Silk screening or screen printing can allow you to create garments, artwork and even fabric yardage using your own designs. While working with silkscreen can seem a bit overwhelming, it is easier than you might expect to prepare a picture for a silkscreen, using a computer, photo editing software, and a good quality inkjet or laser printer. The right image and preparation is key to a good result when screen printing, so take your time when preparing your design.
Instructions
1. Scan the image into your computer. Make sure that you scan at the highest resolution for a good result.
2. Use a photo editing program to alter the picture for a silkscreen. Apply a line drawing filter to the image or use a gray scale filter to reduce the image to a series of pixels.
3. Clean up your image using the eraser tool on your photo editing program. Keep in mind that half tones and delicate shading will not transfer to a silkscreen. Use a brush tool to make lines thick and dark. Edit and adjust your image as needed to create clean areas of black and white.
4. Set your printer to the darkest and most opaque color settings available. Test your image by printing onto regular paper. Look for areas of bleeding, fine lines or shading. Correct these in your photo editing program.
5. Feed a sheet of transparency paper into your printer. Print the transparency for your silkscreen.
