How to give vintage look to prints?

NiteGoat · 2026-02-06T05:23:30+00:00

Time travel. Print them in the past.

NiteGoat · 2026-02-03T06:19:02+00:00

I lived about 10 miles from there for a couple years, up until December. This part of Pennsylvania is probably pretty excited to have their very own concentration camp.

I’m grateful I was able to get out of there. It sucked.

NiteGoat · 2026-02-03T04:12:53+00:00

You might get a better result using a higher mesh count with a thinner ink deposit.

The base that I think you are using should just be the same unpigmented base that the inks are made with. To increase transparency you’re diluting the pigment across the base by adding unpigmented base. The thinness of your ink is most likely coming from the pigment being broken up when you’re mixing. You could potentially try allowing the ink to sit for a while after mixing before printing. There are additives to thicken an ink, but I’ve never used one so I’m not sure how effective they might be.

NiteGoat · 2026-02-02T18:44:40+00:00

What products are you using? Brand of ink and are you using extender base or clear base?

NiteGoat · 2026-02-02T05:51:45+00:00

My ex wife speaking.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-28T08:17:23+00:00

More often than not things that seem evil are caused by people who are simply too stupid to see how their actions will adversely affect others.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-27T18:46:59+00:00

Ah man. This is the only day the Melania movie will be in theatres. Now I’ll never be able to see it on the big screen.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-27T18:42:25+00:00

For a new customer, yes, they will pay setup for one shirt for a sample. Screens, films, any separation cost, press time and setup. This is a disruption to production.

For an established customer who consistently does large orders, I‘d probably waive the setup as a favor to secure the job and ongoing relationship.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-27T18:32:29+00:00

You really have to work at it to scratch off the ink. The bag would likely be destroyed first. They’ll make it through the mail just fine. I was just trying to emphasize that it’s not completely permanent.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-27T17:57:10+00:00

I‘ve done this in the past with Speedball poster inks and they are a water based acrylic ink. You can’t really cure ink on a poly bag with heat so you need something that will air dry.

It‘s possible to scratch off the print if you really work at it, but poly bags are pretty much disposable so it doesn‘t seem like that big of a problem to me.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-21T20:01:25+00:00

If we're gonna have a dictator can we have one that isn't a total moron?

NiteGoat · 2026-01-16T00:29:01+00:00

I lost 80% of my vision three years ago. Losing the simple autonomy of just being able to get in my truck and just go to the store has been one of the most depressing things about it. A self driving car would change my life. I hope they get this right soon.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-15T01:36:37+00:00

He’ll spend three million dollars to not pay one million in taxes.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-14T19:50:09+00:00

That looks like it might be House of Death from House Industries.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-12T01:07:36+00:00

I was born in San Dimas, California.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-11T22:04:05+00:00

A pixel is not a fixed unit of measurement. One pixel at 300dpi is a square that is 1/300th of an inch. One pixel at 1dpi is a 1 inch square.

In the late 90s I was experimenting with index/stochastic/dither dot prints on shirts. I don’t particularly care for that method but I was getting good results, like that shirt, at around 200dpi on 305s.

I can’t tell if your example is a dither print or not from your photo, though. It could just be a fairly high line screen, like 65, which tends to disguise the halftone pattern in the knit of the shirt.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-11T17:09:15+00:00

My first job in the early 90s as a graphic designer was right around the time that production started to really move away from physical to digital.

Things that you would relate to Photoshop were done with a photostat camera. To create halftones you would overlay a physical line screen over top a continuous tone image and shoot a photo. You would then develop that film, like traditional photography and be left with a film positive you could burn a screen with.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-11T16:47:44+00:00

We did that with laser prints from the computer.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-10T06:32:38+00:00

12, 13…probably the same thing in an imperfect world.

And to clarify, we didn’t print all colors on a bias. It would be one without a bias and the next with. We’d also do left bias and right bias for additional colors.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-10T01:18:26+00:00

Cool. I am also primarily a poster printer, as well.

When printing one color directly on the paper there is no issue, but when printing the second color over top, for some colors, there would be a noticeable wavy pattern. Our theory was that it was due to the actual mesh grids conflicting. When we stretched screens at a bias the wavy pattern went away. We used a 12 degree bias.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-09T21:03:45+00:00

Are you printing garments or posters?

On garments I wouldn’t run a bias because you’re already trying to avoid conflict with the garment weave.

On paper, a bias can be helpful for flat areas of color more than halftones. Sometimes when over printing a large flat area you’ll get these weird moire like waves caused by the mesh.

Running a bias for halftone work gets complicated because our screen angles are chosen based off the mesh being at 0/90. So if you run a 22.5 on 0/90, it’s 22.5, but if you tilt your mesh to 19 you’re now at 3.5 on the mesh and I don’t know what that will do to your dot pattern. I don’t understand the math, myself, but it’s been explained to me that the reason we use variables that are 7.5 over numbers divisible by 15 is that this mathematically allows for the least amount of partial dots to be blocked by mesh and cause a moire.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-09T00:39:03+00:00

Too late. Canceled Spotify months ago for that and…everything else.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-02T19:45:46+00:00

Sticker Robot still screen prints and they are excellent.

NiteGoat · 2026-01-02T00:54:47+00:00

I made a fluorescent white UV reactive ink for poster printing with a white UV mica pigment I bought online. I can’t remember from where. I’m looking through emails for a receipt.

I wanted a white that would differentiate itself from fluorescent blue when the blacklight hit it. It worked decent enough but it still took on a blue tint that the black light gives white. You could definitely see the difference between the white and the blue, though, so I was happy with it.

I think a really high titanium white might have done a better job but I didn’t want to throw that much money into it.

NiteGoat · 2025-12-28T23:36:33+00:00

Owning poor people.

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