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I'm starting own business and it wont involve only t-shirts, but i prefer to start with something easy(Cause i consider hoodies and jeans a little bit more of trouble than t-shirt)
I have a little different starting point as i actually have connection to sewing factory that is already sewing for local Russian shops.
I will personally make designs and as i have over 10 years experience in Photoshop that shouldnt be a problem to me(I have many designs already sketched).
Now the question is - if i provide picture of a design in lets say JPG and huge size, is there a print technology that can print my design on t-shirt, jacket, hoodie etc. etc. WITHOUT reducing colors at all ? I mean is there a technology that allows me to get what i see on my display, without all that reduce to 3 colors odd stuff ive read about here.
I personally dont get that stuff at all - like reduce it to 3 colors, shirt with 5 colors will cost you that much etc..
Oh and one more question - why Illustrator if i can make everything in PHotoshop? What are benefits of using Illustrator in case of designing to fabric? Cause i never bumped into something that cant be done in PHotoshop.
Thank you!
ps. As you see in my question the design is more important stuff not the producing as it will be covered at factory.
a direct to garment printer will pretty much print what you see. there will be slight color shifts on various colored garments.
Pricing is based on number of colors, locations and color of shirts, thus many people try to reduce the number of colors as much as possible to save money.
Photoshop art will work as long as the resolution is of high quality. A jpeg is NOT the preferred file format for art as it is a lossy format and produces artifacts in the image that will transfer. Illy/vector art is resolution independent thus the preferred method. Not to be mistaken as the only or best method just a good one.
Thank you Fluid!
Pricing is not an issue as im going for highest quality there is, as MSRP will be around 40-60$, but also with custom high quality design on the back,front and multiple colored fabrics.
I'm starting own business and it wont involve only t-shirts, but i prefer to start with something easy(Cause i consider hoodies and jeans a little bit more of trouble than t-shirt)
I have a little different starting point as i actually have connection to sewing factory that is already sewing for local Russian shops.
I will personally make designs and as i have over 10 years experience in Photoshop that shouldnt be a problem to me(I have many designs already sketched).
Now the question is - if i provide picture of a design in lets say JPG and huge size, is there a print technology that can print my design on t-shirt, jacket, hoodie etc. etc. WITHOUT reducing colors at all ? I mean is there a technology that allows me to get what i see on my display, without all that reduce to 3 colors odd stuff ive read about here.
I personally dont get that stuff at all - like reduce it to 3 colors, shirt with 5 colors will cost you that much etc..
Oh and one more question - why Illustrator if i can make everything in PHotoshop? What are benefits of using Illustrator in case of designing to fabric? Cause i never bumped into something that cant be done in PHotoshop.
Thank you!
ps. As you see in my question the design is more important stuff not the producing as it will be covered at factory.
Le-dobermann,
Normally T-shirts are silk screened which means if your design has 5 colors then five different screens will be used to get those 5 colors. You'll be charged for that. Beyond it just being a charge it is more time consuming and work intensive to line up and register 5 different colors per shirt/design.
You'll be charged for that time as well.
Yes, you can create almost anything in photoshop, however most printers prefer to work with illustrator and vector art because with vector art your image can be enlarged and or decreased with zero loss to quality and zero pixelation. I like to think of vector art as math or coordinates for line art and color. I think of bitmaps (jpg, tiff etc) as a photo or color copy.
Most printers and some of the fulfillment vendors work with software and equipment that use the "math or coordinates for line art and color" to reproduce your image which is why they prefer Illustrator and vector files.
There is technology that allows you to "get what i see on my display, without all that reduce to 3 colors odd stuff" It's called digital prints. If you have a color inkjet printer at home then you've already done digital prints. All the vendor will do is print your design from a much better and larger higher end inkjet printer. So yes you will be able to get what you see on your display.
However, because of the method digital prints are produced it dictates what colors and fabrics you can attach that image to.
The image that comes from the printer is applied to the garment using a heat press machine. For white and light colored shirts this is easy because the opaque inks on the paper turn into a gas or vapor when heated and sink into the fabric of the white or light colored shirt.
Because the inks are opaque the same method does not work on black or dark colored shirts. So for those instances your image would be printed on to some white surface and then that surface has to be trimmed to the shape of your design, or not, and then that is what is heat pressed to your garment.
I hope that helps to answer some of your questions.
When I print directly from Photoshop I get just about the same results as it I were printing the same thing in vector format. I would submit the image in native PS format to your printer, if he has PS. If not, TIF would probably be the best raster format.
When I print directly from Photoshop I get just about the same results as it I were printing the same thing in vector format. I would submit the image in native PS format to your printer, if he has PS. If not, TIF would probably be the best raster format.
But what would i do with it ? Cause that home printer is way too low quality..
I would have to submit my design on cd with huge size per image.
Or do you suggest they recreate from paper print ??
Thank you alot Powermoves,
I presume turning photoshop psd into Illustrator and vector isnt a big deal?
And that means they will want a good resolution picture and if they have to scale it down/up quality will suffer, correct ?
You are correct about print quality suffering.
I dont want to say that Psd to vector conversion is not a big deal. Some people can do it quite easily but for some, me included it is not so easy.
It can be done and many people do. I feel that the more "busy" your psd/bitmap is, then the more work involved turning it into a vector.
Photoshop allows you to do great things and build great images but an image with 7,8,9 colors with gradients etc, etc, would be a lot of work to screen print on a t-shirt.
I'm not trying to discourage you from using vectors but for what you want to do it sounds like digital prints may work better for you from a price standpoint.
You may ask around in some of the forums here and find people who are good at bitmap to vector conversion and see what kind of fee they charge and have them look at one of your images and see if they think they can convert it to a vector.
Photoshop allows you to do great things and build great images but an image with 7,8,9 colors with gradients etc, etc, would be a lot of work to screen print on a t-shirt.
Ok i guess i can forget screen printing, separating over 40 designs is suicide for my free time
Right now i make my designs in photoshop cs3 4000x4000px and in photoshop resolution 72(still cant figure out does that mean 300dpi or how to convert :?) and wonder will that be enough for 25x25cm prints..
Design for a factory 
Re: Design for a factory 
