Creating Images for Premium Printing

The biggest difference between premium and basic printing on apparel is how the white of your image is handled. On premium printing apparel the white areas in your design will show up on the final print.  With premium printing you need to specify where you want white ink printed and where you want transparency, like on the background.

For example the image below has a white background.   On the white and light blue apparel the white of the image disappears and the shirt color shows up.

But on Premium Printing….

On a Black T-shirt (notice how the white background is printed– a big, UGLY white square!)  Since everything white in your design (including the white background) will print as white on dark colors you might be wondering how exactly you’re supposed to differentiate between “don’t print anything here!” and “print white ink here”!

Transparency to the rescue! Transparency is the equivalent of saying “don’t print anything here”. Transparent areas in your design are left blank. In order for transparency to work you’ll need to save your design as a PNG file with transparency turned on. JPG files do not support transparency.  Using the transparent PNG file the white ink prints only where we want it. A perfect looking Black T-shirt!

What happens if I use a black background on a black shirt?

The black background in your image will be printed with black ink. The black ink is lighter than black fabric and will usually produce less than ideal results:

Still need help? Contact us!