“The main focus of the workshop was on the technique of producing digital-like quality prints by the screen printing process,” said Bhargav Mistry, the director, DMI (Dhirubhai Mistry Institute for Education, Research, and Training), who conducted the theory sessions followed by practicals. This included live demos of screen-making, direct-to-garment printing on Grafica’s automatic textile screen printing machine.

Highlighting the workshop focus, Mistry said: “As for DMI, in textile screen printing moire is now a history while scores of printers struggle to come out of this problem which occurs daily because of the use of traditional halftone technique. At DMI we teach how to print stochastic dots (second generation FM Screening), an alternative solution to achieve moiré-free screen printing. With second generation FM screening we can achieve digital like quality through screen printing. To prove this, a complete workflow, right from designing to screen making to printing were demonstrated.”

He adds: “When we print halftone on garments, it becomes very difficult to control moiré even after using coarser halftone dots like 45 lpi. On the other hand, second generation FM screening totally eliminates moiré in screen printing thus delivers sharp, crispy and brighter images. Even finer and smaller details are clearly visible.”