Colours used in printing your shirt

There is always confusion about the difference between a line print and a process print. This page has been designed to help illustrate the difference between the two types. When printing with any kind of ink, each individual colour requires an individual screen - 4 colours within a logo requires 4 printing screens.

Spot Colors: logos or solid items

These are colours in addition to (or instead of) black, added for visual impact and tend to be logos or special type used for emphasis. In essence, spot colour comprises solid colour tones with no gradation, shading or other effect. For example, if you use only black, this is a spot colour. Note: If the logo contains shades or tints, even of the same colour, then the logo has to be treated as a process print and priced accordingly.

4 Colour Process: photos or other vivid artwork

Use of the 4 colour process means you can actually achieve almost full colour results. Just as your television image is made up of 3 colours (Red, Green, Blue) to produce a FULL colour picture, for printing full colour, we use Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), and Yellow to make full colour. Then Black is added for a better result with text and image contrast. With screen printing, you may also need to print a white base colour on some types of shirts or materials.

We've used the images below to illustrate the difference between these two main print types, spot colour and 4 colour process.

The logo above provides a very good example of how easy it is to confuse the two types of printing, but equally how one can overcome the problems of adapting a logo if spot colour is the only option available. The logo on the right is effectively 2 solid colours - yellow and white. The logo on the left (4 colour process) has tints and tone variations within the yellow and magenta which can only be achieved by printing the logo as a process print.

If you are still in doubt about how many colours your artwork contains for the purposes of a quotation please select the 4 colour process option. If, upon receipt of your artwork, it transpires it can be achieved as a spot colour print then we will advise and re-quote accordingly.

Please use our 'Get a quote form' to request a quote. For a more accurate quote, you can email your artwork to us at enquiries@thetshirtprinters.com and we can give you an accurate quote within 48 hours.

FOR PRINTING you will need to send us final artwork in a hi-res format or as vector-based artwork, i.e. Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand files. We WILL NOT be able to print from any other file formats. If you send us artwork in a low -resolution format (i.e. Gifs or Jpegs) we will not be able to embroider from it. For embroidery, all artwork MUST BE vector based.

We can print from artwork in the following formats:

• Jpeg (.jpg) HI-RES ONLY
• Eps (.eps)
• Pict (.pct)
• Tiff (.tif)
• or Photoshop (.psd)
• vector based (Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia Freehand files)

Mail your artwork to this address: enquiries@thetshirtprinters.com . Once we've received your artwork, we can process the quote and get back to you within 48 hours.

All artwork will be held in confidence and destroyed if not used.

Back to 'Help with Artwork'