Easiest colors to screen print?

I'm a waterbased printer (rather than plastisol), but I don't think that changes the answer: black, hands down. The ink is saturated with pigment. Smooth, thin, runny, and forgiving. Never have to worry about contrast, and it always goes on smooth and simple. You'll never have a problem printing black, unless that problem is mess.

In general, dark ink on light fabric will be the easiest prints. Black is best to work with, but navy is also great, etc. Plastisol is less affected by colour consideration than waterbased ink (e.g. white ink on black fabric), but it's not immune.

Its a definite black especially on my military-themed shirts. I think black ink would be the universal "best". I print both plastisol and waterbase inks but most dark ink on dark shirts are printed with waterbase.

True. Black is ridiculously easy. So Navy blue is another easy color? Then Id imagine a dark gray would be fairly easy too...

So where would a color like purple fall? On a scale from 1-10, 1 being white ink, and 10 being black ink. Is there anything close to being as easy as black?

chuckk_d said:

So where would a color like purple fall? On a scale from 1-10, 1 being white ink, and 10 being black ink. Is there anything close to being as easy as black?

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I use Union Ultrasoft and Purple is almost the same as black. It is a deep purple so it covers well and it is pretty much the same consistency as black.

Black was the first color I used, and now a few hundred prints and almost the same amount of colors later its still the easiest color to me. Forgiving is a great way to describe it because on the first day I did everything wrong and it still came out ok.

Dark colors on sports grey would be my vote.

chuckk_d said:

True. Black is ridiculously easy. So Navy blue is another easy color? Then Id imagine a dark gray would be fairly easy too...

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I think a reasonable rule of thumb is the more pigment, the easier it is to print. And generally the darker the ink, the more pigment is in it.

chuckk_d said:

So I was wondering, what are generally the easiest colors to screen print on virtually any color t-shirt? ....only if there actually are "generally easier" colors to print with. I use plastisol ink by the way...

Just curious

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Black all the way....
Fast to print, quick to cure!!!

chuckk_d said:

Then Id imagine a dark gray would be fairly easy too...

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gray is not as easy because you have to add white to get gray. White does not print clean like black.

One color that stands out to me is yellow, always difficult to print.

Why do you want to know? are your trying to decide what inks to buy?

I remember printing dark gray on navy gray shirts once because the customer does not want the high contrast of black on gray shirts. I am guessing its about 20-30% white and 70-80% black. Don't really know because I just add pigments until I got the desired shade. But 2 coats of gray did the job.

Any colors on white or athletic heather fabrics are usually stupid easy.

Yellow or other lighter colors on white shirt may be easy but not necessarily a good color combination. Depends on the design though.

PrintsCharming said:

are your trying to decide what inks to buy?

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Yea, I wanna start fairly simple instead of jumping into all kinds of colors..I have black ink and white ink at the moment. After my first few tries with white (which wasnt too bad at all, but needs still needs some fine tuning) I decided that I should probably stay away from brighter colors and just keep experimenting with the white that I have until I get the technique better.

But in the meantime, Id like to pick up another 1 or 2 colors that arent all that hard to print with, just to have a little more variety while I mess with this white ink on the side.


Thanks folks for the replies! Much apprecieated

Red is easy if you're printing on lighter coloured shirts, and if you're only going to have a few colours of ink... red is a good one to have.