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 colour printing is best used when printing graphics which are usually not very photographic in nature.
The colored ink that is used in reproducing graphic images are chosen by a graphic designer and more often than not are Pantone specified colors. Pantone coated or uncoated colour references are chosen to specify the ink colours of the design. The Pantone system is a global standard for colour matching where every colour is assigned a unique designation.
Branded promotional garments, or other merchandise where color identify and uniformity must stay constant, are particularly well suited for spot color printing.
4 Color Process is an additional technique for t-shirt screen printing. This method of printing is used mainly for photographic images and illustrations that consist of a wide range of colours, tones and graduations. Hard covers, paperbacks and periodicals all use the same four-colour process.
Reproducing the colours of the original image requires a mixing of translucent inks on a white background. This is of course a rather more difficult process to achieve on a fabric than it is on paper. The methods are pretty similar. The printing that you choose will work only on white articles of clothing and will not show correctly on coloured items.
The cost for the print set up is going to be a lot higher than that of simple spot colour designs and is only good for the bigger print runs of 100+. When the garment screen printers make full coloured images and put them on coloured fabrics this is called ‘Simulated process’. The artwork is separated into various colours and shades using a method similar to spot colour printing to achieve the overall look and feel of the original image..
Most t-shirt printers use this method, and it is especially popular when used to copy fantasy and heavy metal album artwork onto shirts to be sold by the band. Colour separations and the number of colors necessary make this the most expensive t-shirt printing option, and the higher set-up costs mean it is usually reserved for larger runs.
