Fade to Black

[carlathebluegeckoprinting.]

Full color DTF with white under - I reduced the white quite a bit.  We are trying to get the gradients to fade to black but the white shows through the very lightest gradients.  Does anybody hack a trick or a hack to make the white fade out at the edges?  Using Flexi DTF Pro 22.  Trying to not get the white glow halo effect.

[johnson4]

9 minutes ago, carlathebluegeckoprinting. said:

Full color DTF with white under - I reduced the white quite a bit.  We are trying to get the gradients to fade to black but the white shows through the very lightest gradients.  Does anybody hack a trick or a hack to make the white fade out at the edges?  Using Flexi DTF Pro 22.  Trying to not get the white glow halo effect.

Halftone dots or some other design effect.
 

You can’t get a transparency edge effect from a solid ink reliably that I am aware of. That or some other design element that transitions the white to a black edge for a black shirt. 

Edited August 31, 2022 by johnson4

[carlathebluegeckoprinting.]

I played around with the tolerance and  decreasing white coverage % but even if there is only 1% of any color in an area, it is going to apply white which overpowers the color.  I am just going to say no, we really can't do the fade to black because I can't imagine having to explain to preflight that he has to create masks with spot color that only print under solids, not gradients...

[johnson4]

4 hours ago, carlathebluegeckoprinting. said:

I played around with the tolerance and  decreasing white coverage % but even if there is only 1% of any color in an area, it is going to apply white which overpowers the color.  I am just going to say no, we really can't do the fade to black because I can't imagine having to explain to preflight that he has to create masks with spot color that only print under solids, not gradients...

Yep. I mean some rips can print up to a level of transparency and fade the under base, but again requires much more effort and testing for each image to get it right. 
 

i just outright don’t do it. 

[Max Chroma]

I've been doing partial halftoning of different aspects of a design in order to fade it into the shirt color...  it requires a process that you extract the colors of the artwork and then process to halftones and then knock it out from the image but also reveal those colors in the image so it doesn't cut back too much.   Using larger halftone dots usually works better until you can figure out the smallest ones you can do that hold well. 
I've got a lot of videos on my youtube channel that go into working with color and making parts of images halftones, lots of free actions and tools for photoshop that do that stuff,  but I only recently made a DTF-specific action set that will automate the steps for you...  if you just want black removed to halftones for a black shirt,  white, any colored shirt etc.    It's not that difficult to do manually but it becomes tedious to go through the same steps every time so that is why I usually make actions for these kind of things.  As long as you keep it so there are only transparent pixels and non-transparent pixels and nothing fading between that,  keep it higher resolution or just don't change it or let it get anti-aliased/resized/blurred...  then it prints amazingly and it really helps the entire look and feel of the process. 
  For me I don't do DTF without doing some form of shirt-color-removal to halftones process unless it just doesn't need it.    But even fading to white on a white shirt can work great to save a lot of ink,  fading to black and don't use any black or print all that large area of the image,  no big squares or sheets of ink/powder going down,  and especially cool when you have artwork that fades into a specific color background that would be the shirt color, then you can knock that out too and not have to try and match the color, just let the halftones fade the artwork into the shirt.   It can also be used for graphics effects or just give it a style, use custom patterns like different shapes or textures,  usually round dots at 30 LPI, 45 degree angle is a good start, 600 dpi to keep them clean.  DTF is really one of the best processes once you reach that level of doing the halftoning stuff. 

[DTF Teamgear]

Ah yes, fading to black and outer glows.

OK, so I have asked the DTF Technician at Garment Printer Ink the same question.

Yes, you can print fades and outer glows, according to him, he has seen it done in DTF.

Here's what I was told;

Using Flexi DTF Pro 22, double click on the file you wish to print in your queue,

1)  then click on the printer icon in the top toolbar of the window that has opened, and change "weaving effect" from fine and fuzz to "A Super Fine and Wave"

2) then click on the magic wand icon all the way at the end of the toolbar, and change your "White option" from solid to "Variable Under"

I have done a test on a small graphic and it worked OK, but I need to try it on a full size raster image with an outer glow or fade to black to check the quality of how well these settings work.

Let me know if you have success with these settings.

Kind Regards,

Christopher

TeamGear Apparel

Intelligent-Interweave.pdf

[johnson4]

Ironically I just downloaded the trial of this software. Thanks for all the info.

 

White is much easier to fade out by design with using transparency in the design itself. Color is a bit more difficult given the RIP you use and how much of the transparent it picks up, but you are going to have issues around those edges with durability as the white ink fades out into the color, halftoning is the best way to make it work in my opinion so you maintain your adhesive layer. The major issue is keeping the transparency in-line with the white so that excess adhesive isn't pickup up where practically no ink is placed. 

 

The main thing is are you doing it for yourself, or for a customer. If it's for yourself from a self made design, it's actually pretty easy to accomplish. If you are trying to do this with customer images and get hit with them often, it's a huge PITA and not worth the time. The RIP will change how the image looks and some people will not like it, while others might. Recreating these images on future orders exactly also becomes a problem, especially if you end up with tons of variations and hundreds of images over the lifetime of the customer. 

 

When doing things for myself I can spend hours on them and it not be a big deal, for a customer if they are not paying for the work ( most won't) then I simply deny the job or request for approval with it's removal/basic adjustment on my side. Get hit with 50 different images of a whole roll of prints like this that are due to be made and delivered in 2 days over and over again, I think you'll start to agree it's not that easy. 

 

I'll check out the RIP though, hopefully it can make life easier as you suggest. 

Edited November 22, 2022 by johnson4