For screen printing · lino · block printing
Upload your artwork, pick your mesh, and burn your screen today: dot size and angle are worked out for you. No $495 RIP, no Photoshop bitmap fiddling, and your files never leave your computer. Lino or block printing? Switch the dots off and get carving guides at exact block size.
As seen in Computertaal — “it looks pretty professional.”
Drag to screen the image. Left of the line is your artwork (red); right of it is the film (black) — the film is what actually prints. Tints become dots sized to the mesh, black or white, no grey. Your press can only print ink or no ink.
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Show us your workThe whole idea, in three steps
Your file has colours and soft shades. Your press has ink and no ink. Everything this tool does sits between those two facts.
Most tools stop after step two and hand you a flat colour layer, which a press cannot print. Step three is the one that costs $495 in software — and the one this does in your browser. Why films need dots at all →
Why this exists
Plenty of tools split artwork into flat colour layers. A press cannot print a flat layer of 40% pink — it prints ink or nothing. Somewhere between the separation and the screen, every tone has to become a dot of the right size for your mesh.
That step is where the numbers come in: line frequency, angle, and how far the tones can run before your screen stops holding them. A RIP asks you for them. So does every other tool that gets this far.
PrintFilmReady asks you for your mesh count and works out the rest. It splits your art into inks, then screens each one to what that mesh can physically hold — and clips the tones it can't, instead of promising them.
FILM 1/3
A JPEG or PNG. Flat colours and tints work best. Transparent backgrounds count as paper. It warns you when the resolution is too low for the size you are printing.
FILM 2/3
It proposes one layer per ink. You merge what should share a screen, duplicate what needs two, rename them, and set each ink in hex or CMYK — with a live preview of the printed result.
FILM 3/3
Pick your mesh count and print width. Out comes one 1-bit film per ink with registration marks, crop ticks and a labelled margin, mirrored for emulsion-down, as a single ZIP.
The setting nobody should have to guess
LPI stands for lines per inch: how many halftone lines fit into an inch of screen — the tables below call this the line frequency. A classic RIP asks you to work out the LPI yourself, and the angle to run it at; here you do not have to. Pick the fineness of your mesh, and the tool derives the right halftone settings from it. Textile and paper hold different detail, so the tool adjusts the calculation to the substrate too.
| Mesh | Threads/cm | Line frequency | Dots per cm² | Smallest dot | Tonal range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 110 | ≈43 | 24 LPI | ≈89 | 0.46 mm (0.018″) | 15–85% |
| 156 | ≈61 | 35 LPI | ≈190 | 0.28 mm (0.011″) | 12–88% |
| 230 | ≈90 | 48 LPI | ≈357 | 0.19 mm (0.0075″) | 10–90% |
| Mesh | Threads/cm | Line frequency | Dots per cm² | Smallest dot | Tonal range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 156 | ≈61 | 35 LPI | ≈190 | 0.26 mm (0.0102″) | 10–90% |
| 230 | ≈90 | 55 LPI | ≈468 | 0.14 mm (0.0054″) | 7–93% |
| 305 | ≈120 | 65–75 LPI | ≈760 | 0.09 mm (0.0036″) | 5–95% |
Same mesh, different limits: 230 mesh stops around 48 LPI on a shirt but runs to 55 LPI on paper, because a knit loses the fine end that a flat sheet holds. A dot must span about two thread pitches either way — roughly three openings — that is where the numbers come from, and why the tool clips highlights and shadows rather than promising tones your screen cannot hold. The chart and the maths → · Printing on paper →
Two very different jobs
Fabric absorbs ink and lets it wick sideways; paper does neither. That one difference changes the mesh you reach for, the detail you can hold and how far a gradient can fade before it drops out.
In the tool this is one setting: choose the mesh you are printing with and the line frequency, angle and clipping follow. Full guide to printing on paper →
Not only for screens
A roller lays down solid opaque ink, so there are no dots to make. Switch the halftone raster off and every colour becomes a flat shape instead: one solid layer per block, printed at the exact size of your lino, with registration marks in the margin.
It is the same separation logic, with screening removed — a carving guide rather than a film. Useful for multi-block linocut, reduction prints, woodcut, letterpress from polymer plates and hand-cut stencils.
Mirroring deserves a thought before you print: which way round the guide should be depends on how you transfer it onto the block. Full guide to lino and block printing layers →
Scope
Knowing where a tool stops is worth more than a longer feature list. This one is built for what most small shops actually print: bold artwork in a handful of inks.
Free tools, no sign-up
Four small generators that answer the questions every printer runs into. They run in your browser, produce print-ready PNGs, and ask for nothing in return.
Also here: the mesh to LPI calculator — frequency, dot sizes in mm and inches, tonal range and grey levels for any mesh — and the halftone effect generator, for turning any image into a halftone, stipple or line-screen texture.
Questions worth answering
No. It is a web page. Open it in Chrome, Firefox or Safari, on a laptop or a phone, and it works. Nothing to license per seat, nothing to keep updated.
No. The separation, the screening and the ZIP all happen inside your browser. Your artwork never leaves your machine, which also means the tool keeps working when your shop's internet does not.
It's built for spot colours first: logos, type, illustration, bold artwork in a few inks. Pro (beta) adds a basic CMYK process mode — 4 fixed angles, elliptical dot, no ICC colour management — for a reasonable photo-ish result without a RIP. Fully calibrated, colour-managed photorealistic process work still needs a proper RIP with dot gain curves, and pretending otherwise would only cost you screens.
Yes, and paper is the easier substrate. A flat sheet holds finer dots than a knit and has far less dot gain, so you can move to a finer mesh and a higher line frequency — around 55 LPI at 230 mesh, or 65 to 75 LPI at 305. Pick the mesh you are actually printing with and the rest follows.
Yes. Switch the halftone raster off and each colour comes out as a solid shape instead of dots — one carving guide per block, at the exact size you set, with registration marks in the margin. The mesh preset is ignored, because relief printing has no mesh.
On textile: 156 for standard work, 110 for opaque ink on dark garments, 230 for fine detail on light fabric. On paper: 230 for general poster work, 305 for fine art editions. Pick it in the tool and the line frequency, angle and tonal range follow automatically.
That is the printer driver, not the file. The film itself is pure 1-bit black and white. On an inkjet, set the media type to a glossy photo stock, quality to high, and use black ink only if your driver offers it.
It is free while in beta. Paid plans will come later for saved jobs, ink libraries and higher resolutions, and there will always be a way to make a film without a subscription.
Takes about a minute for a two-colour job.
Open the toolColours → inks → printable dots
Seven Founding Printer seats are open until 30 September: any support or a review in exchange for two years of Pro.