Understanding Halftones

Halftone Explanation

Q: Halftones.. What's with the dots?

A: A Halftone is a screenprinted representation of a tone or shade of a color. In order to print these tones, the image has to be converted into a series of small dots (halftones) that when viewed from a distance, appear to be shades of the specific color.

When we output a tint of a color, we work with percentages. Shades of color are assigned percentages and these percentages are directly related to the halftone dots. A solid color is 100% and the dots in the image are so big that when viewed it looks like a full block of color. 50% of a colors’ strength would give a 50% tint so the dots would be half the size. The theory is simple: the lower the percentage, the smaller the dot, the less the ink coverage, and the 'lighter' the tint.

Easily put, the lower the percentage number for a tint or shade, the smaller the halftone dots, and the lighter the appearance of the print in that area.

Below is an on-screen example of a blue halftone and an enlarged view of how the halftone translates to a t-shirt.