Screen printing is quickly becoming a popular type of side hustle and hobby. With the right equipment, you can create amazing custom-made clothing and other products, such as wood, plastic, metal, and glass.
To get the most out of screen printing, it is important to know about the different screen printing techniques that are available. This quick guide will provide you with more information on different types of screen printing that can be used in this fun hobby/business.
Spot Color Screen Printing
This is probably the most common type of printing and is used primarily for t-shirt designs. This technique uses the stock color of the ink by printing it through a stencil of screen mesh. This is a popular technique as it produces vibrant solid spots of color and also produces a thicker layer of ink.
This method is easily used for printing 1-4 colors. If you are hoping to work with more colors, you may want to consider another method.
Halftone Screen Printing
Halftone printing can use single or multiple colors. The tones can range from a solid spot to halftones of the same color. This is often used when wanting to achieve a multi-color look without actually using multiple colors.
This is achieved by using one color such as red, but then including a 50% gradient on white fabric. The 50% gradient will appear pink when mixed with the white fabric. This gives the appearance of red and pink when in truth only red was used.
Grayscale Screen Printing
Grayscale printing can be used to print full-color images as one-color grayscale. This works well when printing full-color photographs that appear as one-color grayscale or halftone. It also works well for drawings.
This technique is often used on light-colored fabric using black ink. This is a very affordable way to print photos on fabric without using many colors.
Duotone Screen Printing
This method uses the combination of two halftones on the same image. It is printed using two colors. A black halftone will be used first, and then a second colored halftone over that. The combination of the black halftone and the colored halftone produces a duotone color. This can be used to achieve a full-color effect in a more affordable way.
Final Thoughts
Using different screen printing methods can help you to expand the types of images and products that you can produce with your equipment.
Take the time to do research on this great hobby/business to ensure you get the most out of your equipment.
