screen printing

[forunna]

anyone know anything about screen printing?
I want to print a firetruck onto tshirts but was told it will cost $200.00 to convert a photo to a suitable format.

Do they just need to be a line drawing?
What applications can do this?
Is it something thats worth trying to do myself or just accept one of their file shots?

[Brown Dog]

gday forunna

I looked into it a little while ago for some humorous t shirts that I designed. Never got further than looking though :rolleyes:

The easiest solution I could find is a DIY kit (http://www.artmaterials.com.au/index.php?cPath=200_2352_2790_2577&osCsid=0b80195031099baabab09cb89209d093) that can be bought from art supply places. They seem to work by using some sort of photo resist method....so I think you would be limited in the type of picture you could use.

There seems to be a few different kits and the prices seem to vary from around $100 upto whatever you wanna spend...depending on how many screens and colours etc you want

cheers
BD:2tsup:

[journeyman Mick]

By my reckoning I've printed over a million T-shirts, so I know a bit about the subject. Artwork for screens can only be........, bugger, I've forgotten the term it's been so long. Anyway your artwork can only be fully positive/negative, solid blocks or lines (ie no pencil shading) Any shading would need to be done with dot tones. Do you just want a single colour print, or do you want black key line and one or more other colours? More colours = more screens plus more work to seperate the colours out of the original artwork. Possibly photoshop or a similar program would allow you to convert a photo to a piece halftone? artwork (I think that's the term). Otherwise if you can get someone to do a line drawing of the truck that would be a good starting point. All the stuff I did was pre-computer, hand drawn artwork and colour seperations cut on rubylith film.

Mick

[Big Shed]

By my reckoning I've printed over a million T-shirts, so I know a bit about the subject. Artwork for screens can only be........, bugger, I've forgotten the term it's been so long. Anyway your artwork can only be fully positive/negative, solid blocks or lines (ie no pencil shading) Any shading would need to be done with dot tones. Do you just want a single colour print, or do you want black key line and one or more other colours? More colours = more screens plus more work to seperate the colours out of the original artwork. Possibly photoshop or a similar program would allow you to convert a photo to a piece halftone? artwork (I think that's the term). Otherwise if you can get someone to do a line drawing of the truck that would be a good starting point. All the stuff I did was pre-computer, hand drawn artwork and colour seperations cut on rubylith film.

Mick

I think tone drop-out is the term you're looking for.

[tea lady]

Are you going into production or just making a few?

You can get a certain amount of tone using the dot screen or random dot filters in Photo shop. Makes an image like the photos in news papers and comic books where you can see the dots if you get up close. So you should be able to use your own photo with a bit of fiddle. (I'll look up exactly what its called if you need. You need photo shop of course, so may make $200 seem reasonable price if you don't have that.)

If you just want one screen The print Gocco system might be the way to go. You can get them to make one for you without having to buy the system. I know a place that does it for ceramics and would work for anything I think.

[forunna]

Thanks guys.
I will go and see my dad, he has photoshop. See if we can reduce it to a black line drawing then see if the printer can use it.
Its for my firebrigade cadets. starting off with a run of 20 then a few each year when new cadets join.
but if the senior members like it they may want a modified one for them too.
There are firetrucks available but they arent OUR firetruck.

[journeyman Mick]

You just have to watch the size of any dotscreen you use as fabric screenprinting is very low resolution compared to other printing methods. Average screen for a water based ink is 34T (34 threads to the cm AFAI can remember) this may be finer if they are using solvent based inks. You really want to keep lines at least 2mm thick or so also as finer detail tends to dry in the screen and get lost.

Mick

[forunna]

ooo, its not easy
just had a play with paint shop pro. can get close with Edge detect but not having muchluck getting any better. will keep playing.

[tea lady]

Try taking photo on really sunny day for high contrast. Not usually recommended for photos but will help in this instance I think, where you actually don't want continuous tone. I was going to suggest in B+W but red comes out dark then I think. Find a back ground with no detail too. Big white wall, or empty car park, so you can isolate truck easier. Hope that helps.:)

[munruben]

anyone know anything about screen printing?
I want to print a firetruck onto tshirts but was told it will cost $200.00 to convert a photo to a suitable format.
Do they just need to be a line drawing?
What applications can do this?
Is it something thats worth trying to do myself or just accept one of their file shots?It can be quite costly to set up with the right equipment. Have you considered iron on transfers. I don't know if they last very long but I did a few of these recently and they look pretty good.. Looks just like a picture on the fabric. Most printers have the function to print out transfer pictures. You just buy a packet of Iron on transfer papers and follow the instructions. Very easy to do. But like I said, I don't know how they stand up to washing etc. or how long they would last. just thought I would run that by you.

[Sebastiaan56]

Munruben is onto a good idea. They are sold commercially by Xerox, take them to a copy shop and get a good laser image printed, reverse onto T-Shirt and you are done, you can do caps and stuff as well. Longevity is not as good as screen printed but its a lot cheaper and easier.

[tea lady]

I've used the iron on transfers to. They are OK but even the so called "dark t-shirt " ones are still pretty seee through. Best on white or light colours.

Another idea, instead of getting the whole set up yourself, is to take your image to a screen printing place. I guess that would be best on a bigger run. Work up you image perhaps and take orders from the cadets and perants and other members so you can get a big order together. Any one who misses out will have to wait for the 2009 t=shirt run.

[bitingmidge]

Or order as required from www.Cafepress.com

You don't need any particularly fancy artwork, they have the specs on the site.

Cheers,

P

[forunna]

Thanks for the thought, but those transfer things go all horrible after about a year. I have had them before. Whereas screen prints last for many years.
and this is going on a dark tshirt too so I dont think it would stand out much.
I might consider donating the cost of setting up the design myself if I cant work it out.
Would be good to work out the technique for future use if I can though.

The shirts are going to be professionally printed, its just setting up the picture that will be costly.

[Master Splinter]

With properly prepared files produced by such as Illustrator or Photoshop - there's no work required on the files; the software used to create the actual printing screen takes care of the fiddly details (such as halftone screening) automatically.

The biggest cost factor will be how many colours are required. Each colour used requires a new screen, with its attendant setup costs.

There's two ways of printing colour - spot colour, or four colour process.

Spot colour is where you have relatively few colours in the image, and good boundaries between them - for example the interlocking yellow and black dovetail glyph, or the blue and red Australian flag in the forum banner would both work well as spot colour.

Four colour process is what you use when you have something with no real edges to a lot of the colour - for example just about every photograph, or the words "Woodwork Forums" in the forum banner - these would both need to be reproduced via four colour process.

If you are supplying finished artwork (in woodies terms, you are giving your finished piece to your spraypainter mate all sanded and prepped so all he needs to do is tack rag it and spray the varnish on) the $200 is probably the makeready cost - the cost of making the screens and setting them up in the screen frame ready to print from.

To me, $200 makeready on a four colour job sounds reasonable ($50 per screen to cover the silkscreen material, the blockout emulsion, and the labor component of putting the screen on the frame, and the frame on the press, and doing registration adjustment so it all prints in the right place, and cleaning everything up when done)

If you are giving them just a picture and asking them to scan it in, add some words, or change the colours or put some fancy effects on it, you are then asking for them to do design work for you as well as screenprinting (this is like expecting your spraypainter mate to dress the timber to finished size, fill holes and sand it to 300 grit for you as well as spraypainting it....) so naturally it will cost.

It's been a while since I've had any screenprinting done; but as I recall if you are looking at short runs (under about 20 tees) the setup costs just don't make it economic - its cheaper to get 10 tees done with a laser transfer process and throw them away as they fade than to pay to get it properly screenprinted.

Note that if you are printing onto a dark colour, you may need to use a few passes of blockout white to put white underneath the image to get the colours to come through correctly.

If you printed the Australian flag from the forum banner on a white tee shirt, its only two colours - red and blue; but if you print it on a black tee shirt, its three (red, blue and white....

Remember the white ink may not be 100% opaque, so it may need two or three passes to even get to 95% opacity before you can put any other colours on it - you'll find a lot of black tees are done with some rubbery sort of ink by a thermal process(??) more like veneering than screenprinting!)

[forunna]

So, what you are saying, Master Splinter, is that its a bit more complicated than the one off screen prints I did back in highschool in art class?
I think we just cut our designs straight out of a piece of poster card then layed the screen over the top of that and squegied away.

[Master Splinter]

The process is basically the same (still the frame and squeegee) for short runs, but the stencil is done by a photographic emulsion unless you really like the idea of cutting out thousands upon thousands of tiny holes in your bit of cardboard if you are doing four colour work...then repeating the process for the other three colours...and getting it in register to a few tenths of a millimeter.

Grab a magnifying glass and look really closely at a full colour picture in a newspaper or magazine; you'll see its made up of lots and lots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black dots (shortened to CMYK (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMYK_color_model) in the print world). This is the amount of detail your stencil needs if you are doing four colour work!

[rrich]

I was going to suggest the iron route also. Here, both HP and Avery offer transfer materials to be used with ink jet printers. (Never seen the Xerox product though.)

I know that there are a couple of community colleges here offer classes in the making of silk screens. Perhaps this is an option in OZ?

Also in tourist areas there are 'Custom' "T" Shirt shops that can print up almost anything on a "T" shirt. You might consider one of these tourist trap shops to get your shirts made. Just be sure to ask for the Resident prices. :D

[tea lady]

You could try contacting a "craft person" rather than a "trady". Someone who does textile design. I would know where to send you in Vic but can't help you in W.A. Is there a craft incubator or some place where a lot of crafts people have studios? Is there a textile design course at a uni over there? They may know where past students have studios. Or, the is "Craft Victaria" over here that would be able to send you somewhere. Is there "Craft West" or something like that? Or go into craft art type shop and read all labels of hand printed tea towels and the like.

[forunna]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
Found a friend of a friend to do the shirts and has offered to do the designing for free.

[tea lady]

Ah! The good ol' friend of friend. They are great aren't they. :2tsup: