Just What Does T-Shirt Printing Entail?

For the production of printed garments for promotions, merchandise and fashion there are mainly 3 particular methods of screen printing employed. ‘Spot Colour’ printing is widely used and works well with many types 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. Pantone coated or uncoated colour references are chosen to specify the ink colours of the design. 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.

This method of spot colour printing is particularly suited to the printing of branded promotional garments or merchandise where colour identity and uniformity must remain constant throughout a diverse range of products.

The Four Color Process is another method used in tshirt screen printing. This printing process is utilised primarily with photographic designs and sketches comprised of a broad variety of hues, shades and gradations. 4 colour process is also the same method of printing by which all images in books and magazines are printed.

These inks allow light to flow through and then merge together on white backgrounds to make all the hues and tones of the orginal one. It is much harder to do the same on cloth rather than than paper. But the method that is utilised is virtually identical.

This type of t shirt printing will of course only work on white garments and will not be suitable for coloured fabrics.

When t-shirt printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used. 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+ 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.

For transferring heavy metal imagery and fantasy imagery from CD covers to black T-shirts for band merchandise, this popular method is used by printers everywhere. Colour separations and the number of colors necessary make this the most expensive printing option, and the higher set-up costs mean it is usually reserved for larger runs.