Halftone vs Screenprint
ハーフトーン（網点） / スクリーンプリント／シルクスクリーン
Halftone comes from Print Expression and Screenprint from Stencil Printing. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Halftone
Halftone converts continuous tone into regularly spaced dots of changing size so it can be printed; from a distance they return to tone, while enlargement reveals the screen as material.
Screenprint
Parts of a mesh screen are blocked and parts left open, and a squeegee forces ink through, printing hard contours and flat, strong color one layer at a time.
| Halftone | Screenprint | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1880s– | 20th century– |
| Family | Print Expression | Stencil Printing |
| Kind | Technique | Technique |
| Cues | Large and small dots on one fixed pitch / Light and shade made by dot area / Rosettes from differently angled color screens / An image that changes between normal and magnified viewing | Hard contours / Flat color planes / Layer-by-layer overlap / Slight misregistration |
| Best used for | Printing photographs in newspapers, magazines and packaging with limited inks · Using enlarged dots to make reproduction and print itself the subject | Small runs of posters and shirts that need fluorescent or spot inks at full strength · Printing thick flat color onto cloth, wood or metal rather than paper |
| Type | Choose bold type or simple contours that survive conversion into dots. | Avoid hairlines and tiny text, thickening letters until the mesh clears them |
| Composition | Place normal-scale image and enlarged screen together to exploit changes in viewing distance. | Plan color count as screen count and let overlaps make a third color |
| Material | Set line frequency, dot shape, screen angle and ink color, then translate tone into dot area. | Match mesh to ink and substrate, allowing time for drying and registration |
| Caution | Polka dots are not halftone. Dot size must carry continuous tone in relation to printing resolution. | Do not fake it with a separation filter or treat misregistration and patchy ink as charm. Design screen count, print order, opacity, registration and substrate, because the hard edge is the real advantage. |