# Need 2nd opinion on these transfer halftones



## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

Pics
1. Customer sample
2. My art, 66% opacity in CD (33% ink)
3. Transfers I received




























I haven't shown the customer yet or talked to the transfer maker, looking to get opinions first. I know what they are going to say, that's the artwork I sent but clearly that doesn't resemble the coverage of the artwork I sent.


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

Called the vendor today at 3:57pm EST, left a message, no call back today. I stopped using this company years ago because on the rare occasion I needed to speak to a live human being it was impossible and they never returned calls. Sent pictures to the customer and they are fine with it. But I still want to discuss it with the vendor to avoid this issue in the future. It looks to me that maybe they reversed the halftone and made it 33% opacity instead of 66%. I did email this company and ask them ahead of time exactly how they wanted me to set up the halftone -- they asked for it to be a gradient or tint so I used the transparency tool to make a tint. Did I screw up?


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

30+ hours, no call back from vendor. Tomorrow I will send an email.


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

Almost 48 hours, no call back. I sent an email this morning and got an automated reply the person is out of the office and someone else will respond to my email. 

I've given them plenty of opportunity to respond. As that guy on the radio calls it, "customer no-service."
Company is F&M Transfers.


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

Heh, well after posting the company name here I promptly received a phone call (which I missed because of dinner) and an email that mentioned they didn't receive my phone message. We are sorting things out. If anyone is interested I will post the the results.


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## NBG (Feb 1, 2015)

Why did you have used "66% opacity" instead of 100% grey ink?


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

NBG said:


> Why did you have used "66% opacity" instead of 100% grey ink?


Because it's a halftone (dots), not grey ink. 66% opacity means that 2/3 the area is open/unprinted. 


Update, they accepted the blame and offered to reprint but the customer already accepted them as-is so I didn't need a reprint. We came to an alternate arrangement. All's well that ends well I suppose. I will definitely use them again for solid prints. I would like to have gotten feedback from others here about their experience with halftones.


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## xfuture (Oct 4, 2014)

Why are you wasting your time on transfers and the manual labor side of things? 

It is always cheaper to sub out to screen printing companies and make your profit margins in between. 

For example if someone ordered 100 1 color shirts 12 in. wide artwork and no ability to gang art. Could you quote them $.50 cents a shirt? 

I doubt it, BUT you could get them screen printed for that. ... make the money in between and do none of the work!


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## artlife (Jan 15, 2010)

wormil said:


> Called the vendor today at 3:57pm EST, left a message, no call back today. I stopped using this company years ago because on the rare occasion I needed to speak to a live human being it was impossible and they never returned calls. Sent pictures to the customer and they are fine with it. But I still want to discuss it with the vendor to avoid this issue in the future. It looks to me that maybe they reversed the halftone and made it 33% opacity instead of 66%. I did email this company and ask them ahead of time exactly how they wanted me to set up the halftone -- they asked for it to be a gradient or tint so I used the transparency tool to make a tint. Did I screw up?


"they asked for it to be a gradient or tint"
That means NO transparency. 

Transparency sometimes generates unexpected results. For instance in CorelDraw if I want to print 66% I make it 33% transparent. In Illustrator if you want to print 66% then you set 66% opacity. If you are making art for screen print use percentages of the color rather than the transparency tool.


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

xfuture said:


> Why are you wasting your time on transfers and the manual labor side of things?
> 
> It is always cheaper to sub out to screen printing companies and make your profit margins in between.
> 
> ...


Are you offering to provide contract printing @ 50 cents per shirt? Send me a price list, I sub out lots of printing. Most of the time it is cheaper to sub it out and I much prefer that, but this time the transfers were a better option and cheaper than any of my subs.


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## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

artlife said:


> If you are making art for screen print use percentages of the color rather than the transparency tool.


Thanks, I will remember that. 
Is a fountain fill the same as percentage of color when talking about gradients? That's the only other way I know to make a gradient without using transparency.


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## artlife (Jan 15, 2010)

wormil said:


> Thanks, I will remember that.
> Is a fountain fill the same as percentage of color when talking about gradients? That's the only other way I know to make a gradient without using transparency.


Illustrator calls them gradients (a blend from one color to a second color or different percentages of the same color) CorelDraw used to call it fountain fill, newer version is Interactive Fill.


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