What is Involved in T-Shirt Printing?
There 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.
Ink colours used in remaking graphic images, are usually Pantone, as specified by the graphic designer. Pantone coated or noncoated color types are selected to clarify the ink hues of the pattern. The Pantone system is a global standard for colour matching where every colour is assigned a unique designation.
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.
Another method of t-shirt printing used is called ’4 Colour Process’. This method of printing is used mainly for photographic images and illustrations that consist of a wide range of colours, tones and graduations. Book and magazine images are also printed by the same 4 colour process.
Reproducing the colours of the original image requires a mixing of translucent inks on a white background. This is certainly a much harder procedure to do on material than it is to do on paper. The methods are pretty similar.
This method of tshirt printing is only useful for white garments, and will not work well on 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. The artwork is divided into different hues and tones utilising a process that resembles spot colour printing in order to obtain the overall appearance and style of the original picture.
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.