>Hellllo fellow sci-arters,
>
>I have done a digital illustration of neuron cells in the brain as a
>landscape, and now we want to print it on fabric.
>
> Has anyone any textile experience in the digital realm?  The fabric printer
>tells us he needs it as indexed color, and that he can use no more than 24
>colors.  This sort of cramps the color space a bit, considering it looks OK
>at 256, but when we dither it down to 24, strange things happen, of course.
>
>It seems that digital fabric design should be doalbe, and that they should
>be able to use CMYK files to work from--but I guess fabric printing is very
>different from paper printing?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Chris

I think your problem may be a miscommunication with the printer.

Are they saying the maximum is 24 flat colors (silkscreen)?

You are saying 4 colors as a photograph: you can print photos on fabric,
but the lines-per-inch is limited to about 65 lpi (max. the silkscreen can
hold, and even then you contrast range is limited)

If you are thinking of multiple solid spot colors to create the illusion of
a full color image.  Then you are into specialized seperation work
PhotoShop 5's new spot color support might make this possible to achive,
but it is an experiment.

You need to talk to the printer about ink opacity, ability to overlay
colors (they might not like that), and minimum size of a dot or image
grain, if you use a non stantard screen (like a mezzotint, or stocastic
printing).

It sounds like a real interesting challenge to recreate your image on cloth
with flat silk screen color.  I envy you (work closely with the printer).
Find some samples of cloth with images that are reproduced like you want to
reproduce, show them to the printer and ask them how to make it happen.

Britt

_______________________________________
Britt Griswold/MAP Project
RS Information Systems
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Greenbelt, MD 20771
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