

You should also avoid using gradients and partial transparencies that cover large areas of your design garment printers sometimes struggle to cope with these kinds of transitions and results can be unpredictable. As a result, it’s a good idea to oversaturate colors in your design-even if they look a bit glaring on your screen-to compensate. Color accuracy and color saturation vary among services, and the overall color of the print is typically tinted by the underlying shirt color. Don’t expect on-demand garment printing technologies to deliver the same color quality and sharpness you’re used to with your color photo printer.

Start things off right: create a new file with the correct resolution so you don’t have to change it later on.ģ. In that case, it’s best to create a solid color background layer that approximates the color of the final shirt you can turn this layer off before you export the file. However, it can be difficult to design on a transparent background, especially if you want to use white text.

Your final design should be masked that is, the artwork should be fully opaque and the surrounding area transparent. Note that I’m demonstrating this technique using Photoshop CS4, but you can use earlier versions of Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and other image editing or drawing programs that you may have, provided they are capable of creating an appropriate document for the printing service you choose.Ģ. Give the file a name, enter the width and height in pixels, and click OK. In Illustrator CS4 ( ), choose File -> New. Enter the pixel width and height along with pixels-per-inch (ppi) resolution (if that has been specified) and then click OK. In Photoshop CS4 ( ) choose File -> New and enter a name for your document. Once you know the target resolution, you can create a new document with those exact dimensions. Choose a service and a style of shirt before you jump into the design process. You’ll also want to design with a specific shirt color in mind so that your final artwork really pops for example, white text stands out on a deep green shirt whereas navy text would be lost.īecause tees are a different medium than print, there are a number of technical considerations to keep in mind as you design your shirt.ġ. Text should easy to read (unless you intend it as a background element) and characters, creatures, and objects should be easy to identify. Services such as Zazzle, RedBubble, and Printfection (and many others) let you upload artwork, choose a color, and place an order.Ī good tee design has clean lines and crisp contrast ideally, you want people to be able to see and comprehend the shirt design from 20 feet away. It’s fun to wear your own artwork on a T-shirt, and easier than ever to do so without resorting to poor-quality, iron-on transfers.
