How Is The Process Done For T-Shirt Printing?
Written by Author on February 26th, 2010There are three particular methods usually employed to accomplish screen printing that produces printed garments for promotions, merchandise and fashion. In t-shirt printing, ‘Spot Colour’ printing is the most common and works exceptionally well for a great variety of graphics. Spot color printing is the appropriate procedure for graphic prints that aren’t photographic.
A graphic designer usually chooses the ink colours used to reproduce the graphic images, and they are all Pantone specified. In order to isolate the hues of the ink in the image, Pantone coated or noncoated references are selected. Used in publishing, printing and design whereby each colour is identified by a unique pantone name and number, the Pantone matching system is an international colour reference.
Spot colour printing is well suited to printing branded promotional garments or items in which colour identity and uniformity needs to stay the same throughout a varying range of items.
“4 Colour Process” is another method of t-shirt printing. This printing process is utilised primarily with photographic designs and sketches comprised of a broad variety of hues, shades and gradations. The images found in many books and magazines and printed by the 4 colour process.
Reproducing the colours of the original image requires a mixing of translucent inks on a white background. It is much harder to do the same on cloth rather than than paper. However, the actual method used is mostly the same.
This type of t shirt printing will of course only work on white garments and will not be suitable for coloured fabrics.
The print set up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+. When t-shirt printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used. Using method similar to spot colour printing to achieve the overall look and feel of the original image the artwork is separated into various colours and shades.
This is a standard method used by all printers and most popular for example with the reproduction of heavy metal and fantasy imagery taken from CD cover artwork and reproduced onto black t-shirts for band merchandise. Due to the higher costs when it comes to setup, colour separations and the larger number of colours, this is considered the most expensive form of printing.