Hi guys,

going to screenprint a picture on cardboard using halftones. I got 120T (metric) mesh. Could you help to set up halftones in Photoshop to get finest artwork possible for 120T mesh?

1. What is the best bitmap output resolution?
2. What is the frequency (lines/inch), angle (degrees) and shape? There are many formulas regarding frequency which depends on count of threads on the mesh. What is your opinion in this particular case?

Will appreciate any help. Thank you in advance.

Galzons, Riga, Latvia.

Hey Galzons,

Sorry for the delay, I am a little behind this week due to print work in the shop.

Now I am not a graphic artist so my help may be minimal here. I don’t use bitmap halftones and if you are I am assuming you’re using an older version of Photoshop to output the halftones. If you are talking about a 1 color halftone I use about 45 lpi with either no angle or a 15 degree angle. This article will help more with that:

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/halftone-tips.html

You may use an elliptical dot or a rounded dot. Read the above article carefully as there is very useful information there if you take the time to digest it.

To give any specific advice we would need to see what you are printing, how you want to separate it, and on what color garments will it be printed.

Hi Jonathan,

thank you indeed for your reply. Will try later and let you know how it goes.

Best wishes,

G.

I also have a question regarding lpi output on bitmaps.

If I am in doubt should I always choose a lower LPI than my mesh count can allow? The reason I ask is I think When I went higher once by mistake it ended up giving me a jagged edge.

Also does anyone else experience a problem with text when converting to bitmap? The letters end up with fuzzy edges. I always end up having to bitmap the images only, whilst keeping the text in a vector format and then creating a non bitmap file (psd or PDF) as the final file to output to film.

You should be able to output your film directly from the vector graphic software you use. It sounds like too many steps and conversions could be the problem in rendering film. I work in Illustrator with mostly vector graphics but even when I use an image file I bring it into AI.

I don’t use PS like that so I can’t help much there.

I suppose if you’re generalizing yes, you might use a lower LPI rather than higher if you doubt the mesh will hold the higher resolution halftone.

Thanks for that.

Yeah it's more an issue when I am sent a file that people want to be printed on paper or t-shirts. The file contains both type and imagery but is a flat file. So I need to bit map the image section whilst keeping the text as it was.