The Works Section.

Many would not agree that the tricks of the trade should be shared, or even disclosed to others. Interprint differs. We believe in sharing our trade secrets. We believe in our work and are assured that our clients would also prefer our work to speak rather than presentations.

This section merely stresses on the aspect Of SCREEN PRINTING ; HOW IS IT DONE ; TIPS AND CARE

If our section teaches someone to be better, we would consider that as a compliment.

Screen Printing . How is it Done ?

Once art is designed for the project, it is color separated and sent to film. Each color in the design will be burned (like exposing a photograph) to a separate screen.

When art is color separated, each color in the design is printed in black to a separate sheet of paper. (Separations can also be shot directly to film.) Sometimes the separations overlap (trap) slightly where the colors are touching

Color separations printed to paper are considered camera ready. Many companies have color seps on paper made of their logos (ad slicks). Most of the time, ad slicks can be used for the screenprinting job at hand. Sometimes color separations produced for a different project will not work for the particular job in question. In that case, our creative department can help.

The screen is prepared by coating it with light sensitive emulsion. Then it is exposed (burned) by shooting light through the film to the screen.

After the screen is burned, the image resulting is washed away. The final product is a grid of open screen in the image area and closed screen everywhere else.

The burned screens are registered (lined up with respect to each other) on the press. A squeegee and ink are added, and the printing is ready to begin.

The squeegee is pulled across the screen, pushing the ink through the open holes of the image. The colors are printed one on top of another.
 
 

TIPS
Due to the unstable nature of cloth versus paper screen printing garments can't reproduce fine detail with the same resolution as offset printing. Apply your creativity with this fundamental consideration in mind. Use those thin lines and dense details sparingly. We recommend creating your screened artwork at 50-55 lines per inch, 65 lpi maximum. 
Half tones should be kept between 12% and 88%. Higher than 88% and dot gain will cause your shading to fill in, below 12% and the dots tend to drop out completely. 
You should expect that there will be a 30-40% dot gain when printing on fabric, shading should be lightened accordingly. 

If you are creating your own color separations (spot color only), confirm that each layer lines up properly. Each area of color should register cleanly with those areas bordering it (no "trap"). Represent each separate color layer with a black image on a white background, include registration marks for alignment. 

When printing on dark garments allow for an extra separation layer or "underbase". Colors will not show up well on dark fabric unless this white layer is applied first. 

Clean, dark black pen & ink artwork is fine. 

If you are laser printing separations, pre shrink your paper or vellum. You may do this by running the pages pages through your printer with no image, the fusion roller will heat and shrink them. This will minimize subsequent shrinkage and distortion as each separation is printed. 

Double check that your color assignments and layering will produce the intended results. 

Scale your image to fit the printable area of the intended press. Our standard image size is 13" x 13", with a max. image size of 16" x 17".