To give you a correct answer, I should know in what program you made your image.

Saving in CMYK is correct in case you made a full color image.
The printer can separate the colors in prints for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. You should find the option somewhere in the print window.

If it is NOT a full color image, you might have used Adobe Illustrator.
You can use the swatch library and pick a color. The printer will print every color for you.

If I did not help correctly, please let me know. And give me some more information on your file.

 

I designed the shirt in photoshop. Also i was not talking about printing the shirt using a printer. I am talking about sending the file to the screen-printer. Can they do the color separation, if so, what do i need to do before and what format do i need to save it in to get the best, problem free result...?

 

Do not convert to CYMK unless you are printing (cmyk) 4 color process. If you convert to CMYK and the printer need to separate as simulated this will make it a lot harder.

 

How do you convert photoshop art into vectors in photoshop to send a 4 color job to a screen printer ? ...so that the screen printer is not required to play around with the art.





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Isn't it common for most screen printers to prefer a CYMK graphic.? What requires CYMK and whats the alternative?

 

No it is not common unless the art will be printed as a cmyk print. We print a lot of cmyk yet the majority of our prints are simulated process. Color editing and tweaking is better with RGB art as it has a wider color gamut than CMYK.

Lucy
You convert the old fashion way by recreating the art in a vector app. Depending on the art you may be able to select the various colors/elements, convert the selection to a path and export the paths to Illy. No matter what it is not an easy process.

Any digital work is best created in rgb. If you need to print to a desktop printer or send to a vedor that does need cmyk you can make a copy of the art (rgb) file and convert this one to CMYK. Aways keep the original in rgb. If all you do is work in a cmyk workflow environment that you can create in cmyk. anything else is best advised to stay with the wider color gamut for easier editing.

 

Lucy
You convert the old fashion way by recreating the art in a vector app.

thanks Richard, I needed it to hear it again. ...though may be things changed since last week.



you're the tops.



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I need help here too, i use photoshop, and my designs are printed in mostly 1, 2, and sometimes 3 colors. I want to take my designs to print now, as i am about to puchase a heat press. What is the best way to do so, and make it look good and look like it does on the screen? Do i need to convert it to another program, or can i leave it in photoshop and print it off somehow to do the press?

 

When your designs are printed in one, two or three colors, it would be easier to make your designs in Adobe Illustrator.

 

most of my designs are one, no more than 2 colors. Is photoshop still ok to do that with?

 

If you're dealing with one or two color designs, it would be much more cost effective to print with two spot colors than it would be to print as 4 color process.

 

is illustrator much harder to learn than photoshop?

 

It is not harder - it is different. And a lot of good tutorials can be found on the internet.

One of the good parts of Illustrator is, that once you have made your illustration, it can be enlarged or reduced to any size without loss of quality. This is because you make vectorized images.

If Illustrator might be too expensive Corel Draw is a good alternative.

 

But photoshop can be used to make t shirts, right?

 

Sure, Photoshop can be used. When your use only one color, it is no problem. However, when a tee is printed with two or three colors, it is much easier to use Illustrator. It has more features than Photoshop. This is especially usefull when you make designs for shirt prints.