How to make light pencil drawing ready for silkscreen printing

[defaultbfv7md4xfbb9]

Hello. I a PS novice who tried doing this on my own but just made my son's drawing look horridSo any advice (or a link o a video) on what steps I should take to prepare a light pencil sketch for printing on a t-shirt would be appreciated. I understnd that this might require thickening lines and increasing my art's contrast. I would also like to know the most efficent and effective way to knock out the drawing's backgound. I working in photoshop CS 13.0 x64. Thank you!

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Please post (a part of) the image in question. 

What exactly do you mean by »knock out the drawing's backgound«? 

Are you intending to print with only one color? 

[defaultbfv7md4xfbb9]

As you can see the backgound is a dingy yellow that I need to knock out or turn to white so I can hand over printer-ready line art. In addition to holding or possible thickening the light pencil lines, I like to keep the creature's names which look pretty fragile and I don't want to lose the hand drawn style. (thought on this?) Yes, I want to print this in one color, orange, on a lime green sweatshirt. I understand that this will require a white underprinting to get the ink to pop. Thanks for any advice!

[Chuck Uebele]

I would duplicate the red channel and use curves or levels to increase the contrast of the pencil lines. If you're going to go with silkscreen,  I would add a threshold adjustment layer to get just black and white. That might require you to make a couple levels adjustments and mask weak areas so they don't get lost with the threshold adjustment. 

[Chuck Uebele]

How is this being printed: silkscreen or digital printer (thermal transfer)?

[defaultbfv7md4xfbb9]

You are asking a very good question. In my pirinter correspondence this never came up... how come I'm thinking that silkscreen is better than digital (I'm so analog)? Thoughts on which will produce a better, long lasting outcome?

[Chuck Uebele]

Silkscreen will produce a more durable product. Digital will allow for more subtle tones.