Does Your Art work have to be "Solid" colored???

posted in Help Forum on 1/2/2011 8:53:33 PM by AndrewBerk

Hey All, I am new to Canvas Threads and just submitted my first piece. I have a question for the design community...; Is it appropriate and/or exceptable to submit a design with art work that slowly fades instead of hard solid colored lines... For instance; when using photoshop brushes, many times the brushes are not "solid" in outline and fade lighter until they are no longer opaque... Is this exceptable to use??? Thanks all... -Andrew


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Replies on this topic
Leah T - 1/5/2011 11:50:32 AM

I don't have illustrator. Right now it's not in the budget and I'm out of trials. I can use my student ID to get a discount but even then I just can't afford it!

AndrewBerk - 1/5/2011 10:06:44 AM

@ Corey,
Great link, Thanks bro.

Chris Ladden - 1/5/2011 9:35:14 AM

IF anyone uses illustrator of course for the above site ^

Chris Ladden - 1/5/2011 9:34:49 AM

Leah this one is good as well for using illustrator...Illustrator is more effective because its vector art (art that is able to be resized to however high or low without losing quality)

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/07/preparing-artwork-for-screen-printing-in-adobe-illustrator/

Leah T - 1/5/2011 9:01:15 AM

I started doing some research on this and I was wondering, Corey, if you think this site is helpful for this.

http://www.designtalkboard.com/tips/photoshop/screen_printing.php

- 1/4/2011 6:10:50 PM

leah: you cannt print transparent unless you use some weird crazy special inks. the point of halftoning is to give the illusing of a fade using dots instead of real transparency. if you want pink, use pink, not a transparent red. but if what you're meaning is that you can give the illusion of transparency using halftones, then yes you would get a pinkish looking color. this link will answer a lot of questions:
http://www.gfxsp.com/faq_sp3.html

AndrewBerk - 1/4/2011 9:14:39 AM

@ Corey,
T-shirts makes more since:)
Thanks.
I didn't realize the process canvas uses was screen printing. That is really helpful to know. I am familer with screen printing and have printed several shirts using screen printing before.
I will def take your advice and study pantones and the t-shirt design process more fully.
Thanks again.

Leah - 1/4/2011 5:59:23 AM

thats just what I was about to ask...

then you could maybe maximise your color limit by making lots of different transparenciese of your color...

lets say red paint on a white tee... use 100% opacity you get red... use 50 % opacity and you get pink?

or yellow paint on a layer of already printed blue paint at 50 % opacity you get a greenish color???

would that pass or not
thanks :D

- 1/3/2011 5:49:52 PM

andrew: i didn't mean tablets, i meant tshirts. and no you dont have to use pantone colors. but if you want your shirt to turn out like you want it to, you should use colors that are actually printable. the process canvas uses is screen printing. each screen is burned for a specific ink color.

leah: halftoning does not minimize colors, it just makes the art printable.

Leah T - 1/3/2011 4:46:33 PM

So halftoning helps minimize colors when it comes to shading and gradients. I'm really new to this too. I'm physical artists, not a graphic artist but it's been on my heart to design Christian t-shirts.

I played around a bit with halftones and I does it blur out more on the t's? As I was playing around I went to my closet and pulled out a bunch of graphic t's and started looking at them closely and you can't really tell.

AndrewBerk - 1/3/2011 1:52:31 PM

@Corey,
Thanks for the advice. "do yourself a favor and research how to properly design specifically for tablets." Is that what Canvas threads uses to print there shirts? And Can you only use pantones in your designs for Canvas Threads?
Thanks man.

AndrewBerk - 1/3/2011 1:48:57 PM

@ DrewB Thanks man I'll check out your shirts

- 1/3/2011 12:30:14 AM

don't use brushes, they are rarely high enough resolution and chances are that youll use brushes that a hundred other startup designers used too. and to answer your question, it is not acceptable in theory. but if you know what you're doing, you can achieve the look through halftones like drewb stated. or you can make the printers separate your colors for you, but that sucks and the chances of your design turning out like you thought go down quite a bit. do yourself a favor and research how to properly design specifically for tablets and know what Pantone colors are before you design shirts. it helps you, it helps the printer, and it helps the final product.

DrewB - 1/2/2011 10:46:15 PM

From my understanding, (someone else correct me if I'm wrong) it is possible, but it all depends on the processing. For example, if you intend to convert a gradient to a more printable version you can simply apply a halftone pattern to simulate this effect. It may not be "exactly" as the version you had, but it would remain largely the same. It'd also be important that your design is both the proper size and resolution (300 dpi). There's also the matter of making sure the colors are separated. It really all just depends on the design. And there are other printing methods.

Here's a few examples of shirts that have the some of those same concepts that won:

http://www.canvasthreads.com/DesignDetails.aspx?id=6090

http://www.canvasthreads.com/DesignDetails.aspx?id=3626

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