Digital Imaging and Photo Emulsion Silkscreen

What is Silkscreen Printing?• Silkscreen is a stencil printing process.

• Ink is forced through a stencil made on fine-mesh polyester or silk fabric.

• Stencils can be made with cut paper, contact paper, photo emulsion, and other materials.

• Silkscreen printing is used to create multiple prints of your image, or image and text. Silkscreen can be used on paper, fabric, canvas, clay, and other flat surfaces.

Silkscreen Examples

Poster by Carolyn Brown

16 Jackies by Andy Warhol

Lincoln by Robert Rauschenberg

Digital Process: Silkscreen prints from photos

• This is the digital version of the Photo Lith process.

• Instead of making a high-contrast print with Kodalith paper and chemicals, it can be done in Photoshop, and printed onto acetate transparencies.

• This is great for detailed images which would be ridiculously hard to hand-render.

• Color planning can also be done in Photoshop.

Supplies and Tools

Diazo Emulsion- Speedball and other brands

Emulsion remover- Speedball, etc.

Silkscreens- polyester for acrylic & wter based inks

Squeegee

Silkscreen inks

Black “stencil” made of paper, toner on acetate, ink on acetate or translucent paper

Selecting a Photo Image• When selecting photos for silkscreen, look for clear SHAPES or LINES.

• Photos with good contrast are best, but others can be fixed in Photoshop.

• Avoid photos with distracting clutter around the main subject.

Poor photo for silkscreen

Better photo for silkscreen

Preparing Photo in Photoshop• Each image needs to be output in black

to create the photo stencil.

1. Open photo in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements

2. Create a high contrast image:

Image>Adjust>Threshold OR Image>Adjust>Contrast

Planning ColorsOnce you get the basic image done, you can use Photoshop to plan colors for printing.