PMS Colors and Specialty Inks
Artwork’s done, films have been output, screens have been burnt – now it’s time to pick out the colors. Every single print shop I’ve ever been in with the exception of one, all use the Pantone color matching system. Some shops charge for this but it’s nonsense if they do. If you were to walk into the back of their shops, you’d see an entire wall, if not a complete room or every single wall in the shop absolutely lined with inks they’ve already mixed up. Don’t let a shop charge you for PMS color matching, ever!
One thing you can definitely expect to be charged for is if you’re going to be printing specialty inks. Discharges, burnout, puffs, glitters, metallics, crystalinas, gels, glow in the dark, water base, pretty much anything that’s not your normal Plastisol ink…they all require special care/prep and in turn extra charges. Beyond being “specialty inks”, some of them are toxic and require additional care when printing and curing, let alone special screens and mixing processes. Without going too far into what goes into it, let’s just say you’re not getting taken advantage of if you’re getting charged extra for these kind of inks.
Amount of Colors
Seeing as how every printer charges based on the amount of colors you’re printing, I should probably address this topic. We have an assortment of different colored shirts to print on so it’s important to understand how we print on them.
White shirts, just like white paper, are easy to print on. What you see in your image is most likely the amount of colors you are going to need in order to get the image printed. The only thing people get confused on here is when they provide a grayscale or black and white image with gradations in it. They expect it to be a simple one color, black only print. Yes, that can be done but if you want it to look good, I would be prepared to expect it to be a black and 2 to 3 grays as well.
When printing on darker colored and black shirts, it’s just like paper in the respect that you normally can’t take a white crayon and expect it to come out truly white on a black piece of paper. We print what’s called a base underneath anything that necessitates it. The base is white ink that gets flash cured or “flashed” after it goes down. The flashing process dries the white, which in turn lets us print the colors on top of it and have the colors come out looking what they’re supposed to look like. If you were to print a yellow on top of a black shirt without a base, it comes out looking green. Reds come out brownish in color and pretty much every other color aside from grays comes out differently without the base…even a white. If you want a bright vibrant white, you need to print a white underneath it.
So…when you give your printer a black shirt and ask them to print a white image on it, it’s not a one-color job. It’s two, the base and the white.
Samples and Press Checks
Everything’s lined up quite nicely and your shirts are ready to be printed. You want a sample of it before it prints just to make sure it looks right so you request one from your printer. Printers most likely won’t have a problem with doing that for you but you should definitely be prepared to pay for the set up time. It doesn’t make sense for a printer to set up an entire machine after having gone through the entire process outlined above to print only a few shirts.
The best way to go about making sure your print looks just right is to be there for a press check. Printers make money only when their machines are turning so for every minute it sits there doing nothing, waiting for a color to be changed, a new screen to be burned, a squeegee to be changed, it’s losing money. If you’re there personally to ensure you’re getting what you want, it helps everyone.
Otherwise, the printer is only responsible for printing what you gave them. If you happen to be at a press check and you can’t get what you’re looking for, the press operator will advise, the shop owner will advise, most everyone will help you out and guide you to making the right decisions. Please just bear in mind that it’s a process and you’re going to have to leave some room for the process itself. What I mean by that is that most any graphic can be made to look fantastic on a shirt but there are limitations as to what you can do. A savvy shop owner or manager will be able to guide you through the process but leave room for their professional opinions. It’s what they do for a living.
Tags: apparel, artist, brokers, Screen-printing, tee shirts
