CMYK Printing

[dirtysqueegee]

Hello All..

I need some help~!! I am printing CMY on a white base, on a royal blue shirt and it is just not coming out right... It is faded/dull. as if the ink is sinking into the white base... I am flashing and using 220 mesh. I have also attempted using discharge base and a discharge white underbase... Still no good!!... Any suggestions would be great!..

[Catspit Productions]

It's really hard to say. Please provide an image of your print and a set up breakdown.

What is the mesh for the under base?
Cyan?
Magenta?
Yellow?
Black?

Squeegee durometer for each?

What is your printing order and method?

[dirtysqueegee]

I am using a 110 mesh for the underbase... but have been told to try a 220 and use a soft hand.

I am using a 220 for the Cyan and Yellow and a 305 for the Magenta there is
no black in the design.
I only have 70 durometer squeegee's
The order is underbase, Yellow, Magenta, Cyan, Highlight
I have tried switching up the order to no avail.

I'm a pusher... so pull to flood then push to print.

I am doing a 5 to 8 second flash after the underbase.

Thanks!

[Catspit Productions]

This design has no apparent halftones I can see. It looks like the yellow is over printing the magenta wet and cyan over prints too. If you want them to create other colors you’ll need to use halftones. Then they will print much better wet like that. Otherwise I would switch to spot color inks and flash them between printing and knock out where they over print. But I’m not really sure of what the final print should look like so I can’t really suggest much.

This is my suggestion on screen mesh and squeegees for a 40 LPI halftone:

White under base - 125 mesh with a 70 durometer squeegee.

Cyan - 200 mesh with a 65 durometer squeegee.

Yellow - 200 mesh with a 65 durometer squeegee.

Black - (if you had it) 200 mesh with a 80 durometer squeegee.

As a spot color you could run this all on 125 mesh with the proper color separations. I hope that helps some.

[dirtysqueegee]

Thank you so much for your advice...

Here is what the design should look like!..

I will follow up with results!!

Again Thank you !!

[dirtysqueegee]

Also I'm assuming the Magenta would also be a 200 screen mesh with a 65 durometer squeegee??...

[dirtysqueegee]

Also... what would be the difference in derometer of the 65 and 70??... I only have 70

[Catspit Productions]

Also I'm assuming the Magenta would also be a 200 screen mesh with a 65 durometer squeegee??...

LOL... oops. Yes exactly.

[Catspit Productions]

Also... what would be the difference in derometer of the 65 and 70??... I only have 70

The difference is small but the lower the number, the softer the squeegee.

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/sq ... meter.html

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/squeegeeguide.html

[Catspit Productions]

Yes, now that we see the design as it should look I would say you need to do a separation that will output halftones to create these colors form the 3 process colors. If you create it as vector art in a program like Illustrator you can use the print dialogue with RIP software to output film positives for these process separations.

If you simply over print the process colors you won’t really get what you want. They will mix to a certain extent but the way they work best is through halftones which are dot patterns that recreate tones and colors.

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