Designing for Screen Printing
What are halftones?
Halftones are a mathematical dot pattern that represents the grayscale value of a color and are created based on a grid. Printers can rotate the grid to change the angle, lines per inch, and more. This dot pattern can be so tiny that it appears as a
What's LPI (lines per inch)?
First up, Lines Per Inch (LPI). This represents the number of lines intersecting in every square inch. If a design has big dots, there will be a lower number of lines and a lower LPI. Small dots equals a higher number of lines across and a higher LPI
What's DPI (dot per inch)?
Dots Per Inch, or DPI, is the measure of the resolution of a photo. It’s also commonly referred to as PPI, or Pixels Per Inch. The ability to keep detail in DPI is directly related to the LPI.
What does angle mean when regarding halftones?
The angle of halftones refers to the slight rotation that the dot grid takes. This may sound confusing at first, so let’s break it down. Dots that fall at right angles on the screen (0°, 90°, 180°, and 270°) will line up with the threads of the mesh
What's dot gain?
Imagine this: you separate halftone artwork in Photoshop and it looks great. When you go to screen print it onto a garment, the image seems oversaturated and areas that should “fade” are way too dark. Those halftone dots didn’t all work together to c