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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: Mongoose m0ng005e@*********.com
Subject: [META] Re: T-Shirt ART Idea over ...
Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 15:05:57 -0600
:> I'd put the art on the front, you need a lot of room for names
on the
:> back. Also, the shading needs to be eliminated (or nearly so), line art
:> works best for silk-screening.
:>
:> Hg
:
:Thanks. but, when you say to eliminate the shading, do you mean to make
:everything pure black and pure white or to make all the gray shades
:solid areas of gray instead of gradations?
:
:-Glenn


The short version here is: don't use any shading unless you know what
you are doing. Any 2 color scan at 200 dpi is probably safe, so you can
do a drawing with crosshatching, as long as it scans cleanly in two
colors. Don't use any fine computer generated dithers, unless your image
is only 100 dpi.


Mongoose


The long version follows:
A screen used for printing t-shirts either passes ink, or it doesn't;
it can't produce shades of gray. It can produce the ILLUSION of shades a
of grey, by printing closely spaced dots; a lazer printer does the same
thing. The illusion can be very good, if done properly, but line art with
no shading, or flat areas of gray, is much easier to handle
The problem is, silkscreen inks are mushy, and screens not so high
"resolution", so you can only use dots patterns so small- MUCH bigger than
a printer uses, bigger even than a newspaper image. The interrelation of
minimum dot size and resolution is complex, but basically, the more shades
of gray you want, the less resolution you get.
Your best bet for making a t-shirt image is to make it at about 300
dpi, and don't use any details or shading patterns smaller than 3 pixels.
This is excellent for line drawings, and should avoid any "pixel" effects.
Last years shirt is a 230 dpi line drawing, on the front, and some
very fine (single pixel) details are lost.
Its even cruder on the back, and nobody complained (though I'd go
higher res. to avoid having the fonts get aleessed; screening is analog,
so as long as the details are big enough, its OK). The pixels don't show,
except in one font that I blew up, which has an effective resolution of 75
or so dpi (with no shading, no anti alessing).

Some programs (like PhotoShop) can also "halftone" a shaded image,
producing a dot (or other) pattern; doing this yourself lets you see and
control the results when printed with a screen, and essentially produces a
line drawing of a shaded image, with the illusion of shading. The trick
here is to not loose detail while doing the halftones.
A good guideline of the crudeness of halftoning is that each cut in
resolution gets you one shade halfway between those you have: 300 dpi is
for B+W. 150 dpi gives you Black, 50% gray, and white. 75 dpi (a
standard web image) gives you B, 75% gray, 50% gray, 25% gray, and W.
Don't go below 37 dpi- even there, the dots are quite obvious, and it
looks like shit, unless that is an intended effect.

Failing all that, send an electronic version (normal web sized
grayscale jpg will do) of the image to the printers, and ask them to
"halftone" it for you. Keep the fact in mind that middle greys do tend to
vanish, and that large areas of gray work better than fast changes in
tone. Don't do this unless you can see a "proof"- you might be surprised
at what this preview it looks like.

For my image, I'd be combining line images (the names) and halftone
shading (their "aura"), then printing it myself as the screen should
appear. I'd have to change the "aura" so it has less detail, but since
I'm doing the "shading" myself, I can mess around a bit more.
Message no. 2
From: dghost@****.com dghost@****.com
Subject: [META] Re: T-Shirt ART Idea over ...
Date: Fri, 2 Apr 1999 13:14:07 -0600
On Thu, 1 Apr 1999 15:05:57 -0600 "Mongoose" <m0ng005e@*********.com>
writes:
<SNIP>
>This is excellent for line drawings, and should avoid any "pixel"
effects.

I have an effect?

<SNIP>
>Don't go below 37 dpi- even there, the dots are quite obvious, and it
>looks like shit, unless that is an intended effect.
<SNIP>

What are you trying to say? ;P~

--
D. Ghost
(aka Pixel)
WARNING: Virus found: Win.com
Disinfect? (Y/N)

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