halftone (tint) dot pattern swatches

[Lisa5193]

I am looking for dot screen fill patterns for Illustrator—from 10% to 100% of black (or a spot color) to simulate silk screening at 720dpi. I would like to be able to MOCK UP a 1 color design with tints on a colored tee. This is the concept of what I need: https://halftone.us, but it isn't accurate like what AccuRIP would produce. I don't have AccuRIP, but that is what my printing vendor uses. I would like to find fill patterns that look like the attached image.

Simply using tints in the color swatch panel doesn't work, because the color of the "shirt" doesn't show through between the dots—because there are no "dots." "Basic Graphics_Dots" that comes wtih Illustrator isn't the right dpi.

[mjbelt]

You could try using:

[Lisa5193]

Thanks, but see last sentence of my post. Not enough dpi.

[barbara_a]

You can drag the rectangle with the resized dots into the Swatches panel so that you don't need to re-create it each time. In the Transform panel, turn on Transform Object Only.

[mjbelt]

Start with Swatch Pattern and create your own > Modify pattern to simulate tighter resolution. 

[barbara_a]

Maybe this will work for you.

You could get a head start by using the dot patterns that come with Illustrator. Draw a rectangle and fill with one of the patterns. For example, this rectangle is filled with 60% Illustrator dot.

Then double click on the Scale tool to bring up the Scale dialog box.

Put a check mark on Transform Patterns and uncheck Transform Objects, and enter a scale percentage that works for you.

[Lisa5193]

...and then I can recolor the artwork to the spot color I need (use 1 color job preset)! Now I just need to figure out the math to get these to 720dpi. Thanks!

[barbara_a]

You could draw a one inch rectangle and fill it, for example, with the Illustrator 60% dot. I count 5 dots per inch for Illustrator 60% dot. Divide 5 by 720 (the dots per inch that you need) to get the ratio. Then multiply by 100 to get the percentage to type into the Scale dialog box.

[Lisa5193]

I started with the 10 dpi one. Square root of 10 is about 3. Square root of the 720 that I need is about 27. 3/27 is about 11, so I went with 11% and that got me very close to where I needed to be.

[mjbelt]

Hi again. Adding Barbara's thread idea:

https://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/freebies/10-distressed-vector-halftone-patterns-for-illustrator

[Lisa5193]

Thanks, these are more "artsy" than the "real silkscreen simulation" I need. I need to show a client how tints translate to actual screened spot colors on a silkscreened t-shirt.

[Ton Frederiks]

You could try a greyscale rasterize effect and use the ColorHalftone with the same angles.

[Lisa5193]

I had tried this, but I need to mathematically get to the DPI.

[Ton Frederiks]

And at what LPI (lines per inch) are the dots produced?

[Lisa5193]

I'm not sure about LPI, but it's 720 DPI. See if image attached to original post answers the question? It's what the t-shirt printer gave me to help me understand screens for a 1 color job.

[barbara_a]

LPI or DPI -- that makes a huge difference. The Illustrator dots are LPI. That is, there are, in my example, 5 lines of dots per inch.

[Ton Frederiks]

The DPI is the RIP or Printer resolution, that does give you no information about the LPI.

It can be very small dots (high LPI) or coarse dots (more likely for screen print.