If you want ALL the history of Scott Fresener and his life in and out of the T-Shirt business then grab some popcorn and listen to this interview with his great friends and former employees Terry Combs and Aaron Montgomery. Terry and Aaron were with Scott side-by-side (along with Pat and Mike Fresener and others) during the heyday of U.S. Screen Print and Inkjet Technology when they developed the T-Jet, white inkjet ink, FastFilms (now T-Seps), FastRIP and other industry changing products. Enjoy!

Over the years a constant source of discuss is about halftone dots. Even though the average printer’s bread-and-butter is still “spot color”, printers want to do more photorealistic images on light and dark shirts. And with low priced color separation software and lots of Photoshop training articles, creating halftone separations isn’t that hard.

I am sure that the other writers, seminar lecturers, and developers of separation software will agree that now that the separations are easy, teaching printers how to work with halftones is the next step.

Note: Click on images to see larger version.

What is a Halftone?
In screen printing and the general printing industry, the screen (or plate in lithography) is only capable of printing solid areas. Since a photograph has various tones ranging from solid black all the way to solid white, a method has to be used whereby you can reproduce the photograph in these “continuous tones” and still print a “solid” area of ink. This is where the halftone comes in.

A halftone is simply a group of large and small dots that when viewed at a distance, have the appearance of continuous shades of gray or color in an image. (figure 1). Images that have shading or tints of a color are made into a halftone as they are output to a printer.

The halftone process does not actually happen until you press the print button and the image is “rastorized” and a program called PostScript converts the gray areas into a series of dots. Since halftone dots are not actually dots, but small ellipses, they have a definite pattern and angle to them (figure 2).

Don’t confuse halftone dots with stochastic random dots (figure 3). Index color separations are done using random square dots that are all the same size. While this article is more about halftone dots, the problem of exposing and printing a small dot is still the same whether it is a halftone or random square dot.

A Word About LPI

Halftone dots are referred to by a number based on the number of dots per linear inch. This number is called the “frequency” or “Lines-per-inch – LPI.” Yes, lines-per-inch doesn’t seem right but in the old camera days you would refer to the halftone screen “ruling” and this is where it came from.

Don’t Confuse DPI and LPI
We talk about the resolution of our laser printer and scanner in “dots-per-inch” (which you would think is how we should talk about halftones). The reason is that this number refers to the actual pixels (dots) in the image of a scan, or the number of small “dots” of toner that is printed to make up the complete image. Remember, resolution is DPI. Halftone dots is LPI/Frequency.

What is the Proper Frequency?
This is a topic that everyone wants a complex formula for. There have been numerous articles touting the theories about what LPI to use. I think it is much simpler.

Here are easy to remember frequencies:
Simple spot color jobs with some tints 35lpi
More detailed spot color images with lots of shading 45lpi
Photorealistic images – manual press 55lpi

Photorealistic images – automatic press 65lpi

Proper Angles
The other factor to decide when printing halftones is what angle to output the halftone at. The problem with choosing the wrong angle is that when you expose a halftone dot on woven screen mesh there is a chance you will get optical undesirable patterns called moirés. These checkerboard patterns are the bane of the industry and everyone is searching for the ultimate angles to use (figure 4).

Not only will get moiré patterns between the dots on the screen mesh, you might get moiré patterns within a set of color separations

and you might get a moiré pattern on the actual shirt. Again, there has been a lot written about moiré patterns in this magazine. My goal here is to try to make it simple. No formula, just advice. Every graphic program is pre-set to give you a stock angle that will work for lithography. These angles will not always work for screen printing. Keep in mind that everyone has their favorite angle and sometimes what works for one printer will not work for another. Also, the artwork, screen mesh, shirt weave, mesh open area and screen tension all have a bearing on angles and moiré. But…… the title says “made easy” so let’s not go there.

Here are the angles I would use when outputting halftones:
One-color or multicolor spot color image:
25 degrees for all images (yes it WILL work)

Simulated Process Color:
25 degrees for all images

Process color (CMYK):
The truth is you can use 25 degrees for ALL colors even on CMYK. But yes, over the years screeners have used these angles too. Cyan 15, Magenta 45, Yellow 75, Black 75 Or Cyan 22.5, Magenta 52.5, Yellow 82.5, Black 82.5

Underbase for a true process color job:
Same as the Cyan

Yes, you have read about other angles too. In fact a list I give out to students in my classes includes seven different variations on CMYK angles from all of the other authors and lecturers. Who is right? Everyone – we all do good prints on shirts and don’t have moiré patterns. Do we ever have to reburn a screen to get rid of moiré patterns, YES. Do the “big guys” ever reburn screens to get rid of moiré, YES (and if they say no, they are lying to you).

Percentage
When outputting a tint of a color, you will be working with percentages. Solid is 100% so 50% of the color strength would a 50% “tint”

or percentage. The lower the number the smaller the dot and less ink coverage (figure 5). With continuous tone images your output could have dots as small as 2% and as large as 95%. Obviously the 2% may be impossible to hold on a screen.

Also, when you print, the 95% dots will gain and it will look like a solid – “dot gain.”

Outputting Halftones
This is where you get into trouble. I mentioned earlier that when you press the “print” button in your graphics program, the image is output AND if you have a “page description language” called Adobe Postscript in your output device (laser, dry film, inkjet, imagesetter), the image is converted into halftone dots at the correct angle based on your settings. What this means is that “no PostScript, no halftones.” Now, before you run out and tell me that you bought an inkjet printer with a

PostScript “RIP,” you need to make sure the RIP (raster image processor) can also do halftones. Some inkjet printers have additional RIP’s who’s sole purpose is to help the inkjet print Pantone colors correctly, let you use embedded EPS files and other “maintenance” stuff. A typical low-priced inkjet will not do halftones.

A typical “office” laser printer will not do halftones. No Postscript. A large format inkjet like the Epson 4000 or 4800 will not do halftones (even with it’s extra “Stylus RIP”) without a third party RIP. Yes, they are available but that’s another article. Most larger format laser printers will do halftones and they BRAG that they have PostScript (figure 6).

The easy way to tell in a program like Corel Draw is in the Print Menu. If the “Advanced” button is gray and cannot be clicked, Corel is trying to tell you that you can’t change the Frequency or Angle because you have not selected a PostScript printer (figure 7).

Quality of Halftones
This is where screeners get into fistfights. One says you can’t do a decent Process Color print without using an imagesetter while the other has just won an award with his laser printer output. No, they are not all the same, but we are using a pretty forgiving process. When you print a dot on a shirt it tends to spread a little (dot gain) and you don’t’ always see the irregularity of the dot. But, to clear the air, figure 8 shows magnified views of halftone dots from various output devices. To make this fair, these are all at 55 lpi and a 40% tint.

A Word of Advice
As you can see from figure 8, the laser printer output is a little soft, and what you can’t see is the density of the dot. Typically the laser printer is the weakest of all because the deposit of toner is not heavy enough. The density is measured in Dmax. The Imagesetter film is

around 3.8 (assume 4.0 is 100% solid), the Dry Film and Inkjet are around 3.0 and a laser about 2.5. Yes, you can still burn a good screen, but if the laser dot were denser to block more light it would help. Especially if you have a lot of small 5% dots to burn on the screen.

Take a second and spray your laser output (after you have imaged it) with an “artists fixative.” Make sure it doesn’t have UV block in it. Most suppliers now carry this as a stock item (figure 9).

Mesh Selection
This is another area where everyone has a formula. Take the square root of the distance from the sun and divide by two and add 3. Ok, yes there are formulas that help, but this isn’t brain surgery. I bet if you walk into 100 screening shops and ask what mesh they use for CMYK process color, you will hear from 80% of them that they use 305 on their manual press and 330 to 355 on their autos. No formula. Nothing about the moon being in the second quarter. Yes, I am being flip, but the title of this article is “made easy.”

Here are basic mesh selections when using halftones:

Simple spot color on light shirt 160 – 180 Detailed spot color on light shirt 200 to 230

Process Color CMYK – Manual 305

Process Color CMYK – Automatic 330 to 355

Simple underbase on dark 160 to 180

Detailed underbase on dark 200 to 230

Dot Gain
The problem with printing halftone dots is that the dot will grow in size as the ink is pushed out of the mesh onto a soft surface like a shirt. A typical halftone will grow from 25% to 35% when printed properly. If printed poorly it can grow to twice its size. This means that the print will be muddy with no detail. This is typically how your first halftone job prints.

Start off with proper art preparation to help compensate for dot gain. If using simple screen tints, use a lower tint number to gain a larger number at press. This means that if you want a 50% red on the shirt, use a 35% tint in the image in your graphics program.

If the image is photorealistic, think “light.” Areas of deep shadows will get darker and lose detail. Take time to lighten these areas. The

image will always get darker when you print it! Figure 10. If the job is a process color separation, do the seps correctly. There are good articles on color separating on this website.

Tension
Your screens should be tensioned to at least 20 Newtons. OK, more is better but for those of you with wood frames and a halftone job that is due, this will work. Try to get to 25 or higher. If you are buying prestretched wood frames you should insist on this. For the best results when printing halftone dots, use retensionable frames and low-elongation mesh.

Emulsion
A lot has been written about the ease of capillary direct film that is simply applied to the screen, but give me the same 100 printers doing halftone printing and 99 of them will only be using direct emulsion. The secret to “holding” halftone dots on the screen is to use thin coats of emulsion on the proper mesh. The best type of emulsion to use is called a Dual-Cure. Use a sharp edge scoop coater and coat the underside of the screen first and then the inside. This should be all you need. You can also do one coat on the bottom and two on the inside for a little more durability.

Exposure
If you have never exposed halftone dots before, you need to be ready to change your exposure ways. You might be exposing your 110 mesh for three minutes but on a 305 mesh with thin coats of emulsion, times can get as low as 20 seconds! A common support call is that the printer can’t seem to hold anything smaller than a 20% dot. When asked about exposure times, it is “I went a little shorter than for my normal mesh.” You need to go A LOT shorter. The best investment is an exposure calculator to fine-tune this. Be prepared to burn a few screens to get this right (figure 11).

Washout
OK, you have the screen exposed, take it to the sink, blow it out with water and only later discover that all of the small dots didn’t wash out. Why? You didn’t bother to see if they washed out. The best bet is to have your film near the sink and examine the film or vellum during washout to see where all of the smallest dots are. Also, a light behind the sink will help you see through the screen during washout.

Press Setup
To get a good halftone print, your press should be tight, the shirtboards level and the screen frame flat. When setting up the screen, it should be slightly off contact. Keep it to 1/16” all over. This means no warped screens.

Squeegee

No, you can’t use that soft rubber squeegee that lays down a lot of ink. This is where you need sharp, medium hard and straight. I would use a triple durometer 70/90/70 squeegee. You might also try the new “constant force” squeegees that make a very clean print (figure 12).

Ink viscosity
Many plastisols are not designed to be printed as halftones. They are simply too thick. You can reduce the viscosity of the ink with a curable reducer. The ink should be creamy and flow easily (not runny). It shouldn’t take too much squeegee pressure to get a good print.

Printing Technique

Try to keep your stroke to only one in one direction. Don’t use too much pressure. This isn’t athletic printing. You might even need to go faster to keep the image clean.

Test Print
To really find out how good you can print halftones, make a simple test file with square dots of 10% to 95% tints at different frequencies and if you really want to test, different angles. You can also make a more complete test file that handles process color (figure 13). Just one or two prints will tell you that your 75’% dots and higher are all solid, you can’t burn a 5% dot and you get moiré on your 10% dots (figure 14). At least now you know that you need to re-read this article. Halftones are easy. Just follow some simple rules, improve your overall technique and have great prints!

If you don’t have time to learn or use an automated separation program like T-Seps, or if you don’t do enough high-end work – or if you are just overloaded and need help with seps – let Scott Fresener and company do the seps for you for the low price of only $75 (72 hour turnaround) or $95 (24 hour turnaround) for any number of colors.

Scott provides thousands of color separations per year for companies large and small including printers who print for WalMart, major licensed merchandise and more. Whether you have a 12-color automatic press or a 6-color manual press, getting a great set of seps makes jobs print easy and eliminates the headaches.

To order color separations and get more details about this service go the Color Separation Service website HERE.

If you are a volume user we offer pre-paid separation packages. You can simply purchase 5, 10, or 20 packs and use them as you need. Click HERE to learn more.
5-Pack $325 ($65 per set)
10-Pack $600 ($60 per set)
20-Pack $1,000 ($50 per set)

If you are new to printing high-end images on light and dark shirts you MUST read an article on how to do this. Click here to see the article. Print it out. Post it. Follow it.

Here are a few samples of separation jobs Scott has done.                      

All images copyright/trademark their respective owners.

This article is like a broken record and the reason I write about basic screen making is I am constantly reminded how confusing it can be to a newcomer AND a seasoned professional
– and it never stops amazing me how much bad information is given out by industry suppliers.

I do color separations all day long for a living – among other things. I have two types of accounts. My best accounts are established printers who know how to hold small halftone dots on screens. They know that the secret to good high-end CMYK and Simulated Process prints is to “hold the dots.”

My problem accounts are printers who are either new or have been printing spot color but never halftones. They just seem to struggle with holding small dots on screens and they often get bad advice from suppliers (like using capillary film… but that’s another story).

Today was one of those days. I spent two hours on and off the phone trying to teach someone how to hold halftone dots on the screen. I did a great set of separations for this customer but he complained that there was no detail when he did his first test print. I told him to compare his film to the actual screen. He was shocked.  All the small halftone dots on the film were gone on the screen. To me is was an obvious way to troubleshoot but to someone who is use to burning spot color it was assumed a screen is a screen.

Here is what I did to help him:

1. First, I established that he was using very tight screens. He said he was using roller frames (and had for a long time) and that he had a tension meter and worked hard to hold a minimum of 25 newtons. That was the right answer.
2. I asked how he was coating his screen. He gave the right answer. He was using a direct emulsion and using the sharp edge of the coater. He coated the underside once followed by the inside once.  A good start. I recommended on the underbase screen to give it a second coat on the bottom – after the first coat was dry.
3. I asked how good his films were. He said he was using a software RIP (for halftones and to lay down more ink) and was printing to an Epson 1400 printer (Epson uses similar but different model numbers in different countries). This printer uses dye based ink. That’s a good thing.  He swore his films were very dense.
4. I asked what brand of emulsion he was using. He said it was a one-part. That tells me he is using a pure photopolymer emulsion that has a long shelf life. It sounds great but the fact is these emulsions are very fast and don’t have the latitude of exposure times a two part emulsion has.  Obviously – his supplier recommended this. I would have recommended a two-part “dual cure” emulsion. They are forgiving, fairly fast, and easy to use. They have a three month shelf life when mixed.
5. He was using 305 mesh (120 in cm) mesh for all the colors per my directions. I asked how long he was exposing and what his light source was. He was using a 1000 watt mercury vapor bulb in a professional unit with a vacuum blanket. Good. He said he burned his everyday 125 mesh  (49 in cm) mesh for two minutes AND HIS SUPPLIER SAID TO GO LONGER FOR HIGHER MESH so he was going four minutes for the 305 mesh!  Wow. I about fell off my chair. You never go longer for higher mesh. The longer you go the more the exposure light burns around the dots AND the emulsion coating is MUCH thinner on a thinner screen mesh. No wonder he could not hold the dots on the screen.
6. I asked him what his halftone frequency (LPI) was and what angle and dot shape he was using. He said he used my recommendations of 55LPI at 25 degrees with a dot shape of ellipse.  Good call! The right answer.

I told him to try 30 seconds for the 305 mesh and he laughed….. “that will never work… all the emulsion will wash away.”  I laughed…… “trust me.”  In fact with a pure photopolymer emulsion he might have been able to go down to 20 seconds. The problem is 30 might be too long. Too fast!

How does this story end. He called back two hours later. He was able to hold dots as small as 5%!!  Now that’s a very good thing. He could not believe he could expose as low as 30 seconds. He set up the press and had made a test print and was blown away by the night and day difference. All the small details were there and the gradations were smooth. His print actually matched the original and the seps.

My final advice to him was to buy a two-part dual-cure photopolymer emulsion which will give much more latitude and it will be very forgiving. Yes, you have to mix it. It is a small price to pay for holding a 5% dot!

Remember…… HOLD THOSE DOTS!

This page links to https://t-biznetwork.com/master-classes/

We have released T-Seps 4.0! It has a lot of new features and fixes for Adobe’s removal of the Pantone Color Books in version 24.0 and higher. And many other things they have changed. And, T-Seps is now Mac Silicon M1/M2/M3 processor compatible! 

If you have an older version of T-Seps you can easily upgrade. Check out the details at our Store HERE.

Are you struggling to do great looking color separations for photos and high-end images?
Or do you have a simple JPG and you can’t figure out how to separate it? Do you wonder how the big guys do it? They have T-Seps! If you want to creating stunning screen printed images on light and dark shirts then you should take a look at the #1 color separation program in the industry. T-Seps is the big brother to the very popular FastFilms (over 9,000 users worldwide) and it automates doing color separations in Adobe Photoshop. In a matter of minutes you will have a great set of seps. Plus, the program tells you the mesh count, print order, ink color and more.

T-Seps is actually 14 programs in one. It does a variety of separation types including Simulated Process Color, Index Color, CMYK, Spot Color, Old Photo, Discharge Ink, and more. Plus it has dozens of routines to clean up artwork, create edge effects and the distressed look, convert the files to halftone dots and more.

Don’t worry if you don’t know Photoshop. You get our complete Adobe Photoshop Master Class FREE with the purchase of a full version of T-Seps. 27 videos!

Are you a Corel or Adobe Illustrator user? No worries. Create the image in your favorite vector program and use all the colors you want. Open the file in Photoshop and separate it in a matter of minutes with T-Seps – including getting a great underbase and highlight white!

T-Seps 4.0 is compatible with any CC version of Adobe Photoshop! And, it works on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 11 and of course all Macs including Silicon processors. Before you buy any other program that claims to be the best – download and try T-Seps.

Check it out HERE and download a FREE 20 day trial today.

It’s Time For An Artwork Resolution to Help Make Separations Easier and Better

The title of this article says it all. For high-end color separations (or even low end for that matter) it is all about image resolution. This article is not about straight forward vector artwork that you build. It is about any raster/pixel image you inherit or build or a vector file you create in Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw and convert to pixels to be separated in Photoshop.

Note: Click on image to zoom in.

As a little background, I do over 1,000 separations per year so I like to think I am in the trenches and I have seen it all and in some cases tried to separate it all. Yes, I do occasionally turn down jobs because of poor quality artwork.  

Regardless of how you do your high-end color separations (normally photo realistic) – whether you use an automated program or use Photoshop to “pull” the colors – this article is more about how to make artwork color separation friendly than about the actual separation process.

This article has been prompted by the fact that I deal with low resolution artwork every day and way too often I get this artwork from profession artists. I find myself telling the same stories over and over about what resolution we need as T-Shirt printers and how simple things like leaving “anti-aliasing” turned on can really screw up a great piece of artwork and no, 72 dpi is not high resolution to us. Figure 1 shows the difference between a 72 dpi image and a 300 dpi image.

Here are some simple tips on how to make doing color separations easier and better. If you are an owner/operator/artist, this is for you. If you are an artist – especially a web graphic artist, this is for you.

Artwork for Color Seps
Artwork for color seps has different needs than artwork for DTG, sublimation or web graphics. The big difference is we need hard/sharp edges if at all possible when we color separate. If we are creating a web graphic or an image for direct-to-garment a soft edge is really no big deal. It just means the edge won’t be as sharp.

When you create color separations from raster images we typically use a program like Adobe Photoshop to create separate “channels” for each color. Figure 2. And, the most common way to pull specific colors from an image is to use the Color Range tool. Figure 3. If the edge of the image is soft then the color you “pull” will have a soft edge. That is a HUGE problem when you convert that separation into halftone dots. The soft edge is now large halftone dots that look like major jaggies. Figure 4.

Also, if the image has a soft edge – this edge is normally NOT the same color as the main fill color you are trying to separate. The edge will often have a lot of lighter colors and grays. Figure 5. That means that if you are looking for all the yellow in an image – if the edges are soft – what might appear to be yellow from a distance is really light yellow, orange, gray and other colors around the edge to soften the edge. This is a problem because when you color separate – some of these rouge colors will show up on other colors in the seps.

I often spend a LOT of time simply erasing unwanted colors that show in on seps.

Anti-Aliasing Is Your Enemy
What the heck is that? Anti-Aliasing is a graphic programs way of softening edges so they won’t be jagged. Frankly, jagged edges were more of a problem when we had slow computers and worked with lower resolution files. It is much less of a problem today.  If you work with Adobe Photoshop you will notice Anti-Aliasing is EVERYWHERE and there is a check box to turn it on or off. Even when you open a vector file in Photoshop there is an option to turn it off. Figure 6. You must ALWAYS turn off (uncheck) Anti-Aliasing when working with selections, paths, opening files and other parts of Photoshop – to keep the edges sharp. Figure 7.

Remember – soft edges give you huge halftone dots in those areas of the edge that are not 100%. A huge no, no.

Figure 8 shows a great hard edge separation that was made using Color Range from a graphic that was created or opened in Photoshop with Anti-Aliasing turned off. Figure 9 shows the same image with Anti-Aliasing turned on.

I thought this article was about Resolution
It is – but Anti-Aliasing is still part of the problem and image resolution is a huge part of soft edges. Here is a typical scenario. You grab that great graphic off the internet – hey…. no one will know. It is 72 dpi and it looks great on the monitor. You start building a complete design by grabbing other images and using Layers in Photoshop you start to piece things together. You add type to make it really work. Wow! A finished design?

What is the flaw in your thinking? You left all the images at 72 dpi and in some cases they were very small. You added type to a 72 dpi file and when you merged all the Photoshop channels – the type became a raster – at 72 dpi. You just make a great file into a low res file. Figure 10.

The solution would have been to upsample the original piece of artwork to 300 dpi (Figure 11) and THEN started to add type and other components. Yes, some of the pieces might be soft because they were 72 dpi – but – the type will be sharp and clean when you raster it before you separate it.

If you are a web graphic artist – this is BIG. You are used to working at 72 dpi and resolution is not something you think about. I can’t tell you how many times I have gotten a great graphic that I know an artist built at 72 dpi for the web and they thought I could use it for color seps. If they would just have worked at 300 dpi I would have been a much happier camper!

What advice would I give?

OK, to summarize here are specific rules to follow:

1. If you are building a graphic using low resolution web images, smart phone photos, a web graphic or anything that is less than 300 dpi, upsample it to 300 dpi BEFORE you start to add additional elements.
2. If you build the graphic in Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw and plan to do the color separations in Photoshop make sure to turn OFF Anti-Aliasing and make sure the file is 300 dpi when you open it in Photoshop.
3. If you build an image in Adobe Illustrator and/or Corel Draw and have a change to set the resolution for the “artboard” or “page layout” make sure it is 300 dpi. Otherwise images you import into your graphic will be 72 dpi.

   

4. If the customer wants to “message” you an image or photo from their smart phone – ask them to attach it as email rather than message it. AND, make sure they don’t “embed” it in the email or it will be 72 dpi. In the age of high resolution smart phone photos – there is no reason to lower the resolution to 72 dpi by embedding or messaging it.

That’s it. Always think of hard edges and 300 dpi and life will be a lot easier when you go to do the separations.

We are now giving you one more reason to buy T-Seps. With the purchase of a full version you now get our entire Online Photoshop Master Class for FREE. This includes all 27 videos with almost five hours of instruction from Scott Fresener – the Photoshop master. 

Check it out HERE.

FastART Volumes 1 – 29. Re-Released!

FastART was first introduced in 2002 as a way to help users of our popular Photoshop color separation program, FastFilms, have decent artwork they could use. The first couple of volumes were from a variety of artists. Future volumes were added over the years and were done by our good friends, Spider, and Dave Moore. Both were seasoned T-Shirt artists and they both had a wealth of artwork in their “archives”. Spider passed away in 2009 and Dave is retired and off the grid touring the country.

In 2009 with the closing of U.S. Screen Print and the passing of Spider we stopped selling FastART. Times have now changed and cartoon type artwork is more popular again so we have decided to re-introduce FastART. And, this is a way of keeping Spider’s legacy alive. 

Over 7 gigabytes of artwork! 2500 artwork components from cars, to trucks, to sports, to humorous and all topics in between.

Introductory Price $99 for the entire collection (reg. $199).
Order from our STORE HERE.

This artwork is almost entirely raster based artwork that will work in any program. It is NOT vectorized – although it can converted to vectors using simple online services like VectorMagic.com. Each piece of artwork is a standard Photoshop PSD file with the various components in Layers.

If you look at the thumbnail images downloadable PDF FastART Index* you will see that there could be three or four very usable components to each file. These components can be building blocks. You can take a background from one and put a car from another in front of it and you are ready to color separate or print to your DTG or Sublimation printer, or use in your online marketing. Check out the short tutorials at the back of this Index to see how to use FastART.

Great for Color Separations or DTG!
FastART is great if you have a color separation program like T-Seps or if you do your own manual separations. It is great if you print to a direct-to-garment printer or sublimation. Simply show the customer the Index of all the images. Open the file you need. Add text and other elements. Done! Easy!

Royalty Free Artwork
FastART is not sold but licensed for use on T-Shirts, promotiional products, in advertising and more. There are certain license restrictions that apply and the use of FastART signifies you agree to the Licensing Terms and Conditions that are part of the download. In a nutshell you can use the images but you can’t re-sell them as a collection or group of artwork (like clipart) and you can’t copyright them. If you do copyright an image where one of the FastART pieces are a component – the copyright won’t apply to the FastART image. All images in this collection are copyright 2002-2018 Scott Fresener.

Important Note: This is a huge collection of files and it is too large to automate the downloading. We have broken the file into three files that are around 2.5 gb each. Once you place an order we will email you download links within 24 hours.

* Open and save a PDF of the Complete Index with thumbnails of each image HERE. This is a large file and it could take a minute or more to open.

Here are samples of what the PSD Photoshop files look like. Each file has multiple components on individual layers.

It is very common to create “channel” color separations in Adobe Photoshop. This is how automated color separation programs like T-Seps make separations. And, if you don’t have an automated program and do it “manually” then this is also what you end up with. Channel separations can easily be printed out of Adobe Photoshop but they need to print to a RIP (raster image processor) like T-RIP in order to get halftone dots.

Note: If you don’t have a RIP but want to print from Photoshop you can cheat a little and convert the channels to halftones. There are details and a reason this may not be a great plan later in this article.

For some reason a lot of people are told “you can’t print for Photoshop.” That is one of the biggest lies ever told and perpetuated by Adobe. It is shocking to hear people tell us “Adobe said I needed to print from Illustrator.” Oh well. People print from Photoshop all day long. 

If you know about the history/background and reasons to do this….you can jump ahead to just the section about how to print from your favorite vector program.

Why print from Illustrator or Corel?
Good question. A lot of printers want to print from a program they are comfortable with. And, if you want to add additional vector elements to a channel separation you can do so once you bring the file into your favorite vector program – as long as the elements you are adding are one of the Pantone colors used in your image. Also, printers often make templates with registration marks, gray scales and other details that they “place” the separated image in before printing. This keeps everything very uniform.

The following image is what a Channel Separation looks like in Photoshop. The file starts off as an RGB file and then each color is “pulled” and/or created and made into what is called a Spot Color Alpha Channel. In Photoshop – any channel that is a Spot Color will print. And a channel that is a Spot Color can be printed out of Illustrator or Corel (RGB does not print but you MUST keep the RGB header in the file).

What if you don’t have a RIP?
A true RIP converts any gray levels to halftones and tells a “dumb” inkjet printer to lay down a heavier deposit of ink. If you want to print halftones from Photoshop and don’t have a RIP then you can convert each channel to halftones – keeping in mind that your printer needs to print very dark and usually on the highest photo quality setting (very slow!). If you don’t have a RIP and want to print Photoshop channel separations – here is a short YouTube video about how to do that. BUT… for best results invest in a RIP.

Two ways to print – PDF or DCS 2.0 EPS
Since the 90’s the common way to print separations made in Photoshop to Illustrator or Corel Draw was using the DCS 2.0 EPS format (desktop color separations). It was developed by Quark (page layout program) as a way to bring color separated files into it to print. You would simply “save as” an image in Photoshop as DCS 2.0 and then Place the image in Illustrator or Import the image in Corel Draw and the separations are there as spot colors ready to print.

DCS 2.0 can be a little quirky and with the release of Adobe Illustrator CC 2018 version – Adobe is starting to drop support for this format and with the newer versions of both programs it is much easier to print a PDF file. We will cover DCS 2.0 at the end of this page.

Printing a PDF File in Illustrator CS5+ or Corel X5+
The good news is there is an easy way of opening and printing Photoshop separation files in Illustrator if you have CS5 or newer or Corel Draw X5 or newer. In Photoshop you can simply save the file as a PDF (portable document format) and Open (not Place) the file in AI or Open the file in Corel Draw.

Here are the basic rules to follow before saving the file as a PDF in Photoshop

1. Leave the RGB header in the Photoshop file
   When making a Channel Separation in Photoshop you must keep the RGB “header” in the file. And all of the separation channels must be set to Spot Color.  If you have deleted the RGB header and/or if the separation program you are using deletes the RGB then you need to make another. Simply create three new Spot Channels in the Channels Panel and drag them to the top. Yes, they are blank but it won’t matter.Next go to Image/Mode and click on RGB. Without the RGB header the file is Multi-Channel in Photoshop and Illustrator and Corel won’t like it.

   If the Channel Header (channels above your separations) is CMYK then convert it to RGB by going to Image/Mode RGB.

2. Remove unnecessary channels
   In Photoshop remove any channels you don’t need to print (other than the RGB). Some separation software makes a “Shirt” channel for reference. You can keep it or delete it. Deleting it keeps it from showing up as a print channel in AI or Corel.
3. Use Non-Traditional Channel Names
   For your separation channel header names do NOT use any names for CMYK colors like Black, Yellow, Magenta or Cyan. The file will get converted to a CMYK header in Illustrator or Corel and even though you don’t print these – the program will get confused if you have two channels of the same name. If you do need to use “Black” as a channel name – make it something like “Spot Black.”
4. Make Adjustments in the PDF Window
   When saving the file as a PDF in Photoshop turn off any compression in the PDF window in order to keep the file as high quality as possible and make sure to Check Preserve Photoshop Editing Capabilities.
   
   

Printing a PDF from Adobe Illustrator CS5 or newer to a RIP
To use the file in Illustrator CS5 or newer simply Open the file. Open your Swatches Panel and there are the spot colors you used in the file! If you want to add additional vector elements simply use one of the colors from the panel and those elements will print on that color separation. 

If you open the Layers Panel you will see a layer for each spot color and you can view each layer individually.

To print go to File/Print and choose your printer with a RIP. Click on Output and select Separations (host based) and you will see your individual separations. Select the halftone frequency, angle and dot shape and print. Easy!

Printing a PDF from Corel Draw X5 or newer to as RIP
Printing from Corel is pretty much the same as printing from Illustrator. Simply Open the file in Corel X5 or newer. The file may look grainy but this is just the Corel low quality display of the image. 

Print the file as normal by going to File/Print.

In the Print menu choose the printer are using that has a RIP. In the Color tab select Separations. In the Separation tab click Advanced and set the halftone frequency, angle and dot shape to your liking. You will see all the colors from your job there. Again….. easy!

Printing to older versions of Illustrator or Corel using DCS 2.0 EPS File Format
A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) a file format called DCS 1.0 (and then 2.0) was created to allow you to move color separations around and use in various programs. DCS stands for Desktop Color Separations. You can save a Photoshop channel separation as a DCS 2.0 EPS file and then Import the file (Corel) or Place this file in Illustrator. If you do it right it is a thing of beauty, but it can be a little quirky. 

You only need to use this method if you have Illustrator CS4 or older and/or Corel Draw X4 or older. If you have newer versions use the PDF method outlined above.

Here are the quirks – regardless of whether you are bringing a DCS 2.0 into AI or Corel. 

1. Keep the channel header name short.
   If you have more than 25 characters in the channel header then that particular channel may be absent from the files when you bring it into AI or Corel.
2. Don’t use common color names.
   Typically DCS 2.0 was original designed to move CMYK files around between page layout programs. If you use any of the color names of Yellow, Magenta, Cyan or Black as the name for a channel – it may not import. Use alternate names like “Spot Black”, “Spot Magenta” or anything other than the single word name. DCS 2.0 will get confused if it sees two “Black” channels. Even if you DON’T have a CMYK “channel header” (the Photoshop channels above your separations), your vector program will assume there is one and it won’t like duplicate names.
3. Leave the CMYK or RGB channel header.
   Typcially “channel separations” are done working with an RGB file and this file is normally left as the “header” above your channnels. Do NOT delete this. Illustrator and Corel can get confused if it they do not see a header that is RGB or CMYK above your channels.
4. Delete any “Shirt Color” channels made by automated programs.
   If you use an automated program like T-Seps that includes a “Shirt Color” as one of the channels – delete this before you make a DCS 2.0. This channel simply gets in the way when you bring the file into Corel or AI.

Creating a DCS 2.0 EPS File
In Photoshop do a Save As and select Photoshop DCS 2.0 EPS. You will get a DCS 2.0 Format window and select Single File Color Composite. Don’t worry about checking anything else. In the Save As window make sure Spot Color is checked.

Using a DCS 2.0 file in Corel Draw X4 or older
In Corel you Import the file into a New Document (RGB). Create the New Document that is your film size and 300 dpi.

Next go to File/Import. Make sure to check Place as Encapsulated Postscript. The image may look grainy. That is just the Corel display.

The file specific color palette at the bottom may not fill in until you go through the motions of printing. Go to File/Print and select your printer with a RIP. In the Color tab check Separations. Corel will then analyze the image and give you a warning for each color. It adds these colors to the Color Palette specific to this image. In the Separation window you simply select Advanced and then adjust the halftone frequency, angle and dot shape. Put a check box next to the colors you want to print. There will now be as CMYK header but you don’t print those colors.

Printing a DCS 2.0 in Adobe Illustrator CS4 or older
Printing from Illustrator is similar to printing from Corel Draw. You have to first make a New Document and it should be your film size and 300 dpi.

Next go to File/Place and choose your DCS 2.0 file and Place it in the center of your new document. Unlike the PDF file you won’t see the seps in the Layers Panel. Your colors will show up in the Swatches Panel but they will be mixed in with other colors in that Panel.

To print go to File/Print and choose your printer with a RIP. Click on Output and select Separations (host based) and you will see your individual separations. Select the halftone frequency, angle and dot shape and print.

That is how you print Photoshop Channel Separations from Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.

Color Separations 101 – Everything you ever wanted to know about Color Separations

This article is for anyone involved in creating, managing or just even needing to know about color separations for garment screen printing. Even if you are an experienced artist – there are a lot of differences between color seps for paper printing and color seps for garments and you might find that one “gem” in this article that helps it all make sense.

Note: Click on images to enlarge them.

What are Color Separations
In order to screen print images with more than one color we print each color with a separate screen. If the image has any gradations, shading, or photorealistic elements – those parts of the color separation need to be converted to halftone dots that can be burned on a screen.

Types of Separations and Terminology
Spot Color
This is the “bread and butter” of the industry. Spot Color images generally have specific solid colors but can also have small halftone dots for shading. Spot Color separations and prints are generally used for logos, school designs, clipart, hard edged graphics, cartoons or other images that have a black dark outline. Figure 1.

Spot Color separations are done in Vector based graphic programs like CorelDRAW and/or Adobe Illustrator.

Process Color
Process Color images are comprised of the colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black – generally referred to as CMYK (the “K” is for the “key” color of Black). All magazine photos and traditional offset/litho paper printed items use only these four colors. If you took a magnifier to the images, you would see small halftone dots that, when printed, make up most of the colors of the rainbow. Figure 2.

Process Color prints on T-shirts generally only work well on light colored shirts. The inks used are very transparent and do not work that well on dark garments. The problem with printing Process Color is that if you are not a good printer, or don’t know how to do the separations, the images will be muddy when printed and colors can shift. Faces turn red, dark area get darker, etc.

For these reasons, Process Color is not for everyone. It generally requires better control, such as properly tensioned, high mesh-count screens and the ability to hold fine halftone dots and print them in register with minimal dot gain (halftone dots get bigger when printed). The secret to good Process Color prints is in proper separations and good printing. Yes, you can do it, but plan to “experiment” a little, first. Process Color separations are generally NOT done with vector based programs like CorelDRAW or Adobe Illustrator. They are done in Adobe Photoshop.

Simulated Process Color
This is also known as “fake” process color or “fake CMYK.” Simulated Process Color images have a photorealistic look but are not printed with the Process Colors of CMYK. They look like process and feel like process (soft feel) but they aren’t process. The color separations for Simulated Process Color are comprised of solid and halftone images of Spot Colors like red, yellow, blue, gray, green, brown, black, etc. They are often called “tonal” or “channel” separations. Simulated Process Color separations can be printed on light AND dark shirts and are generally created in Adobe Photoshop. Figure 3.

When done correctly, Simulated Process Color prints can be very photorealistic with smooth gradations and bright colors.

Index Color
This is probably the most confusing of the separation methods. For Simulated Process Color, CMYK Process Color and Spot Color with gradations, any shading is done with different size halftone dots that have a definite pattern and angle to them. Index Color separations are done in Adobe Photoshop and use random square dots that are all the same size. These random dot patterns are also often called diffusion dither or stochastic. Figure 4.

When do you use what method
CMYK Process Color
CMYK is great for photorealistic images on white or light shirts but not great on dark shirts without proper seps. CMYK requires good separations, great screen making and printing technique. The best process prints have additional Spot Colors.

Simulated Process Color
This is great for dark shirts that need a photorealistic image but will work on light shirts too. Requires good separations, screen making and printing technique. Can print very smooth gradations and hold excellent detail. This is the most popular method used by award winning printers. Prints are bright because all purpose inks are used. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t do great simulated process printing on a manual six color press with the proper separations!

Index Color
Index works on light and dark shirts, but typically requires more colors than Simulated or Process Color (especially if going on black shirts). It is very easy to print because all the dots are the same size and you are printing square dots next to square dots rather than halftone dots on top of halftone dots. Separations are easy to do in Adobe Photoshop and screen making and the printing can be forgiving. Index is very production friendly.

Computer and Software Requirements
The good news is there is software to handle your seps. The problem is the software is designed for paper printing where the separations are easier and are normally CMYK. That means you need to know how to use the software for screen print seps.

Your computer choices are of course Mac or Windows/PC. If you are an artist or student the Mac might be a better choice – because all of your friends own them. If you are a business person and again, owner/operator you might feel more comfortable with a Windows computer. If you plan to hired artists then you might go MAC. Just get a LOT of RAM (16gb would be nice), a fast processor and large monitor (they are so cheap now).

For a newbie any of the following programs can be overwhelming. You just need to take a deep breath, read industry articles, watch online videos and jump in.

Vector Programs
The main vector programs are Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw. Both do similar things and they love to work with “hard edge” graphics. They contain hundreds of typefaces/fonts and are the bread and butter of the industry.

Adobe Illustrator (and Photoshop) are now part of the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. For $50 per month you get all 20 Adobe programs and free upgrades. And, you can put the programs on two computers. It is a great deal!

Corel Draw is still sold as a standalone program or as a subscription for $25.00 per month.

Which program to use
Over the years Corel Draw has been the program of choice for owner/operator T-Shirt printers because it is a Windows program. Adobe Illustrator is the program of choice for artists and students – especially those who us Apple/Mac. That has changed a little now that printers can get Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud. Each claims their program is better but at the end of the day they both do the same thing and to be honest there are things that Corel can do much easier and there are things Illustrator can do much easier.

Basic of a Vector program
Typically in a vector program you can bring up type, arch it or manipulate it, fill it with color, give it an outline, include the customer’s logo, use a piece of vector stock artwork (called clipart), and more.

The IMPORTANT point to using a vector program is to NOT work with CMYK color when assigning a color to an image. Both programs use CMYK color as the default. Corel calls this a Palette and Illustrator calls it a Swatch.

You want to use a “spot color” palette/swatch often called a Pantone Palette. That way when you fill an image with the color of red – you only have to print out one film for red. If you use the CMYK palette and fill a color with red – when you go to print films you will need TWO of them – one for the yellow and one for the magenta (yellow and magenta printed together make red). This is  not what you want.

Creating color separations in a Vector program
To create seps you simply create the image and make sure all of the colors are from a Spot Color palette. Just remember that the number of colors MUST not exceed the number of colors you can screen print. Figure 5 shows the Corel main screen. Figure 6 shows the Adobe Illustrator main screen.

Printing color separations
The problem with printing separations from any program is that somehow you need to convert gray areas to halftone dots – and for better screen making you need a printer that prints dark images on clear film.

The industry has gone entirely to inkjet printing for screen print film positives. Inkjet printers are designed to print CMYK and/or other variations of CMYK. They are not geared to print dense black or halftone dots.

You need third party software that is industry specific called a RIP. RIPs sell for around $500. And, you can purchase an inexpensive inkjet printer that will print 13” x 19” film for around $300. Figure 7.

You can simply print to the RIP from Corel or Illustrator. And, you can set the halftone frequency (number of halftone dots per inch), the dot shape (ellipse is a good choice), and the halftone angle – to minimize ugly moire patterns when you burn a screen. 22.5 to 25 degrees is a good choice.

In this basic article we are not addressing overlapping colors for better registration (trapping), or using non-vector images in a vector program.

Raster Programs
The world’s most popular raster/pixel program is Adobe Photoshop. A lot of screeners only do spot color work and Photoshop is a mystery to them but if you want to do any type of higher end color separations Photoshop is a must.

If the customer supplies a JPG file, web graphic, low resolution image, full color picture or anything that is NOT vector – then it can be incorporated into the image in a vector program but it is VERY hard to separate this in a vector program (other than CMYK). That is where you need Photoshop.

Photoshop creates “channel” separations. This process is fairly simple and will be covered in detail in the next article.

When you walk into Walmart and see a hot vibrant full-color image on a dark shirt, it might have been “built” in Corel or Photoshop but I guarantee you it was color separated as Simulated Process Color in Adobe Photoshop.

Happy separating!

This is a topic that a book could be written about because a lot of things that need to be or could be done to make artwork print better on a DTG printer are the same things you often do to artwork in general – whether you are printing to DTG, sublimation or screen printing.

Click on images on right to enlarge them.

The real problem is that you will generally spend a lot more time fixing bad artwork when screen printing 500 shirts than you will or have time for to fix bad artwork for a few shirts with DTG. There are a lot of articles written on this topic and many of them go into painful detail about all the things you should do to make the artwork print read but the reality is you will have to determine how much time you can spend on one shirt vs how much time you can spend on even a few dozen shirts. The tweaks/fixes need to be fast and easy to do.

The Magic is in the RIP
All DTG machines are powered by software called a RIP (raster image processor). There are only a handful of RIP developers who make RIP’s for DTG machines. I was the first to have white ink for DTG with my T-Jet back in 2006 and I am the first to work hand-in-hand with my film output RIP developer to make a RIP for DTG that would adjust for the color deficiencies of inkjet printing on garments and that would make a proper underbase. It is not easy and with the proper RIP – that is where all the magic happens. A good software RIP has color profiling done for the specific machines and inks, and they have ICC Profiles included in the RIP. Figure 1 shows one of the more popular RIPs called Digital Apparel Factory for DTG that is often branded by machine makers. Figure 2 shows the stock Garment Creator RIP that comes with the EPSON F2000 printer.

But, even a great RIP will not help with low quality artwork or artwork designed for a white background that now needs to go on a black shirt.

Learning the Limitations of the Process and the Inks
DTG machines print using the standard printing colors of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. This is commonly called CMYK. The problem starts with digital files which are almost always in what is called RGB mode (red, green, blue). The RGB color space is much larger than CMYK – it has a lot more information. When you convert a file from RGB to CMYK many colors go “out of gamut” meaning they can’t be reproduced exactly using just CMYK. That again is where a RIP comes in. A good RIP will help compensate for out of gamut colors.

That doesn’t help the fact that DTG colors might be duller – especially spot colors – than a typical screen print. If the customer is used to seeing a bright scarlet red screen print on a white shirt and you then do the same job with DTG – the red will be duller and not as vibrant. The DTG print is using Yellow and Magenta to make red. The screen print is using red ink. That is a huge difference. Figure 3.

DTG shines with full color images. It loves pictures and images with a lot of colors and gradations. DTG does not do as well with solid spot colors – especially if you have very critical Pantone color matches. The dullness of the color and the fact that you are using CMYK to make all the colors of rainbow can have its limitations.

How to Improve the Artwork for a Better Print
Even though DTG loves full color prints – if the original image is not sharp, clean, vibrant and well saturated – the print will look dull on a shirt. Here are some ways to improve artwork for DTG printing. The next section will outline things you can do using Adobe Photoshop to improve the image. These same techniques can be applied to Corel Photo Paint and other graphic programs.

Adjust Image Resolution
You will often get low resolution 72dpi images off of web graphics and these are usually small in physical size. The first thing to do is go to Image/Image Size and upsample the image to 200 to 300 dpi and make it the correct physical size. Figure 4.

Improving Low Quality JPG Images
Once the image is the correct size and resolution you need to zoom in on the image and see exactly what is happening up close. If the image was a low quality JPG file then you might see “artifacts” and “blocks”. Unlike screen printing where these imperfections might show up in the final print – these problem areas actually may not show up as badly on a DTG image.

If your file is a low quality JPG image you can use off-the-shelf “JPG Enhancement” programs (very inexpensive) to improve the image and remove the artifacts and square boxes. Simply do a web search of that term. Photoshop also has a Filter called Reduce Noise that works for this. Simply go to Filter/Noise/Reduce Noise. Figure 5.

Improving Color Saturation
The conversion of RGB to CMYK will often reduce the color saturation of an image. And, when bringing images from a vector program like Corel or Adobe Illustrator into Photoshop there can be a color shift and dulling of the colors.

Go to Image/Adjustments/Hue Saturation and move the Saturation slider up about 10 to 20 points. Don’t overdo it. Just get the colors to pop a little. Figure 6.

You can also help an image by using the Tone Curve to improve the overall contrast. I like to use what I call an “S” Curve. It darkens the shadows and lightens the highlights and can make a huge different in a flat image.  Go to Image/Adjustments/Curves. Figure 7.

Fixing Black and White Areas
What appears to be solid black or solid white on the monitor is often not so. Open the Info Panel (Window/Info) and stick it somewhere where you will never close it. I use this panel all the time. It reads levels of density or color. Select the eyedropper tool (this panel works with most tools) and place the tool over areas that you think are dead black. Dead black is 0 levels of RGB. Any reading other than 0 means you won’t have dead black in that area. You will end up with a dark gray. Figure 8.

Do the same for the white areas of the image. Dead white is 255 levels of RGB. Any other reading means your RIP will try to put a small amount of color there. Figure 9.

You can adjust these areas using either Levels or Tone Curve. I happen to like using the Tone Curve. If you move the upper right of the curve in just a little to the left – that will lighten the dead white areas and you can read the change in the Info Panel because it is still active even when the Curve is open. It now reads “before and after” so you can see the changes. Figure 10.

Do the same for the dead black areas. Move the Curve in the lower left to the right just a little and then read the before and after.  Figure 11.

Sharpening the Image
Photoshop has a great Sharpening filter that when used correctly can enhance/improve the edges of the image. Go to Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask (don’t let the name fool you) and start off with a setting of Radius 1.0, Threshold 6.0 and Amount 250. It is the Amount slider to move up or down. Make sure Preview is checked to see the effect but always go back and forth between Preview being checked so you can see the change to the image. You will see a huge improvement to the edges. Figure 12.

Creating Artwork that needs an Underbase
Creating an underbase seems very simply. To a novice it seems you just need to print white under all the colors. That sounds great but in T-Shirt printing the ideal underbase only puts white under non-black colors and on a black shirt lets the shirt be the black in the image. This makes for more of a softer image. I would like to say I am the “creator” of underbases for DTG since I was the first to develop a RIP for white ink and the first to use my screen print color separation knowledge for DTG.

The creation of the underbase is not the topic here. The creation of artwork that can be used to make the underbase is. For a DTG RIP to create an underbase it normally needs an artwork file that has a transparent background. That means there is no color (not even white) around the image. If there is white around an image that is going on black shirts (this is called the “canvas” area), then the RIP is not smart enough to know that this white should not print.

Typically you receive the artwork as a JPG image and often there is white in the canvas area. Your job is to remove or “knockout” this white area.  There are a LOT of articles and YouTube videos about how to remove or knockout backgrounds and some of the popular RIP software has knockout programs built in.  There are also third-party programs and plug-ins that will do knockouts of backgrounds. Figure 13.

Photoshop has a variety of tools you can use to remove backgrounds including using the Magic Wand to simple select around the image, using Quick Mask to “mask” around the image, using a Layer Mask, using the Quick Selection tool to simply using the Pen tool to draw around the image. These are all topics that can be an entire article and if you do a web search of Removing Background in Photoshop you will find a lot of tutorials.

If your file was built in a vector program like Corel or Illustrator then there is no background or canvas. You can simply Export or Save the file as a PNG format and the file will have a transparent background. Easy.

The harder part is removing the background of a file that has a soft edge. If the file vignettes from the image out to white then somehow you need to remove the background and still keep the edge soft.

One way or another – if you open a file in Photoshop it will have checks around the image if it has a transparent background. Look at the file in the Layers panel. In fact, you can view how the file will look on different shirt colors by making a new layer and filling it with the shirt color and placing it below the main graphic. Figure 14.

Artwork Specifically for Black Shirts
When printing with DTG on black shirts, you really don’t need to print black ink – in most cases. If there is a lot of detail you might want to print black but generally you let the shirt be the black in the image. Most RIPs allow for this and have check boxes as to whether to print black ink on a black shirt or they have options to remove certain colors from the image.

If your RIP wants to print black ink even on a black shirt you could use the Color Range option in Photoshop (Select/Color Range) and select all the black from your image using the Fuzziness slider to determine how much you want. When you save this window you will have the typical Photoshop “marching ants” selection on just the black areas. If you delete these areas and fill them with white you should now have an image that has very little black (there could be some left in the gray areas but that is no big deal) and it is ready to print on a black shirt.

Make the Print Better at the Machine

No matter what the manufacturer of your DTG machine says about print speeds or ink usage – you can pretty much count on the fact that they are talking one pass on the underbase and one pass on the colors. Yes, this will work but the ink deposit is normally a little weak. In all RIPs you can tell the machine to print the underbase twice (print – rewind – print again) or print heavier and you can do the same for the CMYK colors. Some RIPS have simple sliders for this. Figure 15. To get a print to be bright on light or dark shirts you almost always have to print the underbase heavy and print the colors either twice or with and increased deposit of it. That will make a HUGE difference in print quality.

Article Summary
Here are the highlights of this article:

1. Make sure the image is the correct physical size and 200 to 300 dpi.
2. Use JPG enhancement programs or filters in Photoshop to improve low quality JPG files.
3. Improve the image contrast and/or saturation (or both) to get the image to pop more to offset for the loss of brightness in DTG.
4. Make sure areas that should be dead white and dead black are really that.
5. Use Unsharp Masking to improve the image.
6. If the image does not have a transparent background remove the “canvas” around the image so there is no background.
7. If necessary – remove the black from the image for black shirts.

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This article will assume you already have a basic Photoshop channel separation done as Simulated Process Color. The information here is geared more

towards doing final tweaks after you have separated using one automated separation programs that will sometimes give you too many color choices or they might lose fine subtle detail. Even if you do the seps in Photoshop manually you will find the suggestions below helpful.

Note: Click on images on the right to enlarge them.

In this article I want to take it to the next step. We need to see how we can reduce the color count and bring back lost detail by using the Apply Image feature of Photoshop. We will also look at how to check each separation to make sure it is screen print friendly so that areas of the image that need to be 100% (solid) really are 100%.

Reducing the Color Count
As a separator, this is something I deal with every day. Some of my customers can print 10 to 12 colors – nirvana – while others have a limit of only six colors. As a separator you are always faced with having too many print colors and having to find ways to reduce the color count.

This problem is especially prevalent if you are using one of the off-the-shelf automated color separation programs. They all pretty much work with a fixed palette of colors and often these colors are not the exact colors in the design. They generally give you a lot of color choices and your job is to try to reduce these choices down to the number of colors you can print.

When trying to reduce the color count you need to always look to see what colors don’t need to be a perfect match. This is where compromises come into play. Yes, you can make green by mixing blue and yellow – but it will be a dull/dirty green and not pure. If the green in a design is just a small non-critical area then you are home free to make green with yellow and blue. But, if green is a major part of the image they you must print it.

You always have to consider that you must keep the colors you can’t make and what colors can be used to make other colors. There is no way to make yellow, black or blue. Even though you think you can’t make red it is created with magenta and yellow in CMYK printing. But, this would be the last resort if doing a simulated process set of seps where red was critical.

Let’s look at the sample Barbie Boat image from the last article. Figure 1. I have created all of the key colors into channels in order to see how it looks if we print all the main colors. On a black shirt it is ten colors including a typical underbase and highlight to give it pop. It is often easier to create channels for each color and then work to reduce the color count down.

If you gave me this job to analyze and told me all you could print was six colors – including the underbase –  I would combine the brown with the red to keep the brown areas. Brown is one color you can almost always get for “free.”  I would also try to make the green from light blue and yellow and I might even have to drop the highlight white and make sure my underbase was nice and bright.

Purple is another color you can often easily make from red and blue.

Here is how you combine channels using Apply Image:

1. Put the preview “eye” on all the channels you want to keep (at this point). Do not put the eye on the brown.
2. Select the channel you want to combine the brown with. In this example select the red.  Figure 2.
3. Go to Image/Apply Image.  Leave the default settings for now. Select the Brown channel in the Channel window (that is the channel you want to combine with the red). In the Multiply window if you send 100% of the brown to the red it will be too much. Play with this number. 50% is a good start. You can see on-screen exactly how your changes look. Figure 3.
4. Delete the Brown channel.

You can do the same thing for the green. There is not much green and you can usually get a decent green for small areas by combing the green channel with the yellow and the light blue channels by using Apply Image. Apply 100% of the green channel with the yellow and 60% of the green with the blue. Figure 4. OK, it is not great but if all you can print is six colors then you have to make compromises.

Purple is also a color you can often make with red and blue. In this image the purple is somewhat dark and not a key color. You can combine (Apply Image) 100% of the purple channel to the red channel and a little to the light blue channel and it works.  Figure 5. In fact, you will often use Apply Image to combine a color channel with the underbase to boost the base in just those areas.

But, it is still seven colors! Well….. not really. You don’t print black ink on a black shirt (unless you really have to), and you don’t need a highlight white on a light shirt color. By swapping the black and white screens you can print on light and dark shirts and keep the seps to six colors.

Checking the Separations for Image Density
Next to Apply Image, the Info Panel is about the most important Photoshop panel you can have open. I leave it open ALL THE TIME because I will use it dozens of times on each job. To open it go to Window/Info.

What does it do? It reads density levels. It lets you make sure that areas that you know should be 100% (from your printing experience) really are 100%. How many times have you assumed a dark area in a channel was 100% and then printed out films and gotten halftone dots in that area. It also lets you see if the extremely light areas in a channel are even printable. Chances are you will have a hard time holding a halftone dot smaller than 5%. If you have a subtle area that reads 2% with the Info Panel then you are kidding yourself if you think you can hold this. (OK, some printers brag they can do this).

Figure 6 shows using the Info Panel on the Underbase channel. Using the eyedropper tool you can sample an area – shown with a red circle. Read the Info Panel and you can see this area appears solid but is only 90%. Use a Tone Curve on this channel to boost the density of the darkest areas. And, the Info Panel reads “before and after” when you are using the Tone Curve. Figure 7.

Using Apply Image to bring back detail
Sometimes when using Color Range to pick colors and create channels, it is hard to get every piece of colors that are close but not within the Fuzziness range you set. When you look at your final seps you will often see subtle areas missing. The Apply Image tool is great for bringing back small detail areas. When I do separations for customers I will typically scan the image for this lost information/detail and then add it back into one of my colors. I will normally do this when I am done reducing the color count.

Here is how to bring back lost information using Apply Image:

1. Determine what areas are missing or need tweaking. Figure 8 shows the separations on the left and the original on the right. Notice the light blue areas in the padding behind the Hawk’s head and the light blue detail on the pants is missing.

2. 

   Using Select/Color Range select the area from the image that got lost creating the other channels. You will normally get lots of similar colors with this selection but you can erase what you don’t need. Figure 9 shows pulling just the light blue areas. Save this Color Range selection as a new alpha channel.

3. Select the Light Blue channel. Make sure the “eye” is not on the Alpha 1 channel. In Apply Image choose the Alpha 1 channel and apply what looks good. In this case 50% is all you need. Figure 10.

That’s your Apply Image/Combine Channels tutorial. This and the Info panel are very powerful Photoshop tools.

 

 

 

This is a topic I deal with every day as I do high-end photorealistic color separations for the industry. The original artwork is often created in vector programs but because of the detailed complex content or photographic element they need to be separated in Photoshop.

My best customers send me high resolution files that are at 300dpi or higher and are the final print size for the shirt. And, they use artwork components that are also 300dpi and very sharp. I love these customers.

But, a lot of customers create a high-res file in Corel or Illustrator but then ruin this great piece of artwork by saving it as a low quality JPG image that is not the correct size. I can’t tell you how many times I have emailed customers saying “is there a better piece of artwork or vector version of this?” and the response is almost always “I have that or I did not know you could use it.”

The good news is that this problem normally happens on the first few orders and slowly I work to train my customers to know what a color separator needs and how to not take a great piece of artwork and screw it up.

Here are some quick tips:

1. JPG (or JPEG) file formats are known as Lossy Formats and you lose information when you save the file as a JPG. And, the quality of the JPG can be 0 (junk) to 12 (very high quality). Figure 2 shows a side-by-side of the same image as a 0 and as a 12. In my tests and playing around – I can live with a quality of 9 or higher without having too many issues. If you insist on sending a JPG to the separator then at least first make the file the correct physical size and do a “save as” and save it as a quality of 9 or higher.

   

2. If you create an image in Corel or Illustrator and you need to send the image out to be color separated, save the image as a PDF file. PDF’s are cross platform compatible (Mac or PC) and when they are opened in Photoshop – the person opening the file can determine the resolution of the file. Figure 4.

   

   Figure 4

3. Don’t screw up a PDF file by having the image compressed or sampled down. Check the PDF settings. Figure 5.
4. If you feel the urge to save the file as a PDF and then open it in Photoshop and THEN send the file to a separator – make sure you open it at 300dpi and you UNCHECK “Anti-Alias.” (See figure 4 again)  Anti-alias is a graphic program’s way of softening edges. This is great if you are going to print a full color photo or print from Photoshop to you direct-to-garment printer. This is NOT great when you are going do color separations because anti-aliasing softens what should be sharp edges.

   

Summary

If you create an image in Photoshop work at 300 dpi at the final image size. If you work in Corel or Adobe Illustrator and create files that must be separated in Photoshop try to start making files PDF rather than JPG. That way the person on the other end can determine the resolution and can turn off anti-aliasing. Don’t try to help by making the file a JPG just to make it smaller.

If the file is too large to email then simply use one of the online file transfer services.

A Little DTG Direct-to-Garment Background
In 2004 when I first developed the T-Jet printer I was convinced it would be easy for the garment decorating industry to add this process to their bag of tricks. After all, other than the large Kornit printer (at that time), most machines were simply an Epson base inkjet paper printer that was torn apart and re-configured to print onto other materials.

The first machines sold in 2004 and 2005 were simply CMYK (and light CMYK colors) machines using special pigment based textile inks that were “dummied down” versions of inks used for roll-to-roll fabric printing. These inks had pigments that did not settle (too much) and could be left in the printer for a number of days or even weeks without any head clogging issues. Life was good selling machines like this. Users did little maintenance and everyone was happy.

In late 2005 I started to talk to DuPont about making white ink for the DTG (direct-to-garment) machines. Their first reaction was “we can’t do that.” But after much pushing on my part they developed a white ink that was based on titanium dioxide as the white pigment particle. This is the same and ONLY pigment used for white ink, white house paint, white coatings, etc. This is called TIO2 in the industry and it is a heavy pigment that is prone to settling.

And, the shirts had to be pretreated before printing the white and the pretreatment and white ink did not like being near each other – which is how it works to keep the white bright on a black background. If you got pretreatment in a head with white ink the white ink would clog in the head. Bad news.

When we introduced our first “white” machine in September of 2006, we thought we have found nirvana. Instead we found we compounded the machine problems by about 20 times. We were not prepared for the fact that most users thought they bought a “plug and play” machine and they had ZERO desire to do any type of increased maintenance. It was a nightmare. And, even today, printing with white ink continues to create problems for printers who do not want to take ownership of their investment.

I provide this background because now that I am no longer selling machines I still have former customers who seem to think DTG machines simply don’t work and there has been a lot of negative talk on industry forums about the downside to DTG machines.  The truth is there are THOUSANDS of DTG machines printing shirts every day. The happy printers are busy printing and don’t spend time on industry forums. Yes, they have all learned “the secret” to making money with their machines and yes, it might have been a painful learning experience – BUT – once they figured it out AND took ownership of their investment – live was good.

What is “the secret?” MAINTENANCE, MAINTENANCE, MAINTENANCE
We were all guilty of selling DTG machines to anyone with money. That was probably wrong. These machines LIKE TO PRINT. That means if you are a casual part-time printer the machine might set for a few days. Your CMYK colors should be fine. Your white ink will not be.  The TIO2 pigment will settle in the lines, clog the heads and make life miserable for you.

Large companies like Zazzle, Café Press, Spreadshirt and others run these exact machines. They found out the hard way that if you don’t keep a DTG machine clean and try to keep the ink flowing you will have problems.

Before you decide NOT to buy a DTG machine because you just don’t want the hassle, think again. A DTG printer will print a beautiful full color print on light and dark shirts in just a few minutes. OK, if you are a screen printer a few minutes is like a lifetime. But, if you are doing short runs with no setups, no color separations, no tear down and you are getting more than wholesale for a shirt – you will love this process.

But, you will have to take ownership of your investment. It is NOT plug and play. It likes TLC (tender loving care) and to be pampered a little. If you don’t want to accept the small responsibility of cleaning your machine before and at the end of the day – or don’t want to take the proper steps to keep the ink moving every day (even with a simple head cleaning or two), then don’t buy a DTG machine. Everyone will be happier.

Five Minutes Per Day Is All I Ask
Maintenance on a DTG machine is not hard – it just takes a little time every day.  Here are the things you should do EVERY DAY (at least when you are using the machine).

When you First Turn the Machine On

This one is easy. When you turn the machine on in the morning you should do two or three head cleaning cycles. This gets the ink moving and helps open up heads that might be partially clogged.

The rest of these items should be done at the end of the day.

Clean the Capping Station
This is the biggie. The capping station is that magic little “tray” that comes up against the bottom of the head assembly and caps it or seals it so the head won’t clog. And, it caps the head from outside air when you are doing a head cleaning. (Click on illustrations on right to enlarge them.)

The problem is the capping station can get ink chunks (especially the white) over a period of time. After all, when the machine does a head cleaning cycle the capping station caps the head and a vacuum draws ink out of the head and dumps it into the waste tank. There is a chance excess ink sitting on top of the foam that lines the capping station will start to build up and dry.

Guess what? If the capping station won’t cap tightly at night – what do you think will happen? The head will clog. If the clog is white ink, there may be ZERO way to salvage the $400 to $500 head. A lesson well learned. But, you will first call your supplier and blame them for selling you a faulty machine. They will say “did you read the manual about keeping the capping station clean?” and you will say – I never read a manual.  Get my point?

I do sound a little cynical but after paying my techs to repair thousands of machines and having at least that many come from customers who swore they kept the capping stations clean – I offer Figure 1 which is a very gunky capping station that was “clean” by a customer’s standards. I rest my case.  Figure 2 shows the simple steps in cleaning it. A “foam tipped swap” works well (available from most drug stores, medical suppliers, or your DTG supplier). Simply soak it in head cleaning fluid, window cleaner or even water (yes).

Keep the Capping Station Moist at Night

This is also a biggie. Since the capping station typically has a foam liner in the bed of it, there is a chance this foam will get crusty and full of ink. This ink can start to dry out. By simply putting a few drops of head cleaning fluid (or glass cleaner) on the capping station at night, you will keep the head “moist” and help prevent it from drying out.

Clean the Wiper Blade
All Epson based printers have a small wiper blade (it looks like a tiny windshield wiper). This blade is used to wipe the bottom of the head. As you print high speed and literally dump ink on a T-Shirt the bottom of the head can start to get ink build up. The wiper wipes the head. The problem is if you are printing with white ink, the wiper can start to get a buildup of white ink that will dry causing the wiper to not be effective. You must clean the wiper blade every day!  Clean the wiper the same way as the capping station. Figure 3.

Clean the Bottom of the Print Head
When you are printing with the head very low and close to the shirt (for the best quality) the head will start to pick up lint off the shirt. And, ink can simply start to build up from the amount of ink being pumped through it. The Wiper Blade is suppose to clean off the bottom of the head but as you know, some of these parts on Epson based printers are like a toy. They only work pretty good. And, ink will start to get around the edge of the head. Using your foam tipped swab, wipe down the bottom of the head and around the edges. Be careful not to scratch the bottom of the head. Figure 4.

Check Your Ink Levels
One of the problems with an “open ink system” is that there is a close relationship between the height of the ink bottles and the bottom of the head. If the bottles are too high, ink will siphon out of the head (you might wake up to find all the ink on the machine and the floor).  If the ink bottles are too low, you will have ink starvation. On machines that use cartridges you have little control over the height of the ink. If you are using a bulk ink system or open cartridges, do NOT overfill the cartridges or bottles. The manufacturer will generally put an “ink level” mark on the bottle or cartrige. That might not always be correct. You are much better off not topping off the bottles or cartridges and keeping the ink level in them more of a constant and refill them more often. Figure 5.

Check the Spit Tray
On the side of the machine that is away from the capping station is what is called a Spit Tray. If you watch the printer print you will see it stop every now and then and “spit” ink into this tray. This is like clearing its throat. It keeps the ink flowing. The spit tray can start to build up ink and sometimes during the spit, the head actually picks up ink. Keep the spit tray clean and not overflowing with ink.

Don’t Neglect a Nozzle Check Every Day
This one really hits home for me.  I stopped counting how many times someone called to complain about a poor print and when asked “did you do a nozzle check?” the response was no. A nozzle check tells you how the nozzles are firing. It is like a “report card.” If all the nozzles are firing and the print is weak, then something else is going on. If only 50% of the nozzles are firing then it is OBVIOUS why the print is weak and the reason you only have 50% nozzles is probably a clogged capping station, crusty wiper blade or the machine has been setting for a week without use. It tells a whole lot.

In order to see the white ink on a nozzle check, use clear film or something transparent. You can’t clearly see how well the white ink is printing on white paper.  Figure 6.

Should You Shut The Machine Down at Night?
Some manufacturers say to NOT shut the machine down. Others claim that the head caps better during shut down. This is true.

BUT, most software to drive these machines now has a “wakeup” feature. Since these machines like to run, you can set the software to do a head cleaning during the night to keep the ink flowing. If you set a machine to do a head cleaning two times per night, you will probably use about $4.00 USD of ink. No big deal if it saves a head!

If you don’t have a head cleaning “wakeup” utility then shut the machine down at night.

Shake the White Ink

The CMYK colors are much more stable than the white ink. The TIO2 will settle over night. Some brands of white ink have “hard settling” where the ink turns to small chunks. This is not good. If you shake the ink a little you shake the chunks back into it. Head clogs! Other newer brands have a better way of trapping the TIO2 pigment and the settling is “soft settling.” This means you can give the ink a shake and the thicker ink in the bottom of the bottle mixes back ink.

You should get in the habit of gently rotating and agitating the white ink bottles each morning before you print AND every night before you go home. Don’t shake the bottles so hard that you get air bubbles in the ink. Just rotate and agitate a little. Gentle.

How much time does the above daily maintenance take?  My guess… five minutes.

Weekly Maintenance
If you print a lot you will undoubtedly start to get lint from shirts on key parts. All Epson based printers have drive belts, encoder strips and other moving parts that can get lint and ink stuck to them.

Clean the Encoder Strip

A lot of people suggest cleaning this daily and if you print 24/7 then that is OK. For most printers, this can be cleaned once a week.

The Encoder Strip is that little strip of plastic that goes across the back of the machine. If you look closely at it you will see small little marks on it. This is the “brains” to the printer. The head had a sensor that reads the tick marks on this strip and from that determines where “home” is.

If you start to get images in weird locations and images that don’t even belong to yours in various parts of the shirt, chances are the

Encoder Strip has ink or lint on it. You have just confused “the brain.”

Clean the Encoder Strip very carefully.  You can remove it from the machine (remember which way it goes!), but you can actually clean it on the machine. Use a foam tipped swab or better yet a small pre-packaged pad soaked with Isopropyl Alcohol.  Figure 7.

OK, if you own a standard inkjet printer, you are saying you NEVER have to clean any of these items. When printing on T-Shirts the software driver is designed to literally open the flood gates and lay down 50 times more ink than for paper. This means you are creating a miniature “rain storm” inside your printer and this excess ink gets on everything.

Clean the Print Carriage Drive Belt Gear
There is a drive belt that moves the print carriage on all Epson based printers. Use a small toothbrush (or foam swab), and clean any lint from the belt gear.  Figure 8.

Lubricate the Carriage
The head moves on a smooth rod and after time the rod can get dry and pick up lint.  You should wipe the rod down every week and then apply a light lubricant to it. You can use a standard “appliance/sewing machine” oil and put a few drops on the rod.  Figure 9.

Check the Waste Tank Level

The Waste Tank is where money gets flushed down the drain. It is where all the ink goes from head cleanings. If the tank gets too full it will overflow. But, worse yet, the hose that goes from the capping station to the waste tank can get clogged. If this happens the capping station will overflow when you do head cleanings.

Also, many machines have an on/off valve going to the waste tank. There is a good chance when you use cleaning fluid on the capping station at night that it might draw ink from the head and start a siphon that goes right into the waste tank – and then on the floor. By closing a valve to the waste tank at night you prevent this. Just remember to open it in the morning!

Environmental and Location Concerns that Effect Print Quality
All DTG machines don’t like dry conditions. The ink in the head is more prone to clog if the air is dry. If you are in a dry area with low humidity, OR, if you plan to put the machine in a room with very dry heat in the winter, consider using a humidifier.  The ideal conditions are: 50 to 65% relative humidity, dust free, with no airflow over printer. Room temperature 68 to 85°F (20 to 29°C).

If you are a screener a DTG machine will not like to be in a hot shop full of lint.

If you are limited on space, try to find a way to NOT pretreat dark shirts near the machine. The mist of the pretreatment may bet around the head and clog it.

Other Items Affecting Print Quality
Other than the daily maintenance, there are other things you can do to help print quality and reduce maintenance.

Preheat Shirts
Some shirts give off a lot of lint. If you simply place the shirt in a heat transfer press for a few seconds you matt down the fibers and you will have less lint, less fibers getting on the bottom of the print head, and much less problem with lint.

Keep the Shirt Holders Level
All DTG machines have the problem of quality vs making money for the manufacturer. The Shirt Holders are generally made of sheet metal which is not always flat. Make sure the board/holder is flat and if this means bending it, shimming, it or doing whatever it takes, then do it.  You will have less head strikes and overall better prints.

Summary
You can see that I have developed a slight “attitude” about DTG machine owners not taking true ownership of their expensive investment. By following some simple rules and taking five minutes per day you will have a happy machine, happy customers, good looking prints, replace less heads, and in general have a great experience and love your machine!

Combining Images from Corel Draw with Adobe Photoshop

There are many times you want to combine a piece of artwork from Corel Draw with something in Adobe Photoshop. Traditional artists are trained to take the Photoshop (photorealistic) portion of the artwork into Corel to ad vector elements. That is all well and good but with all the automated color separation programs on the market it is often easier to separate in Photoshop.

Note: Click on each image to make it larger.

Yes…. I know….. you can do trapping and choking easier in Corel. But, for a lot of T-Shirt images that combine hard edges, type effects and photographs, it is sometimes easier to just output separations from Photoshop and not worry about trapping and choking.

Figure 2

The truth is when you see a really hot photorealistic image on a shirt with a combination of shading, text and photo images – chances are it was done on high mesh count screens (230 and 305) with good tension, printed on a tight printing press and no trapping was done.

That said, let’s see the easiest way to take images from Corel to Photoshop. As we all know, these two programs don’t really talk to each other. Unlike Adobe Illustrator files that can be opened in Photoshop (rasterized), Photoshop turns up it’s nose at a Corel file.

The important point to remember is that we really want to the Corel portion of the file to end up with no background in Photoshop. In order to add additional elements to it in Photoshop we want a transparent background. The steps are easy.

1. Create the image in Corel.  Simple.
2. Group the entire image.  See figure 1.
3. Export the image from Corel as an EPS.  Go to File/Export. Drop down the Options window and check Selected Only.  You can also do a Save As a PDF. EPS and PDF formats retain the vector qualities and if there is no background color the images will come into Photoshop with a Transparent Background. See figure 2.
4. Don’t worry about the EPS Export window. Just say OK to it.  See figure 3. Since we are not going to be opening this in another vector program we really don’t care about most of this.
5. Don’t forget where you exported or saveed it to. Corel is known to NOT export or save to a directory/folder that the file came from. It is easy to lose things in Corel.
6. Open Photoshop. Go to File/Open. Find your file and click on Open.  The next step is VERY IMPORTANT.  Photoshop defaults to 72dpi for a vector to raster conversion. This means if you blow by the next screen (see figure 4) you will take you clean and

   

   sharp vector file and make it low resolution. If this job is for T-Shirt printing, make sure you change the physical size to what you want AND that you make the resolution around 300 dpi. Uncheck Anti-Aliased (you don’t want Photoshop to soften the edges). Make sure the file is set to RGB.  See figure 4.

7. When the file is rasterized make sure to open the Layers Palette (Window/Layers). This is where you build images using various components. Your file should look like it did in Corel but it should have a checkered background. That’s the good news. Checked backgrounds mean the file has NO background or has a transparent background.  See figure 5.
8. What is the point?  Well…. the point is that you can now add other elements to this file and place them behind the file and your file will act just like it did in Corel. There will be no white background.  Perfect!  See figure 6.

Have fun with combining Corel and Photoshop images.

It is almost impossible to tell everything you need to know about color separating in a short article. But, I feel strongly that if I can point you in the right direction and maybe cut through some of the myths and opinions that you hear – that are wrong – you will break out of your shell and start to learn how to do great color seps. My opinions here come from the fact that I separate on average 1,500 to 1,800 jobs per year for clients large and small. I think I am about as close as you can get to the real needs of a color separator. 

This article will give you the highlights of some basic techniques and methods I am passionate about.

Note: To zoom in on images and see them larger simply click on the image.

Basics of Spot Color Separations
This one is easy. Use one of the two popular “vector” programs like Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator. Windows users like Corel and Mac users like “AI.” Frankly, I now get a LOT more AI files for color separations than Corel.  Why a “vector” program? They create razor sharp images (or as sharp as your printer will print). These programs are used for type, hard edge graphics, simple spot color images and yes, even high-end images with photos and bitmap elements as part of the image. A lot of high-end graphics are created in AI or Corel. But, if they have lots of shading/gradations and photographic elements it is almost impossible to separate in those programs.

Basics of High-End Color Separations in Photoshop
Did I mention that I use Photoshop for all of my separations? Why? Because people don’t send me their simple spot color images. They don’t need me for that. They send me the images that are hard to color separate. These can be images that are built in Layers in Photoshop or images built in Corel or AI that have bitmap/pixel graphic elements. You simply can’t separate images with embedded bitmap images in AI or Corel unless you want to do straight CMYK (please don’t do that…..). About ½ of the images I get are AI or Corel because the images have a mixture of graphic elements that are created in a vector program along with bitmap images.

Yes, I do use my T-Seps separation software for “the heavy lifting” but I also often have to create new channels, tweaks seps, work on the original file, reduce the color count and much more – depending the quality of the original artwork and the printing limitations of some clients. Whether or not you have a separation program or if you can’t afford a color separation program or just want to know the basics without a Photoshop plug-in then this article has what you need.

Know your artwork
This one is BIG. You must know your artwork and work to make it the best possible. Here are some tips.

1. If you built the image in AI you can open it in Photoshop. If you built the image in Corel save it as an EPS file (without any shirt background). In either case when you Open the file in Photoshop make sure to set the resolution and file size. If the image is mainly embedded bitmap elements then open it at 300dpi at the final print size. If you are a Vector Snob – then open it at 500 to 600dpi and UNCHECK Anti-Aliasing. The means the edges of the image will be more like those in the vector program (OK, a little close), and Photoshop will not try to soften the jaggies (turning off anti-aliasing). The file will be larger but with today’s huge hard disks it doesn’t matter. Figure 2.

2. 

   If the image is a low quality JPG then you need to work to get rid of the artifacts. There are a lot of JPG Enhancement programs. You can also do this in Photoshop. First upsample the image to the correct final size and the resolution you want. Here is a “Scott” quick JPG enhancement routine (upsample first). In Photoshop – Filter/Noise/Despeckle. Filter/Noise/Reduce Noise/.  Noise Strength 10, Preserve Details 60, Reduce Color Noise 20, Sharpen Details 15, Remove JPG Artifacts Yes. You will love this! Figure 3.

3. Don’t be afraid to improve the contrast. I like to apply an “S” curve to images to darken the shadows and lighten the highlights. This performs magic on flat files. Figure 4.

Creating Channel Separations
This topic has been written about a lot and I will give the quick details here. Your image should be flattened in Photoshop (Layers panel) with a white background. Here are quick steps:

1. Use the Color Range tool to find specific colors. Click on Select/Color Range. Make sure Invert is checked. Place the Eye Dropper Tool on the color you want to “pull” and click. Use the Fuzziness Slider to pull more or less of that color. Figure 5. This is where experience kicks in. When you feel you have what you want click on OK. Your color now has the famous “marching ants” selection around the color you picked. At the bottom of the Channels Panel is a rectangle window that is Save Selection as Channel. Click. You have just made the first color of the separation process in Photoshop. Figure 6.

   

   You should note the color you selected on and assign that color to this channel and make it a spot color channel. Set the Opacity to 5% (trust me) so it will preview on a color other than white the way it will print. Figure 7.

2. Repeat this for all colors. Create a Shirt color channel and put it above the seps. Put them in the print order of light to dark. If you assigned colors to each channel including the shirt color you can preview the seps by placing the “eye” next to each channel. Figure 8.
3. Channels print out of Photoshop. You will need a software RIP (raster image processor) to print halftones. Print these out at a halftone frequency of 55lpi and an angle of 25 degrees using an Ellipse dot shape. Just buy into it. If using Photoshop CS5, CS6, CC or the new CC 2014 Adobe removed the popular “screen” button and you have to set the LPI and angle in your RIP.
4. Tell your shop to put these on 230 to 305 mesh (90 to 120cm) and hold every dot. You will have soft prints that look great.

Creating a quick Underbase
If your design is going on a dark shirt where you might need an underbase white you will need to know how to make a quick underbase. I say “quick” because a great underbase has a lot more work to it like adding more base under colors like reds and blues.

1.  The simple way is to first “mask” around the image with a black background. That means all areas where there will be shirt color (commonly called the Canvas) needs to be black. You can use Magic Wand; create a new Layer if you have layers with transparent backgrounds; paint around the image if it has a soft edge; or use any method to get the canvas area black. There are even programs that do masking for you. Figure 9.
2. Convert the image to Grayscale.  Image/Mode/Grayscale.  Figure 10.

3. 

   Invert the image.  Image/Adjustments/Invert. Figure 11.

4. Apply an aggressive Tone Curve to darken the image.  Image/Adjustments/Curves. Figure 12.
5. A good underbase has base where there is red, brown, blue and other colors that a grayscale misses a little. That is “Advanced Underbase” – another article – another time.

Using third party programs
Obviously there are lots of third party plug-ins for Photoshop that automate the above process. They do the heavy lifting and in many cases they get you close and in other cases they miss lots of key colors. That is where knowing how to create your own channels is key. If you want to try the best plug-in for T-shirt seps then download the free trial of T-Seps.

Final Checks
There are a lot more advanced techniques including doing minor trapping and choking of colors (making them fatter or skinny) and using the various Photoshop tools to darken or lighten parts of separations to make them print better. These are detailed in other articles and or videos. For now, the next section will deal with important tweaks and final checks.

Reducing the Color Count
As a separator, this is something I deal with every day. Some of my customers can print 10 to 12 colors – nirvana – while others have a limit of only six colors. As a separator you are always faced with having too many print colors and having to find ways to reduce the color count.

This problem is especially prevalent if you are using one of the off-the-shelf automated color separation programs. They all pretty much work with a fixed palette of colors and often these colors are not the exact colors in the design. They generally give you a lot of color choices and your job is to try to reduce these choices down to the number of colors you can print.

When trying to reduce the color count you need to always look to see what colors don’t need to be a perfect match. This is where compromises come into play. Yes, you can make green by mixing blue and yellow – but it will be a dull/dirty green and not pure. If the green in a design is just a small non-critical area then you are home free to make green with yellow and blue. But, if green is a major part of the image they you must print it.

You always have to consider that you must keep the colors you can’t make and what colors can be used to make other colors. There is no way to make yellow, black or blue. Even though you think you can’t make red it is created with magenta and yellow in CMYK printing. But, this would be the last resort if doing a simulated process set of seps where red was critical.

Let’s look at the sample Barbie Boat. Figure 13. I have created all of the key colors into channels in order to see how it looks if we print all the main colors. On a black shirt it is ten colors including a typical underbase and highlight to give it pop. It is often easier to create channels for each color and then work to reduce the color count down.

If you gave me this job to analyze and told me all you could print was six colors – including the underbase –  I would combine the brown with the red to keep the brown areas. Brown is one color you can almost always get for “free.”  I would also try to make the green from light blue and yellow and I might even have to drop the highlight white and make sure my underbase was nice and bright.

Purple is another color you can often easily make from red and blue.

Here is how you combine channels using Apply Image:

1. Put the preview “eye” on all the channels you want to keep (at this point). Do not put the eye on the brown.
2. Select the channel you want to combine the brown with. In this example select the red.  Figure 14.
3. Go to Image/Apply Image.  Leave the default settings for now. Select the Brown channel in the Channel window (that is the channel you want to combine with the red). In the Multiply window if you send 100% of the brown to the red it will be too much. Play with this number. 50% is a good start. You can see on-screen exactly how your changes look. Figure 15.
4. Delete the Brown channel.

   

   

Checking the Separations for Image Density
Next to Apply Image, the Info Panel is about the most important Photoshop panel you can have open. I leave it open ALL THE TIME because I will use it dozens of times on each job. To open it go to Window/Info.

What does it do? It reads density levels. It lets you make sure that areas that you know should be 100% (from your printing experience) really are 100%. How many times have you assumed a dark area in a channel was 100% and then printed out films and gotten halftone dots in that area. It also lets you see if the extremely light areas in a channel are even printable. Chances are you will have a hard time holding a halftone dot smaller than 5%. If you have a subtle area that reads 2% with the Info Panel then you are kidding yourself if you think you can hold this. (OK, some printers brag they can do this).

Figure 18 shows using the Info Panel on the Underbase channel. Using the eyedropper tool you can sample an area – shown with a red circle. Read the Info Panel and you can see this area appears solid but is only 90%. Use a Tone Curve on this channel to boost the density of the darkest areas. And, the Info Panel reads “before and after” when you are using the Tone Curve. Figure 19.

Using Apply Image to bring back detail
Sometimes when using Color Range to pick colors and create channels, it is hard to get every piece of colors that are close but not within the Fuzziness range you set. When you look at your final seps you will often see subtle areas missing. The Apply Image tool is great for bringing back small detail areas. When I do separations for customers I will typically scan the image for this lost information/detail and then add it back into one of my colors. I will normally do this when I am done reducing the color count.

Here is how to bring back lost information using Apply Image:

1. Determine what areas are missing or need tweaking. Figure 20 shows the separations on the left and the original on the right. Notice the light blue areas in the padding behind the Hawk’s head and the light blue detail on the pants is missing.
2. Using Select/Color Range select the area from the image that got lost creating the other channels. You will normally get lots of similar colors with this selection but you can erase what you don’t need. Figure 21 shows pulling just the light blue areas. Save this Color Range selection as a new alpha channel.
3. Select the Light Blue channel. Make sure the “eye” is not on the Alpha 1 channel. In Apply Image choose the Alpha 1 channel and apply what looks good. In this case 50% is all you need. Figure 22.

   

Summary
This should get you going. There are obviously a lot more tricks and tips and I will try to write more on them. This article should get you on the road to doing great color separations. Just don’t forget that you often don’t see the forest for the trees……. it is often easy to let an automated separation program like T-Seps do the heavy lifting (creating the underbase, highlight and key colors channels), and they you apply the techniques here to tweak those separations.

 

 

 

This article was promoted by yet another call from a new T-Seps user (large company) faced with the same old “we can’t print that” comment from the screen and production departments.

True. It comes from the fact that in the every day world of garment screen printing, many shops NEVER do high-end work and rarely have to expose a halftone dot. And, if they do have to burn halftones it is probably something simple that still works if they don’t hold anything lower than a 20% dot. Plus, a lot of printers print white ink through a 110 mesh and are convinced they can’t get white to go through anything higher – let alone a 230 (90cm) mesh!

If you plan to do any high-end printing on light or dark shirts – regardless of who’s color separation program you use – you need to read this article and force your screen makers and production people to read it. And, when they tell you it is BS you need to tell them to “just do it.”  I have often used stronger words over the years. Yes, there are certainly variables and each job seems to have a life of it’s own. But, for most jobs you can take the following information as “the word.”

Quick Tips for Successful High-End Printing
Printing Simulated Process Color, CMYK and Index Color on light and dark shirts can be very rewarding and also very frustrating. If you have never done this type of printing you might be shocked at the high mesh counts and type of ink used. If you normally print spot color and heavy athletic printing this will be MUCH DIFFERENT. In order to have great results with T-Seps/FastFilms or color separations provided by us you may need to change your thinking on how you print and make screens. It is important to try to follow these guidelines.

The first reaction screen makers and printers have when presented with their first high-end job is “we can’t do this.” The truth is if you go to www.T-Seps.com and look at the handful of sample images, they are ALL done using the following techniques. Hundreds of thousands of shirt jobs have been printed using these methods. This is NOT the same as general logo/spot color printing and it requires an open mind. The truth is that printers and screen makers just need to buy into how the world of high-end printing is done and be open to new ideas that on the surface appear impossible.

Color Separations
You can pay to have an experience color separator do the seps or you can use a program like T-Seps or FastFilms. These programs have been used for over 10 years by most of the world’s largest printers. The following directions are the same exact specifications found in the Manual for those programs.

If you own T-Seps or FastFilms why would you need to use an experience separator? The truth is I do separations all day long for large and small companies. Large companies doing work for NASCAR, Disney, Harley and others often have a season rush and get behind. I do their overflow. Most printers who do this type of work use FastFilms or T-Seps. Smaller printers with these programs often get complex jobs where they want to really shine. And, some printers don’t do enough high-end work so they are not always as familiar with the tweaks needs for critical jobs. For a flat fee of $50 it is sometimes easier to have the seps done outside to save the hassle.

Film Output
When trying to expose very fine halftone dots you must have a film positive that is dense black in the image areas. That means vellum many not be the best choice for critical work. Many printers still use a laser printer with vellum and if that is all you have then you will just have to work hard to hold the small halftone dots.

You can get excellent and dense black film output from imagesetters or from inexpensive inkjet printers using a software RIP like T-RIP (raster image processor) that tells the inkjet printer to lay down more ink. One of the secrets to printing photorealistic images is HOLD THE DOTS on the film and on the screen. If you lose halftone dots then the image on the shirt will not look like the image on the computer. Halftone dots on vellum or laser acetate are not very dense and the exposure light burns through the fine dots.

The proper halftone screen angle is also important and may seem unorthodox to the untrained printer. For Simulated Process Color (not CMYK), use 25 degrees, elliptical dots for ALL COLORS. Trust me.

For real CMYK prints use the angles of C 15, M 45, Y and K 75. Or, you could also use 25 degrees on all colors! Again, trust me.

For most general high-end jobs use a line count/frequency of 55lpi. If you run automatic presses and have critical jobs you can go to 65lpi and even 75 lpi. If you are using vellum or laser acetate then drop down to 45lpi.

If the job is Index Color (no halftone) the art department MUST have the job at the final print size and around 200dpi resolution before they separate it. The resolution will be the size of the small square pixels/dots and these will be VERY SMALL on the films and a typical screen maker comment is “we can’t burn that.” Read the following….

Screen Making
All screens should be properly tensioned. At best, use retensionable or rigid aluminum screens that have a tension of 25 – 30 Newtons. If you have wood frames, use the tightest ones you have. Yes, these images will work with wood, but you will lose some detail and may not have as good an Underbase. Don’t let your lack of the best frames stop you. Just work to use tight screens that are on stable frames.

The proper mesh count is critical. For most photorealistic jobs use a 230 mesh (90cm) for the underbase (go lower if the design has a lot of solid bright colors), and a 305 mesh (120cm) for the top colors. The first reaction is “I can’t get my white ink through a 230 mesh.” Not true. If you use a small amount of curable reducer and reduce the viscosity of the white so it is creamy it will work. You are NOT trying to lay down a rock solid white layer of thick plastisol for an underbase. The highlight white (last color down) will make the white pop where you need the pop.

When ordering screens try to get the 230 mesh screen for white ink with a thicker thread diameter. This will help make the stencil thicker and give you a better deposit of white.

Proper stencil preparation is critical and goes along with HOLD THOSE DOTS. If you have never exposed high mesh screens you need to forget what you know about exposure. Your exposure times for 305 mesh will be 20% of that for your 156 mesh. You MUST use direct emulsion. You must use thin coats of emulsion (1 coat on outside/bottom, 1 coat on inside). If necessary come back after you dry the screen and give it another coat on the outside. And, use the sharp edge of the scoop coater.

The best emulsion to use is a dual-cure (two part) emulsion. It has more latitude and is more forgiving that one part photopolymer emulsions which have a very fast exposure time.

The way to tell if you can hold the small 5% dots is to do test screens. Have the art department create a test film with squares filled with 2%, 5%, 10%, 20%, etc., halftone dots. That way you are not guessing at what size a dot is. Coat and expose the screen. Work hard to expose the 5% dot. Yes, it can be done. You will probably not be able to hold the 2% dot. That means if there are very subtle design changes these might be in the 2% to 5% area. Great screen makers do it all the time. The secret is keep reducing your exposure times. If you are using a pure photopolymer emulsion (one part), you might find times as low as 10 seconds!

For most non-critical cartoon or freeform graphic images it may not really matter if you don’t hold anything below a 10% dot.
If the job is Index Color then all the dots on the films are the same size. If you can burn one of them you can burn them all.

Inks
Simulated Process jobs are normally printed with a good high-opacity white for the underbase and highlight whte, and standard off-the-shelf plastisols for the top colors. Most colors are fairly creamy in the container but the white can often be very stiff. To get the white to print better simply add a small amount of curable reducer to the ink. Many brands recommend “soft hand” and this can work but a liquid reducer is better. It may seem counter intuitive to reduce white ink to get better opacity but the truth is when it is very thick it requires much more pressure on the squeegee which drives the ink into the shirt. By reducing the ink it clears out of the screen easier and lays ontop of the shirt.

If the job is Process Color CMYK, you must use special inks. You need the colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. These inks are very thin and transparent. They work well on light shirts but tend to mute down if printed on a base of white. That is why they are rarely used on black shirts. Some companies offer “triple strength” process plastisol with a heavier pigment load. If you must print CMYK on an underbase on dark shirts, consider using triple strength.

Printing Technique
Use medium-hard squeegees that are sharp. Triple durometers are better (70/90/70).

For the underbase try to do one good stroke. If necessary a second stroke may help coverage. You may need to slow down the stroke to get the ink to clear. Try to hold the fine detail in the image. You ARE NOT really looking for the white to jump off the shirt. This is the job of the Highlight white! Flash cure after the Underbase. This is the most critical print. If the underbase looks good as a black and white image then everything else should look good.

If the job has a lot of solid spot colors you may have to print the underbase through a lower mesh count and in some extreme cases print the base, flash cure, print the base again, flash and then print the colors. This more important when doing athletic type photorealistic images where the final feel/hand of the print is not important.

Since the underbase is through a high mesh, it will flash cure very quickly. You can place the flash cure unit 1 to 2 inches above the print and often get a skin cure in five to ten seconds.

The colors are printed wet-on-wet ontop of the underbase white. If they are smooth and creamy on a high mesh you should be able to do one clean stroke. Some jobs with a lot of colors may need an additional flash part way through the print order.

DO NOT PANIC until the last color is printed. Often, it is the Highlight that brings it all together. It brightens areas and lightens other colors. If printing a second white last in the sequence seems totally wrong, just give it a chance. This is often the magic that makes the print pop off the shirt.

For CMYK Process jobs, you must use a very consistent squeegee stroke. If you do too many strokes or “mash” the ink through the mesh, you dots will gain too much and the print will be muddy.

General Suggestions
If a design does not look like the original art, modify an ink color and try different color sequences. This is normal when printing on dark shirts. It generally takes more than one shirt for an image to settle in and print correctly. There are many variables that affect the final print, from screen tension to quality of the printing press, and technique of the printer or machine. Adjustments at the screen press are commonly performed by high-end printers.

Print on a good shirt. DO NOT use a test square – other than for lining up the screens. The print needs to have the absorbency of the shirt AND the tighter the knit the better. 100% cotton is obviously better than a 50/50 Cotton/Polyester blend because of the dye migration from the shirt.

If you are printing on fleece or a polo shirt with a rough texture you will need to lower your line count and accept the fact that the print will not be as clean as on a T-Shirt.

Be Positive
Having done thousands of separations and sold thousands of copies of T-Seps and FastFilms, I know that some customers will simply not agree with the proper techniques and will use low mesh counts (110 is all we had), poor film output, and bad printing technique (this is not athletic printing). At the end of the day, the bad print quality is blamed on bad separations. Once you have had success with these techniques you will go out of your way to tell customers to “bring it on.” You won’t turn down any jobs or be afraid of photo realistic images.

Five Things to Know Before Jumping into Digital Printing

This article is very PRO direct-to-garment or DTG. While some of the comments may sound negative – it is very important to think about where you are going to spend $5,000 to $50,000 on a DTG printer. Frankly, I still love the process and it has matured and found a great niche in this industry. DTG is like embroidery, vinyl cutting, heat transfers, rhinestones and more – it is one more process a printer MUST have to be competitive in this industry.

It is pretty common knowledge that I was the first to bring an affordable desktop DTG printer to market. At the Minneapolis SGIA trade show in October of 2004 there were only two companies showing DTG for the first time – my company U.S. Screen was showing the T-Jet for around $11,000 and Kornit was showing a huge printer for about $180,000.

There were lots of mistakes made and in 2006 when I developed the first white ink with Dupont we thought we had found the “Golden Ticket” when in fact we didn’t know we had a tiger by the tail.

A lot of people bought machines. Some of them loved being on the new cutting edge technology. Others had nothing but problems with white ink clogging and keeping up with machine maintenance and most manufacturers faced a blood bath on internet forums.

Fast forward to today. I follow all of the Facebook DTG Groups. Some of them are General for all brands of DTG Machines and others are machine specific. These are the new internet Forums and frankly, not a lot has changed with people’s attitude. You will find uses who are in tears over issues and you will find people bragging of just printing 100 T-Shirts and working night and day and loving the process. AND, you have screen printers still saying “why didn’t you screen the job” and users replying “because my customer wants full-color with lots of detail and a softer print.”

The point of the above comments is that DTG has matured and has a firm place in the industry but there is still confusion in the marketplace. There are very important items to consider when buying your first DTG machine and you often can’t rely on industry Forums, Facebook Groups and manufacturers claims to give you a clear-cut answer about what machine to buy.

Here are things to consider and know:

1. Be careful when buying a used machine.
   I get at least a dozen calls per month from people who have bought a used machine off Craigs List, eBay or elsewhere and the question is always the same “do you sell software to run the machine?” DTG machines need special RIP software that control the ink deposit, creates an underbase for white shirts, allows you to re-print an image over again (for more brightness), and a lot more. Specialized RIP software is normally secured (for no bootlegging) with a dongle. Many used machines are sold “as is” and often don’t have a dongle. You can pay up to $1,000 more for software to run the machine and without the dongle it can cost more. Research RIP software for any machine you are going to buy.After years of DTG manufacturers buying and selling a LOT of print heads for heads that were clogged – Epson and other manufacturers tightened up the head market. It is not uncommon to pay $800 to $1000 – or more for a print head – and if the machine is more than a few years old you may not be able to get print heads. Always confirm that you can get print heads and the price if you buy a used machine.

Be careful of the claim “it worked when I last turned it off” or “it has been in storage for a couple of years but works great.” Machines that are in storage often have ink in the lines that is clogged, heads that are clogged and will need a total “replumbing” of all the hoses. What you really want is to see the machine work and make a real print – not a promise that “it works.”

2. Know where it fits in your business
   A lot of DTG (and now DTF) machines are sold to startup printers who feel the business is easy and they can build a website and sell shirts – and life will be good. These machines want to run – every day if possible – and you need to have a way to at least print a few shirts per day (even if just your own images or rags). There is a great place for DTG with short run, full color, quick turnaround (same day!) business and you need to know how this fits with your business model. If you are a screen printer you may not want this business but when you are getting $15 to $20 per shirt for an order of two dozen with NO screens, NO separations, NO setups – it doesn’t take long to say “I kind of like this!”

3. Be careful of low cost machines
   This may not set well with machine manufacturers but when a company sells a new machine for less than $5,000 you need to be aware that there is not much margin for support, infrastructure to keep up with R&D on the next generation, etc., etc. Be careful of shopping on price and buying a low cost machine. Profit is not a dirty word for a manufacturer and they need profit to maintain personnel, parts, inventory, and more. Ask the hard questions. “How many machines have you sold?” “Can I get names of owners?” “What is the warranty?” “How long have you been in business?”

4. Be prepared for high ink costs
   DTG inks are still not cheap. Buy into it. It is what it is. Don’t let this stop you. And, there is what is called “the digital lie” – meaning manufacturers do not always tell you the true cost of a print. OK, yes – the ink might sell for $400 per liter and they might tell you that equates to $.50 per print on a light shirt and $3.00 per print on a dark shirt. BUT…… they don’t tell you that the machine will do a lot of head cleanings that wastes ink, or that you might have to flush out all the ink and replace it every month to maintain the warranty. These are all ink costs that often are NOT figured into the “price per print” they quote. Get used to it. Don’t let it stop you. This is not screen printing where you are charging $4.00 for a printed shirt. You are charging a lot more for DTG prints and you can make good money with it if you know your costs.

5. Do Your Homework
   As mentioned earlier there are a lot of Facebook Groups dealing with DTG. In fact, they are the most active Groups I follow on Facebook. DTG owners love to brag, complain, share ideas, help others and more. Join these groups and follow the other online Forums that have DTG sections. Talk to owners. Go to trade shows. Keep an open mind. One user may hate the brand he has and another might love it. Consider the source. Does the person who hates it have too high of expectations, not like the high ink costs, not want to do the simple maintenance required to the keep the machine happy? Does the person who loves their machine “get it” – run it every day, know what markets to go after for this process, factors in high ink costs, doesn’t mind maintaining the machine? You get the idea.

Now Just Do It
I told you – I still love the process and how it has matured and become a stable part of this industry. DTG is not for everyone and MANY DTG owners are NOT screen printers, embroiderers or already in the industry but are often internet marketers who know you can charge more money for short runs, quick turnaround and detailed vibrant prints.

We were thrilled when one of our very first students – and youngest – Pete Bolsoni told us he had upgraded his shop to the M&R Digital Squeegee. Pete came to one of our first classes back in 1979 when he was only 18 years old!! He has had a great ride and left the nizagara business for a few years and came back and now has a very successful company Same Day Tees. He runs automatic equipment and recently added a Digital Squeegee. M&R did a very nice interview with Pete and we encourage you to watch it. It is a great story and you can learn a lot about perseverence and focus. The future is here!

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Cam Earven of the Facebook/YouTube channel The Print Life. The topic was “Buying Your First Automatic Screen Printing Press” but we did a lot more than just talk about that with 90 minutes of talking about the industry, our experiences, changes we have seen and much more. It is a fun interview and you can check it out on The Print Life YouTube channel. There are also some great tidbits and industry history tucked in too. Enjoy!

Read the latest news headlines from the pages of Impressions Magazine.

With the popularity of the iPad and other tablet devices it was only fitting that the popular book, How To Print T-Shirts For Fun And Profit by Scott and Pat Fresener be released a digital eBook version. For over 32 years their popular book has been the guide for countless thousands of garment screen printers. In fact, the book has sold over 140,000 copies since 1978 and has been continually updated over the years. It has 260 pages and 16 chapters on every topic. Read more details and see a chapter list here.

The video above is shot from the older 2008 version of the book. The most recent 2012 version is what is now shipping for the tablet. We have just not yet found time to re-shoot the video with the new version.

What makes this digital version exciting is that you can now read the book and watch training videos right in one document on your computer – but better yet – on an iPad or any tablet that will let you use an interactive PDF file! Frankly, seeing the book on a iPad and watching over 2.5 gigabytes of videos is simply amazing!

What makes the new version special is the amount of videos that play on every topic in the industry. From step-by-step screen making directions, to how to setup and print a multi-color design, you have the printed word and videos to go along with it. There are over 40 videos – FIVE hours – PLUS links to additional technical articles. If you needed a reason to buy an iPad – this is it!

You can purchase the new digital eBook a variety of ways. If you have an iPad then you can purchase the version that lets the videos stream over the internet (an iPad will not play embedded videos in a PDF document).  Video start and stream VERY FAST on an iPad. If you want to use the book on your computer, you can purchase either the download version (with no videos embedded) or better yet, you can purchase a DVD with almost 3 gigabytes of data and the videos embedded in the book. The DVD has both versions (iPad and with embedded videos for computers). The best part of either version…..click on a video and within seconds they play.

The new eBook is an interactive PDF file that will play on all computers (Mac or PC) and most tablet devices. Some tablets are book “readers” (the Kindle and Nook) and will play a PDF but will not let it link to outside videos or documents.

Best of all, if you already own the paperback version of the book, you can now get a companion digital version to go with it! And, you can print out the entire revised book from the digital version.

If you really want to learn about this business check out the T-Biz Network YouTube Channel. We have over 200 videos and over 2,300 subscribers. And, we have had almost 600,000 views of our videos. Grab some popcorn and enjoy!

Here are a few more tips for marketing on a shoe-string budget.

Word of Mouth
One of the most effective tools for a small garment decorating company is to create word of mouth referrals. As a supply company I have many friends in the industry that I have meet along the way, and I understand that they are an invaluable resource for me. But despite all of our best efforts to help out friends, all of our daily lives make it hard to go out of your way for others all the time.

To help eliminate this problem I have determined what my true profit margin is and have made a plan for rewarding my friends’ efforts at sending me business. Just set up an easy-to-track and clear plan. For ever customer one of my “friends” sends to me, I give them a certain small percentage commission. It is small and is not enough for someone to make a living off of, but it rewards them for their efforts and makes it easy for them to recommend me in the future. Also remember to refer customers to them in return (even if they don’t have a reciprocal system). It will all come back in the end!

Donate to Good Causes
We all have causes that are near and dear to us. We will most likely donate to those causes on a personal level anyway, so why not step it up a bit and make it a company donation and also take advantage of the potential advertising. As a garment decorator, donating shirts for an event is an ideal advertising method. The cost of producing the shirts is nominal and completely tax deductable. Make sure that your logo/brand is prominently displaced and make sure that you have some sort of contact info. All too often I see people making the mistake of not putting a phone number or website in their logo and people normally will not take the time to go hunting.

Also take the opportunity to create a press release and interview the event coordinator. Local news outlets love those kinds of things. If the event is large enough in your area, why not invite people from the event and media to come watch you create the shirts and maybe have a little open house. All pretty much free advertising for donating a couple hundred shirts.

Give out Some Extra Items 
Many times on orders customer get what they think they need, but might also not realize that the same image on the T-Shirt might be great on a sweatshirt, hats, towel etc. Especially if you have a direct to garment printer as well, these things can be invaluable. Make sure to find out what size the buyer is and then print a few extra items. Package these items separately, and include a nice note of thanks for the order and then a small sales pitch (one small paragraph tops) about your ability to also print these other items. You might even include a small discount on the other items if the customer orders in a certain amount of time after receiving this order.

Always Have Samples
Where ever you go, as a garment decorator, you will always run into a potential customer. Local restaurant, sporting event, school function etc. It is very important to be prepared for this impromptu sales call, so having plenty of good samples is a must. Make sure that when you are printing a piece that you are especially proud of you print plenty of extras to display in your shop and also keep with you. It is a good idea to check with the customer first, but more often than not the customer will be proud to have their piece as a “show off”.

The other thing to remember is to include your logo/brand with contact details on the samples. Maybe someone likes the sample and you give it to them to win their business, well then you have more free advertising. Along with the samples, always have some promotional literature and a business card with you at all times…you never know when you might need them.

Act Big (even if you’re a one-man-show)
People want to buy from someone they trust and feel is professional. This means that it is important to act big but still give your customers the feel of caring. The nice part is that with today’s technology, it is easy to act big without having to spend big. To me, the three most important things in making your company appear solid and professional are your voice mail message, your email address and your business card.

• Voice Mail/Phone -Most of us are not professional voice talents and our voice mail message might be a little awkward. Today you can find pools of professional voice talent online that that will record a short message for you for $15 to $30. You can then upload these digital voices to your answering service. For example I use my cell phone for most of my business and I have a FREE service called youmail.com for my voice mail. This service allows me to have different greetings for different phone numbers and even block unwanted calls. This way my family and friends get my normal message and all other numbers get my professionally recorded greeting.

  The same goes for answering your phone. Many times I have called some of my customers on numbers they have listed online as their business number and get a simple “Hello”? If I was calling to buy a shirt, I would think twice. It is not hard to answer your phone “Hello, thank you for calling XYZ Company, how many I assist you?”

• Email Address – As I scan through the list of customer emails that I have gathered over the years, I am shocked to see that 75% of them are a Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, (and the worst) AOL email address etc. Even worse than that is that many of them don’t even have anything to do with the company and are just a personal email. In today’s world with Blackberry’s and IPhones and constantly being on the web, email is a great communication tool. It allows you to contact someone without interrupting them with a phone call and give people the opportunity to exchange information after having some time to research their needs as opposed to having to shoot from the hip.

  And today, you can have a professional email address (i.e. yourname@youcompanyname.com) for pennies a day (See GoDaddy for example) and you can easily set-it up to route directly to your Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc. account. No need to change your pattern, just look more professional. Also, make sure that when writing an email, have a professional signature. Make sure your name, and contact details are on every email and that you email with a greeting and closing. You are not sending a note to your kids to clean the house; you are trying to win someone’s business.

• Business Cards – The fastest way for me to discount the professionalism of a company is to get one of those business cards that are printed out on a laser printer or inkjet that are flimsy with perforated edges. I typically throw those away and look to the next company to make my buying decision. Today you can get 250 business cards printed for less than $20 or even free if you are willing to let the company print their logo on the back. I suggest investing the $20 for a professional looking card without the logo but at the very minimum get the logo on the back. Go to places like iprint.com or vistaprint.com and see how easy it is to get REAL business cards.

Again, I love reading your ideas and feedback on these things. Working together as small businesses to achieve success, even it means sharing with your competitor, will always outweigh the feeling that we need to hoard our ideas. There is plenty to go around and we should be confident in our ability to service our customers and provide enough value that we don’t have to worry about sharing ideas. I can’t wait to read your ‘marketing on a shoe-string budget’ ideas.

This is a short news feed from the pages of Impressions Magazine. 
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