minor adjustment.
To
fix the 1st problem, we have to give more exposure to the underbase
white. In other words, don't let colors/inks cover the highlight portions
of the underbase white.
Here
is the tricks. During Index separation process, pick
a few extremely bright color very near to pure white (R=255,
G=255, B=255) within the highlight portions after choosing all the index
colors. These bright colors are seen as similar as white if you don't
see carefully, the Info palette will tell you they are not pure white.
After finishing separation process (we are now at Index Mode), goto
Mode
> Color Table... (for Photoshop 3.0)
Image > Mode > Color Table... (for Photoshop 5.0)
select/drag
all the "white boxes", convert into pure white (R=255,
G=255, B=255). You have just expanded the white portions to let more
exposure to the white underbase.
You
won't have much adjustment to do if your image was well adjusted in
advance. Related topic : Image retouching & enhancing, how to…?
To
fix the white underbase coverage problem, add a small amount of
5% - 10% of puff natural to the underbase white, just enough to enhance
the cover ability (coverage).
| Experience
to share : I used 100 m.c/cm mesh to print white base with
5% - 10% puff natural added in printing dark/black shirt. The
result, I have softer hand-feel due to the increase of mesh count,
but I didn't sacrify the ink coverage ability due to the small
percentage of puff added. [take note : always refer to your ink
supplier or manufacturer guide before doing any mixture of ink
for production.]
As the result,
I used 100 mesh count for all colors and the result was amazing.
Therefore, I carried along the "one mesh count" habit
till today when printing indexed separated designs. I set mesh
count as my dummy and make other variables (ink opacity &
viscocity, squeeze angle & speed) change from design to design.
T-shirt printing
is an art, I'm sure you have your own style as well.
extra tips
: Always keep the viscocity of the ink very low if the
underbase white area of the particular color is good enough to
bring out the brightness and saturation (color richness) of the
ink/color. The
purpose is to reduce the ink resistance to squeeze pressure and
maximize printability, also to reduce ink deposit to the t-shirts
as well. |
*
Sometimes, highlight white will decrease the number of color to print
because highlight white as a "lightening agent" will generate
multiple light color by mixing itself with the primary colos printed.
Therefore, you don't have to print multiple light color with more separate
screens.
Article by : John Lean
john@teedesign.com
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