For merchandise and fashion there are mainly 3 particular methods of screen printing employed. ‘Spot Colour’ printing is widely used and works well with many types of graphics. Spot color printing is used for those graphics that do not have photographic properties.
A graphic design professional typically determines the exact Pantone colours that the ink will be matched to in order to produce a high fidelity image. 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.
Another method of t-shirt printing used is called ‘4 Colour Process’. The type of printing that is used, relates mainly to images dealing with either photography or illustration, as well as having a large degree of colours, tones, and graduations used. The images found in many books and magazines and printed by the 4 colour process.
The inks, though they are translucent, will merge together on the white background, which will reproduce the tones and hues of the original. This is rather more difficult process to achieve on a fabric than it is on paper. But the method that is utilised is virtually identical.
This t-shirt printing method only works well on white garments and is unsuitable 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. The artwork is separated into various colours and shades using a method similar to spot colour printing to achieve the overall look and feel of the original image.
This method is used by every printer and is very popular for reproducing heavy metal and fantasy images taken from CD artwork and reproduced on black t-shirts for band merchandising. Colour separations and the number of colors necessary make this the most expensive printing option, and the higher set-up costs mean it is usually reserved for larger runs.