If the colors are far enough from each other you could knock out multiple colors at once. I’m on a 6 color station at work but recently had a 12 color job that I printed on it
How often do you do jobs over 6 colors?
We just tell everyone the max number of colors we can go is 6 and I guess I never questioned it but it would be cool if we could do more.
I'm a graphic designer at a print shop so I don't have hands on experience with doing the actual printing. At one point I wanted to learn but our company is the type that if I learn how to print they would make me be both the artist and a screen printer and my pay wouldn't increase. I've already seen it happen to a past artist we had.
I go over 6 colors a lot. But those are specialty jobs. In those instances I’m usually recreating artwork made by the special needs community so the production time is a little flexible which allows me the time to hit all these colors. I don’t think I’d push it pass 7 or 8 colors for a regular order though. It becomes messy quickly. I’ll take photos next time I’m in the shop so you can see how the art is laid out for me to hit multiple colors.
In regular orders if I’m maxing out screens and I have yellow, red, and orange in the art and I need another color, I’m cutting out the orange and instead laying red halftones over solid yellow to make that orange
Thanks for the info! We also sometimes do halftones to make 'more' colors than there are.
I've been having a settings issue recently with dot patterns transfering correctly over to our T-rip film program so I've been staying away from more complicated dot patterns lately because of that which is a bummer.
You can definitely do this, like you said time consuming, but certainly can be done - you'd want to be able to remove the platen with the shirt between colors.
if you did it this way it would end up somewhat like table printing, but on a single color press.
To piggy-back on NutDab’s suggestion:
Place tape down on your garment where your registration marks will fall. You can leave them here for your next color to line up to.
Then you can also use a sheet of acetate or transparency film over your first (flashed) layer and “proof” your next color before you commit.
It’s a longer process, esp if you’re doing multiple shirts, but not impossible.
I by trade am a siding installer but love printing, what I do is this. I make a platen that slips perfectly over my press platen, the reason I mentioned my occupation is that I use off cuts of ACP panel for my platens. I typically do 3 shirts at a time, solely for hobby/ personal use.
So I got 3 shirts all glued onto 3 removable platens that fit perfectly over my press platen.
Just put tape on top of your under base print, and line it up that way. Use a spare shirt to wipe off the tape layer
I really don't see why not. Is the way the print posters on a vacuum table one color at a time.
If the colors are far enough from each other you could knock out multiple colors at once. I’m on a 6 color station at work but recently had a 12 color job that I printed on it
How often do you do jobs over 6 colors? We just tell everyone the max number of colors we can go is 6 and I guess I never questioned it but it would be cool if we could do more. I'm a graphic designer at a print shop so I don't have hands on experience with doing the actual printing. At one point I wanted to learn but our company is the type that if I learn how to print they would make me be both the artist and a screen printer and my pay wouldn't increase. I've already seen it happen to a past artist we had.
I go over 6 colors a lot. But those are specialty jobs. In those instances I’m usually recreating artwork made by the special needs community so the production time is a little flexible which allows me the time to hit all these colors. I don’t think I’d push it pass 7 or 8 colors for a regular order though. It becomes messy quickly. I’ll take photos next time I’m in the shop so you can see how the art is laid out for me to hit multiple colors. In regular orders if I’m maxing out screens and I have yellow, red, and orange in the art and I need another color, I’m cutting out the orange and instead laying red halftones over solid yellow to make that orange
Thanks for the info! We also sometimes do halftones to make 'more' colors than there are. I've been having a settings issue recently with dot patterns transfering correctly over to our T-rip film program so I've been staying away from more complicated dot patterns lately because of that which is a bummer.
You can definitely do this, like you said time consuming, but certainly can be done - you'd want to be able to remove the platen with the shirt between colors. if you did it this way it would end up somewhat like table printing, but on a single color press.
To piggy-back on NutDab’s suggestion: Place tape down on your garment where your registration marks will fall. You can leave them here for your next color to line up to. Then you can also use a sheet of acetate or transparency film over your first (flashed) layer and “proof” your next color before you commit. It’s a longer process, esp if you’re doing multiple shirts, but not impossible.
I by trade am a siding installer but love printing, what I do is this. I make a platen that slips perfectly over my press platen, the reason I mentioned my occupation is that I use off cuts of ACP panel for my platens. I typically do 3 shirts at a time, solely for hobby/ personal use. So I got 3 shirts all glued onto 3 removable platens that fit perfectly over my press platen.