A screen printing job needs one screen for every ink color, plus a white underbase screen when bright inks print on a dark garment, and often a highlight white on top. A three-color logo on a black shirt is commonly five screens, not three. Underbase counts this for you: set Screens available on press, and its plate budget tile counts the underbase and every printing ink, turns red when the job needs more screens than your press has, and offers Merge inks to fit the budget.
Counting screens matters before you quote, because each screen is setup time, emulsion, film, and a head on the press. The art the customer sends rarely tells you the real number.
Know the real screen count of a customer’s art before you quote it.
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How do you count screens for a design?
Work through it in this order:
- Count the printing inks. Every distinct ink color is one screen. Shades the customer thinks are one color may be two, and anti-aliased edges can make a two-color logo look like twelve.
- Leave out the shirt color. If part of the design is the garment showing through, that area needs no ink and no screen.
- Add the underbase on dark garments. Bright inks on a dark shirt usually need a white base under them, printed first and flashed. That is one more screen.
- Add a highlight white if needed. If white appears in the design as a color, it often prints again at the end, on top, for brightness. That can be another screen.
- Compare with your press. A press has a fixed number of heads or stations. If the count is over, something has to merge or the job changes.
What does that look like for common jobs?
| Design | Garment | Typical screens | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-color logo | Light shirt | 1 | One ink, no base |
| Three-color logo | Light shirt | 3 | One per ink |
| Three-color logo | Black shirt | 4 to 5 | Three inks, an underbase, and possibly a highlight white |
| White text only | Black shirt | 1 or 2 | A single white, or white printed, flashed and printed again |
| Shaded JPEG reduced to five inks | Black shirt | 6 to 7 | Five inks, an underbase, possibly a highlight white |
| Dark ink on a dark shirt | Dark shirt | 1 per ink | Dark inks often print straight on the garment, no base under them |
These are typical counts for planning, not rules. Shops vary in when they add a highlight white or print a white twice. Our white underbase for dark shirts page covers the base itself.
Why does customer art often look like more colors than it is?
Customer files are rarely flat. Logos exported from a website have soft anti-aliased edges, JPEG compression adds noise, and gradients carry hundreds of shades. A naive color count can report dozens of colors in what is really a two-ink design. The job is grouping close shades into the inks that will actually print, and leaving the background unprinted.
For truly shaded art, index separation dithers the pixels between a small set of inks, so a gradient can print with four or five screens. See index separations for screen printing.
Open the customer’s file in Underbase during the 15-day free trial and see the plate budget.
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How does Underbase count screens?
Underbase separates artwork into plates and keeps the job inside a plate budget you set.
- Open the art. Choose Open artwork or drop the file. Spot mode gives each flat color its own ink, grouping close shades and anti-aliased edges and leaving the background unprinted. Shaded art opens in index mode.
- Set the press. Set Screens available on press, from 1 to 16, with 6 as the default.
- Confirm the inks. Check every ink in the Inks and plates list. Rename, merge, reorder, or turn Print off for the background.
- Decide the base. Turn on Print a white underbase first and tick UB on every ink that needs white beneath it. Dark inks start unticked and print straight on the shirt.
- Watch the tile. The Plate budget tile counts the underbase and every printing ink, shows the print order, and turns red when the job needs more screens than the press has. Underbase suggests a print order that includes highlight white.
- Fit the job. Generation waits until the job fits. Merge inks to fit the budget merges the closest inks in one click, or reduce the ink count yourself.
- Generate the pack. Choose Generate underbase pack (Ctrl+G) to write true-size film, 1-bit TIFFs, and a production ticket as PDF and JSON with the print order, mesh and coverage.
How do I reduce the screen count without ruining the art?
- Merge near-duplicates. Two greens that are close enough to read as one on a shirt should be one ink.
- Use the shirt. If the garment is navy and part of the design is navy, let the shirt be that color.
- Leave dark inks off the base. Dark inks on dark garments often need no white under them, which keeps the base smaller.
- Halftone a tint. A lighter shade of an existing ink can sometimes print as a halftone of that ink instead of a separate screen.
- Talk to the customer. If it still does not fit, a quote with a reduced palette is better than a surprise at press.
When is Underbase not the right tool?
- Full photographic simulated process. Designs that need many overlapping halftone channels to recreate a photo are better served by tools built for simulated process.
- Digital or DTF printing. If you print with direct-to-garment or transfer methods, screen count does not apply.
- Vector cleanup. Underbase separates the art you open. If a logo needs to be redrawn, do that in a vector editor first.
Frequently asked questions
Does the white underbase count as a screen?
Yes. It is its own plate and its own film page, so it uses a screen and a station on press. Underbase’s plate budget includes it.
Is a highlight white the same screen as the underbase?
No. The underbase prints first, under the colors. A highlight white prints later, on top. They are separate screens.
Can Underbase tell me if my press can print the job?
Yes, against the number you enter in Screens available on press. The plate budget tile turns red when the job needs more, and generation waits until it fits.
What does Merge inks to fit the budget do?
It merges the closest inks in one click until the count fits your press. Check the preview afterwards to be sure the merge looks right.
What does Underbase cost?
Underbase is a one-time purchase in the Microsoft Store; the listing shows the current price in your currency. There is a 15-day free trial.
Try Underbase
Underbase is a one-time purchase in the Microsoft Store, with a 15-day free trial. Open the next job a customer sends and check the plate budget before you quote. For more, see spot color separations for t-shirts, how to make color separations for screen printing, or the Underbase product page.
Quote the right number of screens, and print the job on the press you have.
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Last updated 17 October 2026. Published by Automata Labs, a software company in Canada.