There are three main methods to produce screen printed shirts for the fashion conscious, marketing or merchandising. The method most commonly used and best suited for a large variety of graphics is called ‘Spot Colour’ printing. Spot color printing is the appropriate procedure for graphic prints that aren’t photographic.

The colours of the inks to be used in the reproduction of the graphic images are usually Pantone specified colours chosen by a graphic designer. Pantone coated or uncoated colour references are chosen to specify the ink colours of the design. An international colour reference used in publishing, printing and design whereby each colour is identified by a unique Pantone name and number and is called the Pantone matching system.

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.

The Four Color Process is another method used in tshirt screen printing. 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. 4 colour process is also the same method of printing by which all images in books and magazines are printed.

These inks allow light to flow through and then merge together on white backgrounds to make all the hues and tones of the orginal one. This is rather more difficult process to achieve on a fabric than it is on paper. However the method employed is essentially the same. This type of t shirt printing will of course only work on white garments and will not be suitable for coloured fabrics. The print set up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+

When garment screen printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used. 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 is a standard method used by all printers and most popular for example with the reproduction of heavy metal and fantasy imagery taken from CD cover artwork and reproduced onto black t-shirts for band merchandise. This is the most expensive form of printing and as such used only on larger print runs due to the higher set up costs involving the colour separations and larger number of colours used to print the images.

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