Jump (printing technique)

The jump or screen jump is the detachment of the fabric from the printing material during screen printing . A distance of a few millimeters between the screen and the printing material is called the jump height / jump distance. For a clean print it is necessary to create a jump distance between the printing form and the printing material in order to achieve an immediate detachment of the fabric from the print image. Otherwise the ink would creep under the areas covered with the layer and smear the print. The height of the jump is ideally 2–3 mm, with poorly stretched or very elastic fabrics ( nylon ), with strongly adhesive colors (high tack value) or large formats up to 8 or 10 mm.

In textile printing ( T-shirt ) one works entirely without jumping, since it would cause a reversal effect here.