Fades & Half Tones

Hi NC, The "Bitmap>Color Transform>Halftone" doesn't give the right kind of dots for screen printing, Screen Printers like Pure Monochormic dots which are generated by PS and Black & White dialog in corel as you've suggested.

Aleem Ashraf said:

Hi NC, The "Bitmap>Color Transform>Halftone" doesn't give the right kind of dots for screen printing, Screen Printers like Pure Monochormic dots which are generated by PS and Black & White dialog in corel as you've suggested.

Hi Aleem, With all due respect, I have to disagree with you on this one. It totally depends on the type of look you are going for. I didn't want to see all the detail in the original cassette, rather I wanted to create the obvious dot pattern that you see on your monitor.  The dots created using this method, in pure monochrome ( Bitmap>Mode>B/W>Line Art), will actually burn on most types of screens with no problems.  You won't need to do anything special with your postscript device other than output.  No RIP, no angles or line frequencies to worry about, just print the b/w image right to paper or film. In fact, you don't even need a PS printer at all!  You can use a plain old ink jet to make your film.  It's pure black & white now, so everything you see on the screen and in the design will print to film and burn to the screen just as it is.  This addresses fountain (gradient) fills, and shades of gray (or other colors) which screenprinters are rarely able to achieve with decent results.

Will you still see those dots on the finished product? Absolutely! That's the whole point behind my last demo.  It's about the graphic quality of the dots, and being able to see the dot pattern clearly.  This style is quite popular here in the U.S. , and is especially useful when creating more vintage designs. I use the same technique to create dot patterns for traditional printing, or even for web graphics. It may produce a unique effect from what you're used to doing in your business, but trust me, it does work for screenprinting, and gives the artist control over the dot size and look, rather than leaving it in the hands of the screenprinter.  Their vision is rarely ever the same as the artists!  I could even take it a step further and trace it back into b/w vector art! That's what screenprinters really want... Black & White vectors.  If you like, I'll send you a camera ready PDF vector file for you to burn and try it out. You will be amazed at how cool and graphic it looks when you see the image appear just as it is in the example.

I realize there are many other ways to create dot patterns for halftones, as I have previously written about. But not that will produce these same results. It is just one way to create the dot pattern yourself, which you can see on your monitor, a unique look that a screenprinter probably would not make with a PS device.

Is there a way to create different types of "fades/halftones" in ie; Concentric Circles, Parallel Lines, Parallel Wavy Lines, Thin Irregular Lines, Grains Patterns Resembling old steel engravings, Wood Grains, Mezzotint Screen, Linen Texture Screen, Three-Tone Posterization, etc squares or really large halftones for a design effect?  Iv'e seen "Subway" employee t-shirt where they have this effect.  It looks like POP art.  The "Halftone" effect that iv'e tried in the past is always choppy.  Is there a way to create these effects with vector clairity?  (Or close enough for screenprinting.)

Thanks, 
Matt