Wait What Does That Mean? Screen Tint

1 or 2 colors can't possibly do my design justice. Or can it? Today we are looking at screen tints as a way to get more bang for your buck in your printing.

When we tell customers that we do a lot of offset printing in 1, 2 or 3 colors, some designers will cringe thinking that it can be nothing but a creativity-limiting process.

We of course beg to differ.

Printing in 3 colors is often liberating and inspiring for designers and results in some magnificently sophisticated and elegant stationery.

There are ways, for example,  to take advantage of the cost of a 2 color print job and still have a job come out looking like it has more than those 2 colors. One way to do this is through screen tinting.

So what is screen tinting? Its basically a way of reducing or increasing the ink density on a given paper. So if you have a cyan ink, you can reproduce it at various levels. From 100% ink coverage to a very light 20 or 30% coverage. Like this:

Reducing a Tint to less than 15% percent or so will generally make it invisible on most paper stocks. As with most printing projects check with your printer for details related to your project.

You also take these screens and set up a pattern like this.Which involves a 100% density and a 40% density of the same Ink.

And then the next level would be to take pairs of inks and mix them to get a third color. Like these 3 sets of 3 colors.

Here the outer colors meet in the middle in a mix screen of 80% for the left color and 35% for the color in the right. The middle color is basically a new color created from the 2 inks. Just like you did with paint in elementary school. It certainly increases the possibilities you have in a 2 color print job. And we have been lucky enough to get work from some designers who have taken these ideas and really elevated them to something extraordinary.

Of course the ability to do these kinds of effects with the ink depends on a lot of factors. The paper and inks you are using, the press you are using, and the experience and abilities of the pressman running the job.

So, if this is something you are interested in doing with your future print projects, then feel free to contact us and we will help get you going.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please join in below.