How Customers Can Improve The Quality Of Their Screen Prints
No matter how amazing your screen printing services provider is, they'll have a hard time exceeding the quality of your project's inputs. Customers matter, especially in terms of what they can contribute to the basic inputs for producing prints. If you want to see higher-quality items, these four tips will help.
High-Quality Imagery
Anyone who wants to use imagery, photos, or logos in their prints should try to provide the highest-quality files possible. If you're using vector art—meaning imagery that uses scalable lines and curves—you're already on your way to quality results as long as your images are sufficiently detailed. Folks using raster artwork, most commonly photographs, should try to supply images that are at least 300 dpi in resolution.
Match Separations to the Preferred Process
Whenever you print anything using modern computerized systems, the color process is a big deal. The process determines how many colors there are in the printed item and which colors those will be.
Likewise, modern graphic design and image-editing software packages use what are known as separations. These break your images into their constituent colors relative to your selected process. If you're using a 4-color process like CMYK, for example, you should edit your files using separations for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. This will make it much easier for the screen printing company to match your digital file's separations to the inks needed for the process.
Beware of Seams
You should load a template for each printed product into your editing software. The main reason is to avoid accidentally placing any artwork over any seams. For example, someone making a T-shirt might accidentally have part of their imagery cross over the seams of a pocket. This just isn't a good look, and the easiest way to solve the problem is to avoid it in your initial editing efforts.
Proof Slowly and Judiciously
When the screen printing firm is done setting up the initial print run, they'll make proofs. These are initial real-life versions that allow you to see what your prints will look like.
Never just look at the proofs for a moment and approve them. Be nitpicky. Take some time to look at the edges of the images, check the seams, and look at how the ink appears to sit on the fabric. Look for whether everything lines up the way you want and make sure the colors are faithful to your expectations. Only sign off on the proofs once you're happy with them because all the work after this is full-on production.
To learn more, contact a screen printing service in your area.
