# How do you print in Gradient and fading colors?



## dashyblakedoni (Feb 20, 2008)

*Hi im newbie here and in screen printing business. Im into trying a shirt that will hit the market, I want to know if its possible to print a gradient style like this in a shirt? and how to do this? and also the fading effect?*

gradient effect






















Fading effect












Please help me out on this.. I know photoshop so theres no problem in making a design.. what my worries are if its possible to screenprint such designs like that.. tanx a lot..

Note:
This is not my own design.. i just used them for samples so it will be a lot easier for you guys to understand what im saying..

Tanx.. God bless


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## studog79 (Jul 13, 2006)

Even simulated process is using spot colors. There should be no issues screen printing these.


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## dashyblakedoni (Feb 20, 2008)

*tanx guys for spending your time to reply.. actually im still bewildered .. =) i dont know if this is easy to do.. does it have any alternative way to print a image like that? tanx a bunch =)*


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## studog79 (Jul 13, 2006)

It has to start with good art work to make the blends (gradiants) which will print as halftones when you would screen print it.


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## tpitman (Jul 30, 2007)

ImageIt said:


> Screen printing also has a hybrid of spot color and process color called "simulated process", which is what i suspect was used for the shirts posted. With simulated process a program performs the separations. These separations can use a dozen print stations to have enough colors to make the transitions smooth.


Simulated process uses spot colors. The programs that are available to do this will specify certain pantone mixes geared towards their program. You can also do simulated process by converting your color art to a grayscale copy and modifying it in spot channels in Photoshop. There are tutorials on the web that describe the process, and the number of spot colors necessary to produce the design depend on your eye for picking spot colors that will work, and the number you'll need to achieve the degree of fidelity to the original art that you wish. It can be as few as four or five colors, or as many as ten, twelve or more. Obviously, your press will determine the maximum numbers. Dark shirts will require an underbase, and often a highlight white. I recently upgraded my press to 8-colors because of this.

I use a program called QuikSeps, available on Ebay at a discount. There are others such as Wilflex's EasyArt and Screenprinter.net FastFilms, and they all work about the same. They're photoshop plug-ins. They all also pretty much require some tweaking of the channels via the levels control to get what you want. The advantage to these programs is that they whittle the total number of inks you'll use for all jobs down to a manageable number. If you choose to learn to do simulated process seps manually, you'll mix up specific pantone colors for each design. Most of the pros at this do it manually, because (I think) it gives them the most control over the color. The rest of us use the programs. The biggest issue I've had is with moire, and that seems to present itself when I do shirts with large flat areas of tone. I've printed a couple of designs on black shirts that used photos, and had more fussy detail than larger flat fields of color, and they turned out pretty good. Truthfully, if your films (and your press) register, and you can come up with good designs, I think it's easier to print simulated process than solid spot colors on dark shirts. The fact that you're dealing with halftones as opposed to hard edged designs or text with underbases seems to make it easier to register a job and mask any slight registration issue.


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