For the production of printed garments for promotions, merchandise and fashion there are mainly 3 particular methods of screen printing employed. The method most commonly used and best suited for a large variety of graphics is called ‘Spot Colour’ printing. Spot colour printing is best used when printing graphics which are usually not very photographic in nature.
Ink colours used in remaking graphic images, are usually Pantone, as specified by the graphic designer. Pantone coated or noncoated color types are selected to clarify the ink hues of the pattern. The Pantone system is a global standard for colour matching where every colour is assigned a unique designation.
Spot colour printing is well suited to printing branded promotional garments or items in which colour identity and uniformity needs to stay the same throughout a varying range of items.
An additional method of t-shirt screen printing used is called 4 Colour Process. Printing in this style is primarily used for images and illustrations that use a wide range of colours, shades and tones. Hard covers, paperbacks and periodicals all use the same four-colour process.
The transparent inks blend with one another on a plain white backdrop to recreate each of the colours and shades present in the original. This is certainly a much harder procedure to do on material than it is to do on paper. The methods are pretty similar. This type of t shirt printing will of course only work on white garments and will not be suitable for coloured fabrics. ‘Simulated Process’ is a method used to reproduce full colour images onto colour fabrics. The costs associated with setting up the print are greater than those of simple spot colour designs. Therefore, they are only useful for larger print runs numbering more than 100. Using method similar to spot colour printing to achieve the overall look and feel of the original image the artwork is separated into various colours and shades
For transferring heavy metal imagery and fantasy imagery from CD covers to black T-shirts for band merchandise, this popular method is used by printers everywhere. Due to the higher set up prices which includes the separating of the colour as well as an increased amount of colours used to print the pictures, this works out to be the most expensive way of printing.
