1. Digital Imaging and Photo Emulsion Silkscreen

2. 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.

3. Silkscreen Examples Lincoln by Robert Rauschenberg
16 Jackies by Andy Warhol
Poster by Carolyn Brown

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. Preparing Photo in Photoshop
Each image needs to be output in black to create the photo stencil.
Open photo in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements
Create a high contrast image:
Image>Adjust>Threshold OR Image>Adjust>Contrast

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