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Guidelines for
Printing |
| Create your
own logo, artwork or images in ANY art program you want, we can accept almost
any file type. When you create and save artwork we need it the actual size you
want printed. The Maximum width for printing is 12 inches wide. Standard left
chest logos should fit within 4" x 4". |
Full shirt printing front or
back, as large as 12" x 16",
a vertical height of 10"-12" is recommended. |
IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING
PRINT SIZES:
Although
many customers like to design very large designs for printing, you must be
aware that a great big design that fits on Adult Mens Sized shirts may
not fit on most ladies or youth sized shirts. Most ladies, juniors or
youth sizes should not exceed 9" to 10" wide depending on the
product, toddlers 6" wide and infants 5" wide!! |
| Hoodies on the
front have very limited print areas between the top of the pocket and the
neckline. Adult Hoodies max with a print area only 10" to 11" high,
while youth hoodies max at only 7" inches high. Typically, if you want a
single print size that will work for ALL shirt sizes, try to have your design
sized to fit within 10 to 11 inches both vertically and
horizontally. |
| Which Printing
Method to Choose? |
We offer both
Custom Screenprinting (silkscreen) & Digital Printing
SO WHICH PRINTING METHOD IS BETTER? |
Screenprinting
is THE most popular method especially if you are on a budget. Screenprinting is
GREAT for large quantity projects using a few basic printed colors!
Print
on almost all types of fabrics except Nylon!
MAXIMUM PRINT SIZE 13" x 18" |
vs. |
Digital
printing is GREAT for printing VERY HIGH quality artwork, fine lines and
details, shade, shadows, Unlimited Color designs or photos on any color
fabric!
MAXIMUM
PRINT SIZE 12" x 16" |
Understanding ScreenPrinting
COLORS:
Screenprinting
(silkscreen) offers SIMPLE 1-color prints up to 8-color designs. Screen
printing is the reproduction of an image or text using plastic ink applied to a
shirt through a mesh or silk screen. Screenprinting ink is a thicker ink which
is applied directly on top of a shirt fabric. Screenprinting uses Pre-defined
or "Spot" colors. Spot colors are exact color formulas which cannot
be changed by adjusting variables such as contrast, brightness, hue, tint or
saturation. The most accurate screenprinting will result if your artwork, logos
or images are designed using Pantone™ (PMS) SOLID COATED (C) color
palettes, they have number codes ending with the letter "C". DO NOT
use Un-Coated (U) palette colors they are not for printing |
| Screenprinting
can be applied to almost any type of fabric including 100% cotton,
cotton/polyester blends, mesh, microfiber or 100% polyester. When using screen
printing, every color in your image needs its own "Color Screen".
This screen, similar to a stencil, controls the exact placement of just that
color. Each color must be clearly defined. |
| How to achieve ACCURATE Color
Printing! |
Proper Artwork Creation - AVOID
GRAPHIC CHEATS:
Graphic
Cheats, what does that mean? Many artists or novice users of graphic software
do not understand how to properly create artwork objects or how to edit or
delete "part(s) of them" using the readily available tools in most
software packages. A graphic cheat is the lazy/error prone solution to hide
object(s) or colors which "you think" will not be printed or
embroidered, but then unexpectedly show up anyway. Unfortunately, this is
absolutely the worst way to create or edit an image for screenprinting or
embroidery. What you thought was hidden really isn't!! |
| A graphic
cheat is basically taking some kind of shape, square, rectangle, circle or
line, and then coloring that shape to be the same color as the background or
some other color in order to attempt to hide a portion of the design that you
do not want to be seen. This may be fine for one dimensional photo editing or
JPG or BMP images to be displayed on a website, but for screenprinting or
embroidery, it creates a mess and a whole series of compound errors and odd
results. |
| The errors
exist in the fact that both embroidery and screenprinting software use true
vector information to develop visible objects, shapes and layers. ALL OF THESE
OBJECTS are built into the file information and are actually part of the
design. Attempting to put an object over an object just creates more objects,
and layering errors. You CANNOT simultaneously have foregrounds as backgrounds
and backgrounds as foregrounds. You CANNOT have a color or background which is
supposed to be "transparent", used as a color to hide something else!
"Transparent" means you can see through it! You CANNOT have objects
which are both visible and invisible at the same time. That creates conflicts
and logic errors in the production software and unintended results. Embroidery
software sees every object and attempts to setup stitching regardless of its
position in your perceived layering scheme. The same applies for screenprinting
software, which uses separate screens to layer up each of the colors in your
design. The more you cheat using a colored object to hide another object in
graphic software, the more layering errors you create when different colored
screens are created. What you thought was hidden really isn't!! |
| DO NOT USE GRAPHIC CHEATS!! Its unprofessional, its sloppy, its
lazy and it creates improper print results. If you are creating your
own design, artwork or logo, learn how to use the correct editing tools which
are easy to use regardless if you use Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel or any
other high end graphic design software. Properly creating an object and editing
it in order to remove invisible or hidden objects is the proper way to create
artwork and avoids many unforeseen errors in embroidery and print production!!
When you supply your own design, artwork or logo files, we do not take
responsibility for any errors, omissions or improper print results which may
occur due to the use of graphic cheats. |
| Understanding Digital Printing and
INK COLORS: |
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| Digital
printing offers UNLIMITED COLORS using Precision Controlled Computer Equipment
to apply High Quality Textile Pigment Ink. The method used to print colors, is
referred to as four-color process printing because it uses four primary ink
colors called CMYK. |
| Digital printing uses permanent
Textile Ink |
| If your
artwork has fine lines, details and suttle color, shade or contrast variations,
then Digital printing is your solution because it offers extremely High
Resolution printing at over 720 DPI with Unlimited Colors and Effects. Print
any Logo, Design, ClipArt, Artwork or Photos with all the colors and effects
you want including Shade, shadow, outlines, halftones, fades and color
gradients! |
| Its all about proper COLOR
ASSIGNMENTS! |
| Screenprinting
uses Pre-defined or "Spot" colors, which must be clearly defined and
identified as such. Most professional graphic artists will always provide
artwork AND a detailed color assignment list along with their artwork. Spot
colors are exact color formulas which cannot be changed by adjusting variables
such as contrast, brightness, hue, tint or saturation. The most accurate colors
will result if your artwork, logos or images are ORIGINALLY designed using
Pantone™ SOLID COATED (C) color palettes, they have number codes ending
with the letter "C". DO NOT use Un-Coated (U) palette colors they are
not for printing. Why are "spot" color assignments so important? They
guarantee that a color choice is accurately printed as chosen by the artist or
their client! |
DO NOT
DESIGN with RGB Colors! All you will get is POOR PRINT COLOR RESULTS...
RGB Colors are only for Computer Monitors, Televisions and Websites, NOT INK
PRINTING! |
| Proper color
printing will also result if your designs are created using Pantone™
PROCESS color palettes. Pantone™ CMYK process colors are created using INK
versus generic RGB colors which are used for computer monitors and websites
produced using LIGHT. Since RGB colors exist only on computer monitors, many
RGB colors cannot be accurately printed with ink, which may produce odd color
results or shifts especially with blues, yellows and greens. DO NOT USE automatic color conversion tools in many graphic
design programs to change from one color mode to another! For example, the most
common error is auto-converting RGB blues, those colors will almost always
appear with a tint of purple. Blues shift towards magenta or purple, yellows
towards lime or green, reds become darker or towards
brown. |
| DO NOT attempt
to use or color convert images copied from the Internet. Images posted on the
internet are always in RGB colors and have extremely poor resolution, typically
72 or 90 DPI. Images copied from the internet always produce extremely poor
printing AND odd color results. |
| Make sure you
ONLY select Pantone Process Color Palettes as listed without changing variables
such as brightness, contrast, hue, tint or other variables. Although programs
such as Photoshop have all kinds of cool overlay effects you can use, if you
add colored transparency layers overtop of other colors, all you will get is
unusual printed results, including but not limited to darkened colors, unusual
colors or wierd color shifts. Color layers ontop of color layers grossly change
the final color values to something you may not want. Any changes from the
pre-assigned color values may create unexpected results since there is no such
thing as brightness or contrast in ink. We do not take responsibility for your
artwork or color choices, nor do we guarantee that you will receive printed
products with anything other than the colors you provide to us, all we do is
print the file that you send with the color assignments provided, we do not
color correct your files. |
| Many popular
graphic software programs including Adobe Photoshop™, Adobe
Illustrator™, CorelDraw™, Corel Photo-Paint™ have Pantone™
Colors built-in. All better quality graphic programs have HELP guides to show
you how to properly use Color Management Tools or give us a call, we will be
glad to help. Common programs such as Microsoft Word™, Excel™,
Publisher™ and PowerPoint™ create graphics, BUT be aware that those
programs can only produce files using RGB colors! |
| Every
do-it-yourself on-line design program or simulation, may not be an accurate
representation of final printed colors, since every computer monitor has
different settings which alter the color hue, brightness and contrast of
images. All computer monitors display colors using light generated RGB colors,
while shirt printing uses ink Pantone or CMYK colors. CMYK process colors
cannot be accurately previewed on an RGB computer monitor, since CMYK colors
mostly exist in ink and not light. |
| Send Original
Artwork, Photos, Clipart at 300 DPI, at the true size you want printed.
Resolution of any image is very important for high quality printing results.
Please make sure that all background colors are set to transparent. Do not send
artwork with backgrounds representing the shirt color! Make sure that any
Bitmap Images including cut and paste images have clean edges, otherwise, white
halos, shadows or color blemishes (where stray pixels of colors exist) may be
printed especially on dark or colored fabrics. Images copied from the internet
always have low or poor resolution and produce extremely poor printing and odd
color results. Do not try to use graphic software like PhotoShop to increase a
low resolution image to something higher, the end result will be a larger,
fuzzier version of what you started with, you cannot magically take something
with poor resolution and make it better. |
Understanding Where you can and
cannot print on a shirt:
We can
print in a variety of locations: Front, Back, Left or Right Chest, Left Sleeve,
Right Sleeve, etc… Printing cannot go to the edge of a shirt or be set
into shirt corners, Printing cannot cover the entire shirt or span from left
sleeve to right sleeve, Printing cannot go above necklines or onto shoulders,
Printing cannot curve around necklines or follow seams or hems, Printing cannot
go over zippers, stitched hems or pockets, Printing cannot wrap 360 degrees
around a shirt. Exact dimensional positioning for front, back or sleeve
printing is per our equipment requirements and standards. THE MAXIMUM SIZE for
printing of any image is 13 inches Wide by 18 inches High centered on the shirt
below the neck line, except on Ladies and Youth sizes, the print area is much
smaller depending on the shirt style and overall measurements. |
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