help preparing artwork for dtg

im not actually doing the printing myself. all i did was make the design in photoshop 7. a local shop will actually do the printing so i do not know what program or machine they may be using. i will be taking the design to them on a disc but wanted to know how the design should be prepared before i took it to them. ill go ahead and give it a transparent background and then take it to them like that. thanks for the help equipmentzone1. much appreciated.

Also you need to make sure you have the image only on one layer, if there is more than one layer, the printer's software will not be able to process the info correctly.

In my opinion, make the black background a separate layer and put the artwork in another layer. Different RIPs will handle files differently. Most shops set up their procedures as to how to handle files when they come from a customer. Several of the RIPs will allow the user to remove the black background and print your file just fine. If the user wants everything in a single layer, they should know how to merge the layers. But if you or merge the files now, you should keep a copy that is not merged in case you change suppliers and the one does things differently.

In the end, you need to have a talk with the company that is going to do the printing and ask them what their preference is. Best wishes,

Mark

Everyone has given you great info, I'll tell you how we do them....transparent background using shirt color for background, merged layers (not flattened), saved and imported in to the RIP as a .psd.

The other thing is that you asked about white shirts, your artwork with a transparent background will work on a black shirt, of course it won't on a white shirt because of your text color being white....so you would have to change the text color for the white shirts to black?

So you would need two files one for white shirts and one for dark shirts, the only other thing I'd add is that sometimes drop shadows, shading, highlights, or other effects look great on the screen but look bad on a printed shirt, it's always best with new artwork that has effects added to it to print a sample shirt to see exactly what your going to get before you start production.

Hope this helps.

thank you all for all the input. i removed the background so that it is now transparent..but i did not merge the two layer. they have photoshop at the shop so im sure they can do it there before they load it into whatever program they use for the dtg. ive never actually seen a shirt done with dtg so i am definately getting a sample done before i ask them to run all the shirts for me. the shop is a gift shop but they do dtg as well..so im hoping the person has enough experience with it that it will come out good. thank you all again for your help.

Chonky, Even though RIPs do a pretty good job of interpreting a piece of artwork, For the very best work, It helps to visualize how somthing will be printed. Poeple who understand spot separations can do this very easily. When you see a dropshadow printed on a white piece of paper it's dark pixels that give the shading. If artwork is being created specifically for printing on dark, artwork can be specifically made so that there is no interpretation... meaning a group of white pixels with a color element that compliments and traps the color that it's being printed on. The people who do the printing should be able to tell you what they need to give you what you want.