Halftone
Tiny dots that simulate gradients and shading. The trick that lets two colors of ink look like a smooth fade.
A halftone is a printing technique that breaks a continuous-tone image (like a photograph) into a pattern of dots of varying size or spacing. Larger or denser dots look darker; smaller or sparser dots look lighter. Together they fool the eye into seeing smooth gradients with only one or two ink colors.
In screen printing, halftones are essential for reproducing photographs, gradients, or shaded illustrations. Each color in the design gets its own halftone screen at a specific angle and frequency (LPI, lines per inch). Standard apparel halftones run 35–55 LPI — fine enough to look smooth at arm's length.
Halftones also enable simulated process printing, where 6–10 spot colors are halftoned together to reproduce photographic art on dark shirts more vividly than 4-color CMYK can achieve.
Related terms
4-Color Process
Reproducing full-color art using only CMYK halftone dots — the cheapest way to print photographic designs.
Screen Printing
Pushing ink through a stenciled mesh screen onto fabric — the classic high-volume t-shirt method.
Spot Color
A pre-mixed solid ink color, used instead of building the color from CMYK halftones.