Another artist and I have recently been wondering about what it means on the derby submission page where it says “Your Design Detail & Shirt Comp images must show halftones.”
There seem to be a whole bunch of derby entries that go through the rejectionator sweep (particularly the watercoloury type ones) that don’t seem to “show” halftones that can be seen on their derby submissions. In what way are entries meant to “show halftones”?
Any more info on this would be good. Keen to get some guidance as to whether I can be doing the same thing or not.
To be clear, the reason we post “Your Design Detail & Shirt Comp images must show halftones” is because we want the sales image to look as close to the printed shirt the customer is going to receive. Remember, when you are looking at the sale, and making your purchasing decision, you are looking at a projected_light image, not a reflected_light screen printed image you are going to see printed on the garment. Sooooooo, if you are creating a gradient in Illustrator (or Photoshop), you need to convert it into a bitmap halftone BEFORE you make your Detail/Shirt Comp. Remember: Screen printing is Binary- You either print down ink, or you don’t. You can’t REALLY print a gradient, so you have to cheat and create those halftones for an ILLUSION of a gradient.
Hope that makes sense.