How To: HALFTONE Your Designs (DTF Printing)

ADVANCED PRACTICE

Printing with halftone designs for Direct To Film printing offers a spectrum of advantages that elevate the quality and visual appeal of the final printed product. Most DTF printers have a hard time and/or cannot print designs with gradients or soft edges. Halftones allow these printers to show intricate details and subtle gradients, enabling designers to capture nuances in shading and tone with remarkable precision.

We will be going over how to turn your artwork into halftone designs in Adobe Photoshop. 

• Open up your design file in Photoshop
• Create another layer by selecting the Layers button at the bottom, and fill it with the color of the fabric color you'd like this print to be pressed on. (For this example, the shirt is going to be the color black)
• Select Edit>Fill>Contents: Color>Choose color that best matches the color fabric

• Select and right click on the layer with your design, then hit duplicate layer

• Move the color layer above both design layers
• Make sure the color layer is highlighted, then above on the transparency options, select "Difference" on the dropdown box

• Hold Shift, and select both the color layer and design layer under it
• Right click, then select Merge Layers

• Duplicate the merged layer (as shown before) but make sure you select "New" under the Document dropdown box

• In your new document, go to Image>Mode>Grayscale to make your image black and white
• Then go back to Image> Adjustments>Levels

• Adjust the levels in your grayscale design by using these anchor sliders. Do NOT copy these exact settings, it will be different for every design and how you want it to look
• White = Color showing all the way through 
• Black = No color at all (will be transparent)
• Grey (Anything in between) = Varying halftone sizes to give gradient illusion

• Once you are done, it OK
• Go to Image>Mode>Bitmap to create halftone effect (make sure 8 Bits/Channel is selected)

• Take note to what your Input pixel/inch size is, select "Halftone Screen" under the Use dropbox. Press Ok
• Use these settings if your image is 300 pixel/inch or 75 pixel/inch, then press OK when completed
• I found these to be the best settings for each but feel free to play around with it to get what you want. (Closer together and smaller halftones vs bigger and farther apart halftones)

• Hit Ctrl+A to select everything
• Hit Ctrl+C to copy it
• Go back to your original file and select the main design layer
• Add a Layer Mask with the button below 
• Hold down Alt and click on the Layer Mask (Everything should turn white)
• Hit Ctrl+V to paste your halftone over top

• Then click off of the control mask by clicking anywhere in the empty space
• Your halftone is completed
• You can check to see how it will look with a fill colored background as shown above

• Save your file (File>Save As) as a PDF and open it up in your printers RIP software

For more questions, give us a call or shoot us an email!

(518)583-2818 | techsupport@grantgraphics.com