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A Federal Firearms ProgramĬharles Juarros, owner of Ragged Apparel Screen Printing, created this design for a federal law enforcement agency’s firearms program. “Half-toning is a complex process but, when it’s done right, you can successfully create intricate and detailed designs even when you’re working with one to three colors,” Millard says. If you’re working from a photograph, Millard points out that if you create a high level of contrast and brightness, it’ll result in a better half-tone design with texture. We added a creative font to give the design the vintage feel our client wanted.” We used various overlaid effects to bring out the highlights and shadows of the image, and to create a half-tone in one color. “Then, we added vectors to create the design layout. “Our designers Photoshopped this image to pull the subject out of the background,” Millard says. The fire department gave the A&P Master Images team a high-resolution reference image of an original truck and hose used from back in 1901 when the department started. The New Hartford Fire Department wanted a new t-shirt design that also paid homage to their past.
#PRACTICE IMAGE FOR SEPARATION STUDIO PRO#
Pro Tip: “One of the keys to having a great half-tone design is having a great starting image for your designers to work from, especially when small intricate details can make or break a design,” Nuborazek says. “From there, we split the file so it could print as multiple colors that we half-toned into the dot pattern,” she says. The A&P team took the original vector image into Adobe Photoshop and added grunge effects. “We received the image as a reference point, so we recreated it and added effects to give it more depth,” says Hannah Millard, designer. The client wanted a vintage look to their design, without sacrificing the details.
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“Our customer wanted some cool shirts to rep their unit while they train, which transition well into civilian-wear,” says J’nelle T. The Utica, NY-based A&P Master Services team created this cool half-tone t-shirt design for its local police force’s K-9 Unit. That way, you expose yourself and your staff to so many more possibilities when printing half-tones.” Proud of Our K-9 Unit Create screens with different patterns and test them. Mess around with the amount of ink layers you apply. See how they react and examine the look they create. Run your different ink colors through with and without a base. “By doing this, you can learn so much more, so much faster. “Early on in our shop, we did a lot of experimenting with half-tone screens,” Potter says. Pro Tips: When it comes to screen printing half-tones, you can achieve a lot of different looks based on the t-shirt fabric, dot size, type of ink, how many layers of ink you use, and more.
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“Jobs like this allow students at a young age to see their artwork come to life, from being on a piece of paper to printed on a t-shirt they can wear,” says Howard Potter, CEO of A&P Master images. The team at A&P Master Images recreated it to work for screen printing as a one-color, half-tone print. George Elementary School in Verona, NY, created this fun “shoot for the moon artwork” in color.
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We asked shops turning out some of the best half-tone designs to share examples of their work, along with detailed, insider tips to achieving great results.Ī student at John D. Then, you expose a solid stencil on the correct screen, and use printing techniques that lay down precise ink dots to create your half-tone print on a t-shirt. Here’s a quick overview of half-tones if you’re new to the technique: If you want to print great half-tone prints, you need to start with high-quality artwork that you’ve formatted for screen printing. While mastering half-tones does come with a learning curve, it’s worth it, as you’ll wow your customers and attract new ones to your shop. In your printing print shop, half-tone screen printing can open up lots of new opportunities for very detailed, photo-realistic prints.
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