Screen Printing Design

[Muriel Pelley]

TransferExpress has been The Custom Transfer Source since 1990, producing high-quality transfers with the fastest delivery in the industry. One and two-color screen printed transfers ship the next day and apply in as little as 4 seconds with just a heat press.

Use Easy Prints layouts and clip art to create a custom design or upload your own artwork and we'll print that, too.

I would like to bring this to a next level, and that's where I need help. I am looking for a method, where I can easily turn any pictures to screens with different sized holes or different density of holes. This way I could achieve different shades of the same colour within the design (by transferring different amounts of paint).

If you look at printed photos in books or magazines through a magnifying glass or microscope, you will see that they do consist of solid dots in varying sizes and angles. There are no shades in-between, only dots 100% (ON) or 0% (OFF) in the colors yellow, magenta, cyan, and black. By varying the size of the dots of each ink color, all the zillion colors shades in-between are produced.

So, practically, you would need to convert a color-image into black/white in an image editor, then adjust contrast to your wishes, and then export that greyscale image as a printing-raster or printing-screen (I am not sure about the exact terminology), to convert the grey-shades into black dots of varying sizes. In some professional printing softwares, you can also select the desired shape of the dots: square, diamond, circle, and you can select the angle under which they are printed.

I doubt if freeware like Inkscape or GIMP can do this too, because this is a typical professional printing feature, not required for home or office use. But you might find some software, I don't know.

Cam Watt is a Media, Art, and Design teacher who has provided the files to 3D print a screen printing kit, including print frames, a standoff leg, and a squeegee. The kit also includes a detailed tutorial on converting your 2D files to 3D models (STL files.) Once the kit gets printed, Watt also provides instructions on how to use it to reproduce your own design repeatedly. This is a great project: the kit can be printed on any 3D printer with a 6 x 6 " bed, and the end result is durable enough to withstand what is likely to be your enthusiastic use of it! More details on this process can be found in this article

Since 2015, Legendary Screen Printing & Design has created unique screen printing, custom embroidery, and direct-to-film printing for small businesses, school uniforms and teams, sporting events, churches, clothing stores, local bands, and anyone looking for an affordable, eye-catching way to promote their business, brand, or event.

Need help! I am a new user of illustrator. I have been trying my hand at designs on t-shirts. I am having trouble screen printing this shadow (image below). Can anyone help? or is there a tutorial/video I can look at that can help me set up this process. I tried looking up past inquiries on this topic, but to no avail. Thank you

Thank you for your reply. Like I said, I am new at this and may have the terminology reversed. I am strictly designing, but want to transfer the shadow on my monitor to the t-shirt for the printers. I tried screening the shadow but that only came out looking silverfish grey. Does that help any?

There are a few different print methods used for t-shirt printing these days. That's why it is of paramount importance you talk to the t-shirt print vendor now. For instance, there are direct-to-garment inkjet solutions that would have no problem printing a soft shadow. You also have the option of thermal transfer ( depending on the size of the artwork ). Silkscreen printing is the most limited when printing soft shadows ( the screen mesh itself, the shirt fabric, and the type of screen material and press. If you decide on silkscreen, you will need to know the halftone screen frequency and angle best suited for the job and then create a halftone 1-bit Photoshop .tiff or just give your file to the printer and have them output a suitable halftone ( typically Elliptical or Ellipse ) film positive positive.

for screen printing to have to separate the layers/colors. so you will need a layer for each color, you have two tones in that photo, the solid black and the light one of the shadow. so make a layer for each and the screen printer will be able to work with your file.

Thank you for your reply as well. I am creating the images into .png. files in photoshop, therefore do not the images (created in illustrator) now become one static image? How can the printer tell that there are two layers? Again, thank you!

Did you know that your Maker can do more than cut Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV) for making t-shirts? We all know it can do amazing things like cut wood, chipboard, fabric and more. But, by far, my favorite thing to make with my Cricut is professional quality screen printed shirts!

Screen printing is a great alternative to HTV. If you have an Etsy shop or sell t-shirts, screen printing can save you time and money. It's ideal when you are using the same design for multiple shirts, but I still screen print small runs of 1-2 shirts. The quality and feel of a screen printed shirt is why I am hooked on this craft.

If you are new to screen printing, start with my step-by-step guide to screen printing with vinyl. Once you have mastered the process using 1 color of fabric ink, you are ready to screen print multi-color designs. This tutorial will explain how to setup a 2 color design in Design Space. You start by weeding the vinyl, attaching it to the Speedball frame and screen printing the first color. Once it is dry, you will attach the 2nd color design to your screen and screen print color 2. You can repeat this process for as many colors as you would like.

For more details and step-by-step instructions on how to screen print with your Cricut Maker, check out my Intro to Screen Printing with Craft Vinyl course. I walk you through this process step-by-step (with audio) in real time.

It is possible to mix CMYK printing with spot colour printing, although the price will increase, since a screen (or plate) is needed for each CMYK separation, plus each spot colour separation. Personally, in your scenario, I wouldn't mix the two methods. Either stick with CMYK or go down the spot colour route.

It is entirely possible to get something to have the illusion of gold using CMYK only. In the example below (made in Illustrator) I used some gradients, several ellipses and some blurs, to give the illusion of a gold ring. It is also possible to go down the spot colour route with a metallic gold. Obviously, looking at the spot colour version in Illustrator (or whatever software you are using) - you are not going to see the reflective metallic effect on screen.

It might be worth while having your client contact the screen printers for samples of reflective gold finishes - whether it's gold ink, or some other gold effect, to see what they will look like in reality.

Also note that in printing (particularly with CMYK) the colour of material (or substrate) can drastically affect the colour of the inks. In some cases they may need to print a white sub-colour before overprinting it.

I don't have a whole lot of screenprinting experience but a fairly good knowledge of the crafting process (industrial less so). The two places I've printed at mix their own colors. So they'll use CMYK inks among other inks to recreate the required hue, not necessarily Pantone (to be honest I don't even know if Pantone makes inks for silkscreening).

So in your file, what I would do is simply use a Pantone that looks like a golden hue and let your vendor know that this is supposed to be gold (rename the color to "gold", isolate on a layer that you also name "gold", and give them a call). The vendor likely doesn't care if you use a Pantone but it will make things smoother if you use a "spot" color as opposed to a "process" color. You may need to meet with them to see if they have different types of metallic finishes (more or less shiny) and agree on which specific gold is to be used with your client.

As for your worries for overlaying objects, ask your vendor if they take care of the separations or if you need to take care of them. There will likely be some overlap between the two objects but usually the object under will be "knocked out" where the overlaying object is so the two should not interact.

Can you create a design in Lightburn that could be saved and converted to a file type that could then be screen printed? I have only used it to design and save RD files to engrave. However, I need a last minute design created to be screen printed.

Hello, I am looking for resources for the creation of silk-screen printing in four-color printing, and the halftones and patterns are very specific for a good result to be obtained in screen printing, if you can help me how to create a four-color screen printing, many for your attention, regards Eduardo Claros

Which Affinity are you using? Are you wanting to create the design in Affinity and export to a particular file format or are you wanting to print the design directly from Affinity? If you could provide more information we can help you further.

Our streamlined process has you separately reserving the exposure unit to expose screens before reserving the press for printing. If you are borrowing our screens, the project duration is limited to two weeks from beginning exposure through print completion. Immediate reclamation of screens is required to best accommodate all lab users.

Now, THIS is exciting stuff! After doing deconstructed screen printing with randomly created screens, I decided to draw on my last screen, with a syringe. This is a technique I learned in a DSP class with Kerr Grabowski.

Like Gabriele, I decided to add a background color to my efforts. I was aiming for blue-green, but I initially got mostly green. As I slowly added more blue, I pulled screen after screen, resulting in a run of blues and greens.

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