What to EXPECT with Gradient Halftones and Shadow Effects with DTF

[@ilker_ergan]

Incredible work! Keep it up. Thanks for all the great info. Demonstrated on the tees mercilessly. Thanks for the opacity info. It is pro really.

[@transfersuperstars]

Thank you for checking this out. Appreciate that you found it useful, its always hard to collect samples to share.

[@SomeDudeFromTheComments]

I do dtf for a living and what I do in Photoshop is to select the image layer > blending options > Stroke [set it to 1px on Outside]. Set the color to a bright contrasting from the image color and it will highlight all the semi-transparent pixels in the image. Makes it so much easier to fix.

[@transfersuperstars]

That’s a good tip! Thanks for sharing that

[@djmagicalartist]

Thanks for this informative video, I’m watching this before i make order to make sure design is perfect for printing. What would be a good solution for a design like 18:22-18:25 when and image has outer glow like that? Would it be best to make the glow 100% capacity and halftone the edges like you did in the last option with the cover art?

[@transfersuperstars]

you'll need to halftone the edges. Anything with transparent edges will create a white halo around the image

[@djmagicalartist]

@@transfersuperstars Thanks for info, do you guys have your own tutorial for that?

[@Edgar.Meza.Photography]

Great tips. Thank you for the informative video

[@transfersuperstars]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Van_Wilder]

Great video, have one question. In your example where the shadow can almost be missed on the artwork, why does the white not show through on the shadow effect on the letters inside the artwork - why only the edges. Same question goes for gradients inside an image. Will the white not show through? Or does this only apply to shadow and gradient effects. But then, same question for if I applied a gradient or shadow effect onto a text in the centre of artwork. Will that too be affected by the white showing through?

[@transfersuperstars]

Its mostly any part of the artwork that has low opacity. You want artwork that is solid, anything that is semi transparent will print with the white halo. Most of the time that is undesired for dark garments.

[@simooz3460]

i'm a designer and one of the soloutions i always use to help my clients deal with gradients and transparencies is saving the design on disolve mode,it may look weird when u see it inside photoshop but when u save it as png it will look the exact same as in the normal mode,(you can apply the effect on the design than group it convert it to a smart object to preview how it will look inside photoshop) this technique will help mimic the transparents and gradients effects using solid pixels,i prefer more than the halftone one because it easier and quicker to acheive

[@transfersuperstars]

thank you for the suggestion and we'll try to incorporate it in our designs to see what works best!

[@lilangel0776]

Can you add a very thin same color hard outline to the gradient to stop the white? Like the yellow writing glow, if it had an offset around it in solid yellow would it understand to stop there?

[@transfersuperstars]

You don't want any edges with low opacity. The lower the opacity the more transparent the pixel. Semi transparent pixels are what causes the white to halo around the image. We've got a new knockout/halftone tutorial coming out at 4pm today which will show you the newest and best way to do this.

[@bobEv69]

Hello, may I ask what ink settings are you using, and I am using a clam press, what temperature, time and pressure do you recommend

[@transfersuperstars]

It all depends on your materials. For our transfers, its 300f for only 7seconds.

[@garylau8373]

got a question on the black tshirt black on black gradient.....can i simply just add the big black solid background layer on the graphic file so the gradient effect will now be on top that black layer

[@transfersuperstars]

I would create dot halftones instead of gradients when printing on a black shirt. We'll put out a video on that topic soon. Stay tuned and subscribe for the newest updates.

[@kspec2001]

back with another DTF question. when it comes to halftoning images, is there some underlying causes for an issue where the holes from the halftone are looking white after pressed? almost like the effect of when a colour doesnt have full opacity? im assuming its the powder either sticking to the holes or would it be the halftone hole size being too small? I manually halftone images in photoshop, and for some reason the same hole size im using on another design is causing it, but didnt on another design. any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

[@transfersuperstars]

We see this happening when the graphic designer is doing a black knock out and some pixels that are still 99% or less opacity is still left. This creates a gradient around some pixels, which will cause the white to show. The way to do this properly is to remove anything that is 99% or less in opacity. You might have to manually clean it up.

[@kspec2001]

@@transfersuperstars thanks for the info. i will see if its something I did then when editing.

[@rahimrihane8709]

Many customers unfortunately don't know that DTF has a white channel background and some prints come out pretty ugly 😅, thanks for the video I'll send that now to explain to them

[@transfersuperstars]

yes, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I'm glad you enjoyed the video we put together. It helps a lot of our customer's understand the limitations and expectations of DTF/Gradients.

[@kspec2001]

thanks for making this! question: was the second transfer with the mushrooms using "standard ink"? or another type of ink? the colours look amazing

[@transfersuperstars]

We're using Standard CMYK Ink. We color calibrate extensively and have our inks profiled. Thank you!

[@kspec2001]

@@transfersuperstars thank you for your response. that gives me a better idea of what can be accomplished when you are dialed in nicely!

[@feedbox2]

Would black powder help with some of these prints? especially on black shirts

[@transfersuperstars]

No it won't help much because its not the powder that is causing the white glow gradient, it the white undebased layer that we have to print.

[@DanceFitnesswithfarida]

why did the black not come out dark? looked dark grey or dark brown. is there a video on black on black dtf settings? polyester blended black shirts especially. but 100 % cotton still doesnt turn out complete black unless its a non transparent filetype like jpg ?help ? how to get darkest black on black shirts?

[@transfersuperstars]

Black print will vary from t-shirt manufacture. That's one of the main reasons we recommend knocking out the black. You'll need to check with your own printer to be sure but for us, our True Black values are 60 , 40, 40, 100

[@clarenceroberts8876]

I printed a dragon all halftone on a black shirt the print was very soft and looked great, but it's all in how you do your art, it's a tutorial on here somewhere that explains how to set up your art for DTF halftone printing. Not sure all art will work but it makes a very nice soft hand print as this print was 12 x 15, can't remember who did the vid but type in DTF to halftone printing.

[@transfersuperstars]

Great thanks for the info! We actually have a few tutorials coming out soon to teach how to fix gradients with halftones. Appreciate your comments!

[@Trance_Spirit]

Thank you for this video. It’s very knowledgeable. I have a question I’d like to ask. What about gradients solid shapes? Say I have a circle gradient of yellow to orange, is there any reason why the gradient would print as if there is a shadow? I am asking because I’ve ordered DTF prints from several different companies and only one company has been able to successfully print all my prints correctly as I’ve sent them to them, but every other company has issues printing the gradients. It looks like if it’s muddied, if that makes any sense. The prints appear as a thin layer of black or green is printed over the yellow. To me it appears as the print heads are dirty, however I’m no expert. Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance 🙏🏽

[@transfersuperstars]

We would have to take a look at the artwork to be sure. Most of the time with gradients, it will print a cloudy background. Please watch our gradient video to see many samples of this.

[@Trance_Spirit]

@@transfersuperstars Thank you kindly for your quick response. I actually did a bit of researching and found out that it actually is dirty print heads because I ordered from several other companies and they didn’t have the issues either. There’s complete banding over my prints and specifically with yellow colored prints one company was getting green all over my different yellow designs so it was just poor quality from that company. It made all my prints look dirty/Smokey.

[@GabosRR]

Can you print graphics with drop shadow gradients for DTG? Can you post an in depth vid for that please

[@transfersuperstars]

It’s possible with some Photoshop halftone techniques. We’re working on a black knockout halftone technique video, but will need to create a future video for drop shadows and outer glows.

[@GuiProXD]

How can I make halftone edges like the last one?

[@transfersuperstars]

We’ll be coming out with a halftone tutorial soon. Stay tuned buddy

[@ProfessionalTrading-k5g]

is there any solution for the gradient ? it makes a many problems with the costumers.

[@transfersuperstars]

Solution is to remove the effect. It just isn't an ideal artwork piece for DTF transfers.

[@kevo7857]

Nice video. Thanks for explaining this to us.

[@transfersuperstars]

Glad it was helpful!

[@mstabig9519]

You have showed nothing but how to print the film on a shirt and what it looks like. Where are the steps on correcting the things you were talking about?????

[@ScorchedAce94]

I'm sure you would have gotten a response if you wouldn't have been so rude and used less question marks 😂

[@Akash_here385]

Thanks alot for showing those examples

[@transfersuperstars]

No problem! It took awhile to gather some examples. Glad you found it helpful