Ganging film positives means printing several plates of a small design side by side on one sheet of film, then cutting them apart and taping each piece to its own screen. It saves film and printer time on small prints such as left-chest logos, sleeve hits and tags, but only if every piece still carries its own registration marks and a label saying which ink it is. Underbase lays out gang sheets for you: small designs put several plates on one sheet of film, each with its own registration marks and label, so film is not wasted and no piece is anonymous once it is cut.
This guide covers when ganging is worth it, what each plate needs, and how to lay out a sheet that cuts cleanly.
Separate the art, choke the underbase and gang small plates on one sheet of film.
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Is this the same as a DTF gang sheet?
No. In direct-to-film (DTF) and transfer printing, a gang sheet is many different designs packed onto one transfer sheet that is pressed onto garments. In screen printing, ganging is about the film positives used to expose screens. Each plate on the sheet is a stencil for one ink, and it ends up on its own screen. The words are the same; the jobs are not.
When is ganging film worth it?
Ganging pays when the plates are much smaller than your film sheet. Typical cases:
- Small prints with several inks, such as a three-color left-chest logo, where each plate is a fraction of a sheet.
- A white underbase plus a few colors for a small design on a dark garment.
- Several small locations in one order, such as a front chest, a sleeve and a neck label, where every plate is small.
It is not worth it when one plate already fills most of the sheet, or when you are not going to burn all the screens on the same day and would rather keep each plate whole until it is needed.
What does each ganged plate need?
Once the sheet is cut, each piece has to stand on its own. Check that every plate carries:
| On each piece | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Its own registration marks | You line every screen up to the same marks on press; a piece without them cannot be registered |
| A plate label | Names the ink and the job, so nobody burns the white underbase plate on the red screen |
| Enough clear margin to cut | So the knife does not run through the image or the marks |
| The same orientation as the others | If the sheet is mirrored for emulsion-down exposure, every plate on it is mirrored |
Our film positive checklist covers the checks that apply to every film, ganged or not, such as density and orientation.
How do you lay out a ganged sheet?
- Separate the design first. Ganging is a layout step, so finish the separations, the underbase choke and any trapping before you place plates. Our guide to making color separations for screen printing covers that stage.
- Pick a sheet size your printer handles. Use the film size you actually stock and that your printer feeds reliably.
- Place plates in print order. Laying them out in the order they go on press makes the sheet easy to read at the exposure unit.
- Keep the gaps generous. Leave room to cut between plates without touching the marks, and to tape each piece to its screen.
- Print, check, then cut. Check density across the whole sheet before you cut, because a weak area affects every plate in it.
- Cut and tape one plate at a time. Read the label as you go, so each piece goes on the right screen.
What usually goes wrong?
- Lost labels. A label placed on the sheet edge instead of beside each plate is cut off. Put the label on every plate.
- Shared marks. Two plates sharing one set of registration marks between them cannot both keep the marks after cutting.
- Mixed orientation. One plate exported unmirrored on a mirrored sheet burns backwards. Gang plates from one export, not from separate files assembled by hand.
- Too tight a layout. Squeezing in one extra plate can leave no margin to tape the film to the screen.
- Mixed jobs on one sheet. Ganging plates from two different orders saves film but makes mix-ups more likely. Keep one job per sheet unless your labels name the job as well as the ink.
Get true-size film with registration marks and a label on every plate.
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How does Underbase gang plates?
Underbase is a Windows app for small custom-apparel shops printing spot-color jobs of two to six inks on dark and light garments. You open the artwork the customer sent, confirm the inks, the underbase and the plate budget in the live preview, pick the film size, resolution and output folder, and generate.
For film, the Store listing describes:
- Gang sheets: small designs put several plates on one sheet of film, each with its own registration marks and label.
- A true-size film PDF on Letter to A2 or a custom sheet, mirrored for emulsion-down output, or printed straight to a Windows printer.
- A 1-bit film TIFF per plate at 600, 720, 1200 or 1440 dpi, plus unscreened channel TIFFs for other tools.
- An output dots preview that shows each plate as the film will carry it, at the output resolution, before you burn a screen.
- A production ticket as PDF and JSON with print order, mesh, offsets, coverage per plate, garment, quantity, due date and notes.
Because every plate on the sheet comes from the same job and the same export, orientation and labels stay consistent. The suggested print order runs light to dark, with black next to last and white on top as the highlight white.
Underbase does not control how black your printer prints. As the listing notes, inkjet film needs a RIP or a dense-black driver setting; if your film looks thin, see why inkjet film positives are not dark enough.
Frequently asked questions
Can I gang plates for the white underbase and the colors together?
Yes. The underbase is a plate like any other and needs its own marks and label. Labelling matters most here, because the underbase plate can look similar to a color plate once cut.
Should I gang halftone plates?
You can. All plates on one sheet print at the same output resolution, so check each halftone plate in the dots preview before you print the sheet.
Does ganging change registration?
Not if each piece keeps its own marks and you register every screen to them as usual. Problems come from cutting through or sharing marks.
What if my design is too big to gang?
Print one plate per sheet. Underbase offers both, so you can choose per job.
Try Underbase
Underbase is a one-time purchase with a free trial in the Microsoft Store; the listing shows the current price and system requirements. Try it on a small left-chest job and print one ganged sheet. More detail is on the Underbase product page, and our page on the white underbase for dark shirts explains the choke.
Turn customer artwork into film, plates and a ticket in one job folder.
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Last updated 23 October 2026. Published by Automata Labs, a software company in Canada.