It’s common nowadays to produce positves for screenprint on a high-end inkjet printer. The inkjet printers are standard issue, usually Epson manufacture, with 6,7 or more inks. It is possible, with the correct set-up to run high quality proofs from these devices. Firstly, a couple of caveats, with most RIPs you can have halftones which reproduce the halftones of the imagesetter or contone which gives solid colours. You cannot mix the two, so if you have a four colour job with a spot colour, that spot colour will be halftoned or the halftones will be represented as tints. In addition, spot colours cannot be easily reproduced by process colours (CMYK) because if they could – you wouldn’t need spots! You need to be clear as to the intention of the ‘proof’, it is usual to halftone the whole thing and attach a disclaimer about spots because these are controlled by the inks you use and are therefore less susceptible to variation.

Start by choosing a four colour (CMYK) mode on the printer, we want to exclude Light Cyan/Light Magenta/Oranges and Greens, these will just interfere with the proofing process. Linearise the output of the printer and get the printer profiled in this mode. Remember, the press inks are probably fairly close to Pantone CMYK inks whereas inkjet inks are deliberately made brighter to allow richer colours and a wider colour gamut to be acheived. The proof should now show a fairly accurate representation of the final job. It should be noted that the CMYK values on the proof may be different from those on the press output. 100% cyan on the press may require something like 90% cyan on the inkjet with a little magenta and yellow to match the colour.

Nowadays t-shirts are worn as regular clothing and can be found in all different colors, patterns and sizes. In the 1980′s t-shirts became a form of self-expression and people started printing various pictures and messages on them. This practice has gotten more and more popular and nowadays organizations and individuals alike all print custom t-shirts so persons can see who they are affiliated with.

Originally t-shirt printing was a pretty tedious process if you didn’t have the right equipment, and it was still pretty tedious even if you did have the proper equipment, back in the day when screen printing was all that was known but there are many stores and websites in existence now that will take care of all your printing needs so you get the message/logo you need in professional quality without much trouble.

With custom t-shirt printing, you first pick your t-shirt color; next you choose the text you want on the shirt (if you want any) and the font that you want to use. Next you can select the graphics that you want on the shirt; most sites will have pre-existing graphics that you can browse through and use if you so desire or you can create your own custom graphic and choose that for your custom shirt. Then setup the shirt as you wish, decide where each element will go and finally, submit your design to the printing service that will print your design and send the shirt to you.

It will be up to you to decide whether you want your shirt screen printed or embroidered. Screen printing requires pushing ink through a screen using a squeegee; a stencil has to be made for the design that is to be printed which can be very tedious. With embroidery, your custom graphic must first be digitized by an expert so that the computerized embroidery machine can read your design and reproduce it; the cost for embroidery can be a bit as you are charged per stitch. So of course the larger the image is, the more stitches will be required to complete it and the more costly the shirt will be.

For your printing needs, head online and check out the various printing sites and the services they have to offer; some specialize in religious shirts, others in commercial printing (meaning you cannot order less than a certain amount) while others will do just a single shirt with whatever design you choose. So choose your printer based on your needs.