Underbase is an important tool for color separation. If you print, for example, plastisol blue paint on a black T-shirt, then the print will be different from the original color. This is due to the transparency of the paint (even with its thickness, the paint still has some transparency and through the print we see a certain percentage of a black T-shirt). Hence the feeling that the color is different.
Underbase is white (or light color), which is printed under the main colors of the image in order to preserve color reproduction.
Depending on the covering ability of the inks you print, the underbase will change. For example, under dark cover colors, you can reduce the amount of underbase, and under bright translucent colors, on the contrary, enhance it.
Auto and manual underbase
The plugin generates two types of underbase – automatic (AutoUbase) and manual (ManualUbase).
In automatic mode, 100% of each color is converted to white. For example, you had a fill of 56% yellow, it will turn into 56% of a white fill in the underbase channel.
In manual mode, you yourself determine what percentage of white you need under each of the colors.
Auto & manual underbase video
The video shows how to generate the underbase using a plugin. During generation, a spot channel is created, filled with the default white color and 100% opacity. Before generating the background, you also need to create a black background using the Black BG button.
- Note! For proper generation of the underbase, the original image must be on a black background. This is either a Flatten Image file merged together (with a lock in layers), or a layer on a transparent background. If you have an image on a transparent background, then you need to create an additional layer under it and fill it with black color. If you make a substrate for, for example, gray T-shirts, you still create a black layer. It is necessary for the correct operation of the algorithm. After you have created a layer and filled it with black color, you need to make the active layer with the image (click on it in the Layers menu 1 time).