I a per of the my image used 50% transparency in a portion of that image. When previewed, all look ok as for white and dark shirts. I just read that partial transparency can't be used because it can not print partially and full color will be shown. Is this true? If so, is the "what you see is what you get" not really that. Because whne i uploaded 2 images , one with 50% transparency and one with it removed and showing full color., the two images were different.

Any feedback?

Thanks!

CP lays down a white layer to serve as a substrate on dark shirts - otherwise, all ink would be printed in a dark shade of black. It's necessarily a little thicker than surface inks, so you should avoid partial transparencies and very small dots of color within a transparency.

Hope this makes sense.

so what about on white, yellow, or other light colors? Still no partial transparencies even though it still looks good on the preview?

As far as I know, the white underlayer is only used on dark garments. White shirts are easy.

It's like printing a page on your computer printer. If it's white paper, the colors look great. If it's a black paper, then all you'd see is black... unless you first covered your print areas with wite-out.

Likewise with green or yellow paper: Colors will print, but with a tint.

Partial transparency works great on light garments, including the yellow and green.


To say that with partial transparency you get "full color" on dark garments would not be quite right. You get the partial transparency printed on a white underlayer so it will be quite a bit lighter than anticipated.
http://tutortanith.com/designtips2.htm

Oh ok I think I get the idea. So with transparency's, its lets say printing a dot not right next to another by every other dot it prints. So with a white background, it would be like 2 dot black(or another half transparent color) and one white?

BTW, is there a guide as to what colors are considered dark and which are light? Just so I know which colors will have a white underlaying.

Thanks

EDIT: I also have some drop shadow on some text. Should I remove that as well? From light version and black version shirts?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Blast,

They'll have it in the name of the shirt, like "Dark T-shirt" or "Women's Fitted T-shirt (dark)"

Drop shadows work ok on lights, not very well on dark tees. Here's a quickie illustration that might help explain:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/o.../3470566989/sizes/o/

I would need to know the dark and light color for another thing as well. I want to create stickers for example or other products that do full bleed. So I want a color behind the image that would fill the rest of the sticker or button.

It's only the dark shirts that use the 2 step process. Anything not made of cloth like stickers and buttons and tiles are white, so designing for them is just like printing on paper. If you want a colored background you have to upload an image with a colored background

Cool, this is very helpful information for me

So just to make sure on one last thing... drop shadow should not be a problem when printing on light t-shirts right? Half Transparency should look ok on light t-shirts and look much lighter on dark t-shirts right?

Thanks again

Drop shadow will work fine on light shirts whether your image is made on a transparent background or a white background image.

Half transparency will work on a light shirt. I don't recommend it in general though, because it usually means using that same image on a dark shirt will look like poo. It's nicer when you can use one image on both dark and light.

For dark shirts... If you are OK that the 50% black prints on a white layer not directly on the shirt color you can do it if you want. But honestly it's NOT a good idea unless you are just buying for yourself. The thumbnails can't show it right, so the customer might be unpleasantly surprised.

You'd get the same end result using solid gray instead of 50% transparent black anyway, so personally I'd just use that instead on your shirts.

Ok for the light shirts i think ill just leave it the way it is with the 50% transparency(since its a shadow of the image it really should kinda match the shirt color).

As for the dart T's, i did try to do the color changing of the shadow to the color it looks like in the preview so its not transparent but then I bailed because i realized that when that one image is applied to 3 different colors in one shirt group. So for example on the black it would look the way i ant it and on the other 2 dark colors it will look a bit off. Any way to go around this problem?

EDIT: I just make a white background under the 50% transparent layer and put all that against a black background and all looked good, much lighter but still great. Is that how it will look on the printing, or not

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Blast,

quote:

I just make a white background under the 50% transparent layer and put all that against a black background and all looked good, much lighter but still great. Is that how it will look on the printing, or not

yup. That's basically the best way to see what will happen to an image printed on darks. Any pixel that's not 100% transparent will have white printed beneath it.

quote:

Originally posted by Ophelia:
They'll have it in the name of the shirt, like "Dark T-shirt" or "Women's Fitted T-shirt (dark)"

Drop shadows work ok on lights, not very well on dark tees. Here's a quickie illustration that might help explain:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/o.../3470566989/sizes/o/

Okay, please bear with me to clarify things. I can't still grasp the whole terminologies you have here.

If you see in my shop http://www.cafepress.com/paprikamill I have designs with drop shadows as well. When I clicked on the flickr link you have, that kind of printing is for dark shirts only right? Or does it apply also on white shirts? My designs are made specifically for light shirts only for the very reason that I don't want a white rubber base for the shadows to be felt or seen on the final t-shirt print. I would want it to be very much like as you would print on white paper. What I meant by 'does that flickr illustration you have apply also for white shirts' is when I buy or another person buys my shirt, will it have that white rubber base or margin for the shadows to be printed on? Or would they print directly on the white shirt much like using "Multiply" as your transparency effect in Photoshop. All of my designs are in Flat Image JPG, so that means like the yellow bird on my avatar, it has the white background around it in a square. Would that translate into white ink in CafePress' printers or not? I opt for not.

Thanks!

It'll be fine on light/white shirts, they only use the white ink layer on the dark shirts.

Multiply in photoshop is a good comparison to how the pink/babyblue etc. shirts come out.