# screen printing halftones white on black



## Bigbaby (Mar 3, 2008)

Howdy folks, still working on my first job, and it just happens to be halftones. I don't have a rip, i'm using photoshop cs3. It's a white print on black tee. My question is that the darkest part of the image (the black) doesn't need ink because it's black and the shirt is black if that makes any sense at all. How do I print the haltones image without the blackest part??


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## mgatechcameroon (Jan 30, 2008)

welcome home bigbaby, well if you want to do white print on a dark shirt then you will most likely be printing only a base image which is an inverse of your original art work or image, when you invert the image the darker part will show through and lighter parts will print white or gray which means you are printing only white and the black will come from the shirt color. have fun.


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## Bigbaby (Mar 3, 2008)

Thanx sooo much!!!


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## red514 (Jul 21, 2009)

here's a good thread you should check out. It explains how to create halftones without needing a RIP
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/screen-printing/t88694.html


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## tpitman (Jul 30, 2007)

Not to be a contrary, but simply inverting the grayscale image will not give you a very good reproduction. I found this out when printing a white on navy job. It's really difficult to look at an inverted grayscale image on your computer and visualize how it's going to look on the shirt when printed with white ink. What I found works well is to first, make a clipping path or create a mask for the background OR the part of the photo you want to print (unless you're printing the square photo with subject, background and everything). Change the grayscale photo to multichannel mode. Invert the resulting black channel, then double click it in the palette, change the color to white in the color picker and the opacity to 100%, and rename it White Ink. Take the mask or clipping path you made and get rid of the background around the image you want to print. Make a new channel, calling it Black Shirt, and making the color black at 100%. Then fill that channel with black. Move the Black Shirt Channel to the top, with the White Ink channel below it. Now, while in the White Ink channel, use the Levels tool under Image/Adjustments to modify the image for the look you want.
I found that simply inverting a grayscale photo gave me a print with very little contrast and too much white ink in all the wrong place. It happened to be a photo of a black kid, which added the complexity of getting decent skin tones of a dark-complexioned subject. The version where I just inverted the grayscale photo made the kid look like a black kid in whiteface. When I did it as a multi-channel file with the white ink channel on a black shirt channel, I could see how it would look modifying the levels in the white ink channel instead of guessing what an inverted photo would look like printed with white ink on a black shirt.


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## mgatechcameroon (Jan 30, 2008)

hello tpiman nice reading your reply on this topic, i am a black man and bsed in west africa which means most of the photos i print is of black people and to tell you the truth i find it very hard also reproducing photos of white people which makes the whole theory very very interesting, what you have mentioned works for you , but what i have discribed works for me the majority of the times with little adjustment. well what i have discovered in this industry is that what worked for A might not work for B , finally i will advice most screen printers to always use a separation software to do their jobs because once properly mastered works better than wasting time doing trial and error.


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## 211chucky (Mar 23, 2010)

tpitman said:


> Not to be a contrary, but simply inverting the grayscale image will not give you a very good reproduction. I found this out when printing a white on navy job. It's really difficult to look at an inverted grayscale image on your computer and visualize how it's going to look on the shirt when printed with white ink. What I found works well is to first, make a clipping path or create a mask for the background OR the part of the photo you want to print (unless you're printing the square photo with subject, background and everything). Change the grayscale photo to multichannel mode. Invert the resulting black channel, then double click it in the palette, change the color to white in the color picker and the opacity to 100%, and rename it White Ink. Take the mask or clipping path you made and get rid of the background around the image you want to print. Make a new channel, calling it Black Shirt, and making the color black at 100%. Then fill that channel with black. Move the Black Shirt Channel to the top, with the White Ink channel below it. Now, while in the White Ink channel, use the Levels tool under Image/Adjustments to modify the image for the look you want.
> I found that simply inverting a grayscale photo gave me a print with very little contrast and too much white ink in all the wrong place. It happened to be a photo of a black kid, which added the complexity of getting decent skin tones of a dark-complexioned subject. The version where I just inverted the grayscale photo made the kid look like a black kid in whiteface. When I did it as a multi-channel file with the white ink channel on a black shirt channel, I could see how it would look modifying the levels in the white ink channel instead of guessing what an inverted photo would look like printed with white ink on a black shirt.


im trying to follow your tutorial on the inverting an image. i cant seem to follow. i tried to do what you said but couldnt figure out how to make the multiple channels. i am not even sure if this is an image that needs to be inverted but if i could figure this out it would be a big job for me. the last person that did it did a very bad job so i want to get it right. any help would be awesome.


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## threadbirdy (Dec 4, 2010)

211chucky said:


> i tried to do what you said but couldnt figure out how to make the multiple channels.


I think you can just change the image to grayscale getting rid of all the colour info then change the colour mode back to rgb.


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