Can Can a gradient be used with a halftone and not caus problems for the commercial printer?

[LBRodgers]

When a black and white illustration in Photoshop cc is created to be printed as a line art with halftone image, can a gradient with black and transparent be used with a halftone? I want to keep it a true black and white image to keep cost down. In the past I thought a gradient was made by the printer with 256 shades of gray. Is that still the same or can I combine the two to make subtle shade with halftones. This may seem like a simple question but I'm old school and worked with offset printing. This image with be printed in book for with a POD printer.

Thank you.

LBR

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Can you elaborate on the lineart/halftone combination you are trying to create?

Ultimately I expect you may have to ask your print provider about their printer’s specifics and if they actually can print with black alone and whether it makes a difference in pricing.

[LBRodgers]

Thank for the reply. I'm working in Photoshop creating a black  line images with white being the paper. I would love to use a a transparent gradient with half tone screens for the shading. I'm not sure whether the printer will see the images as true black and white or think the it is a image with gray tones (256 grays inks).

Thanks again

Linda

[Stephen_A_Marsh · Accepted solution]

The print shop would usually create the halftone when RIPing the file.

That at being said... This sounds more artistic than technical. Work on a layered copy to apply the gradient as a separate layer, darken or multiply blend mode to preview. Trash the image layer, convert to grayscale mode. Then convert to bitmap mode using a halftone screen pattern, then combine over the original image.

[c.pfaffenbichler]

Technically one could also combine the 1-bit line art with an underlying grayscale image in Indesign or Illustrator and export a pdf that combines bitmap and grayscale, but resolution considerations should be kept in mind.

For offset printing 1200ppi for 1bit bitmaps and 300ppi for CMYK- and grayscale-images are usually advisable but with print-on-demand I expect the digital printer may print at a lower resolution anyway.