Screen Printing and Embroidery Tips

What type of equipment do we have? We have a 18 color M&R high-performance Challenger II. It is designed for quick setups and high-speed production.

We also have a 12 color M&R Formula 5090. Here is a quick manufacturer supplied video printing some shirts with the M&R Formula 5090.

and a 6 color Sidewinder manual press.

What brand of inks do we use? Only the Best Rutland Inks.

Do you we use retensionable screen frames or wooden? Retensionable screen frames
How long have we been in business? 12 years.
Do we really have the experience to handle your job? Experience is our middle name.

How often do we check the temperature when sending the shirts through the dryer? During every single job. Can we be sure that the ink is reaching the correct cure temperature so that it will not wash out of my t-shirts? Yes you can. That's why we check the temperature over and over again.

Will the printing on my t-shirts be straight or crooked? We use laser guided systems to make sure the logo is on straight.

 

Process Color vs. Spot Color Printing

Process Color (CMYK) Printing
Process color printing, also known at four-color process printing, is a method that reproduces finished full-color artwork and photographs. The three primary colors used are cyan (process blue), magenta (process red), and yellow. These inks are translucent and are used to simulate different colors, for example, green can be created using cyan and yellow. The "K" in CMYK is black. Black ink is used to create fine detail and strong shadows.

Artwork and photos are reproduced when the colors in the artwork are separated, then halftoned (converted to dots). Process colors are reproduced by overlapping and printing halftones to simulate a large number of colors.

Process color printing should not be confused with basic four-color printing, where overlays are cut for the colors, and sheets of halftone dots are used to create other colors and patterns.

Spot Colors (PMS)
If you need to match a particular color, perhaps a logo color, and have a limited budget, then spot color is something to consider. Spot colors are printed with premixed inks on a printing press or screen printer. Each spot color is reproduced using a single printing plate or screen. 

To ensure that a printer uses the exact color that the designer intends, the Pantone Matching System (PMS) is used. Each PMS number references a unique spot color and these colors can be found on a swatch chart. By using this type of numbering system, people can convey the exact colors for a printed piece to each other without actually looking at the same samples.

It's important to remember that spot colors may not actually translate to matching process colors. Unlike process printing, which prints dots of color, a spot color is printed at 100% and has no dot pattern. A tint is a lightened spot color or process color and is created by printing smaller dots of the base color.

Some info found in a forum on the web for printers.

Process Color:
All colors in your image are made from a combination of 4 'process'
colors. These being cyan, magenta, yellow, black (CMYK).

The inks are transparent. This permits them to blend & mix when laid over
one another to render a full color spectrum (almost). Look at a color
newspaper image under a magnifier & you'll see.

The process color separations are done by the software. Usually page layout
software or RIP (raster image processor) software. Illustrator can also
output separations, as will Photoshop, Corel & similar applications.

To attain Spot Color:
Use the spot (or solid) color swatch. It matters not whether you use the
coated or uncoated version. They are the exact same color anyway. However,
inks chosen can appear differently, depending on the paper that is used for
printing.
Spot (solid) inks are laid down by the press as solid colors. Print jobs
containing 4 solid colors or less are generally run spot color. That is .
. . instead of mixing cyan & yellow to make green, the job will be run with
green ink. Obviously full color images would not be done in this manner or
you'd end up with something such as your 16 color job, or more likely, a
several hundred color job.
Note that spot color files must be saved as EPS to retain the spot color
information.

Print jobs are often a combination of spot & process. Particularly when one
color has to be accurate (such as a company logo) and is unachievable using
process inks. Hence the use of 5 & more color printing presses.

Which method costs more than the other is a non-issue. It will just make
sense to do a given job one way or the other, so there is really no
benchmark for comparison. Very seldom would there be a choice between the
method used - it depends on the artwork. There's a lot more to it, but
that's the basic thrust.