DecoNetwork – makers of the best online design and website site software – offer Webinars for the industry featuring timely topics and presenters like Scott Fresener. Here is a recent webinar done by Scott titled Creating High-End Separations with T-Seps. This is one hour and jam packed. If you want to know how the pros create high-end color separations – grab some popcorn and watch this presentation.

The shirt that started it all has been re-released!

Wow, has this industry changed. For those newbies and even some who think they are old timers, how many of you can remember the shirt on the left? Yes, I own an original Farrah Fawcett shirt circa 1976. In fact, back in 2002 Impressions Magazine was doing a 25th Anniversary issue and I can remember editor, Marcia Derryberry, calling me in a panic saying she had looked hi and low for a Farrah Fawcett shirt until someone said “Fresener has one.” This shirt appeared in that issue. I made her sign in blood that she would return the shirt.

The history lesson is this was “the shirt” that started things really cooking. Impressions Magazine was launched in 1977 (Bill Windsor where are you?), and between Impressions, the Farrah Fawcett shirt, and some very smart entrepreneurs, a real industry was born. In fact licensed products were a brand new novelty back then. I think the Farrah shirt taught corporate America there was gold in T-Shirts and merchandise.

UPDATE: Fast forward to today. Farrah Fawcett’s iconic one-piece red bathing suit pose is being re-issued onto a men’s T-shirt, with part of the proceeds going to the late icon’s Farrah Fawcett Foundation.

“Our mission is to carry out Farrah’s wishes by helping to fund cutting-edge research as well as to help people who are struggling with this disease [cancer] today,” says Farrah Fawcett Foundation President and close friend Alana Stewart.  The T-shirt, which retails for $24, is available at all Urban Outfitters stores and also for purchase online at www.urbanoutfitters.com.

History of the Shirt
The image on the original shirt was called a “Litho” or litho heat transfer. (The new shirt is screen printed). These were the first real photorealistic shirt images. If you wanted KISS or any rock band of the day on a shirt, you had a heavy, rubbery litho transfer.  No, screen printing photorealism on black shirts had not been “invented” then.  I would LOVE to see comments on this and pictures of your old litho shirts.  Chances are you have very little image left and a white solid block of plastisol on the shirt.

These were printed on heat transfer paper using standard offset/lithography printing methods with special cmyk inks.  The image was then backed in white plastisol and the image was applied with a heat press.  There were millions of these made where the image would wash off after the first wash cycle (not good).  In fact, the heat transfer business killed itself around 1980 from bad transfers.

It is interesting that over the years litho transfers have come and gone.  They were big again a few years ago when vintage/classic images were kicking in. They have now lost favor again beaten out by all-over prints.

But hey…. they will be back!

On Monday, April 23, at 10:00am PT (USA), Adobe launched Creative Suite 6 (CS6), the next versions of its popular software programs like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. They also rolled out the MUCH ANTICIPATED new Web-based subscription service, Creative Cloud.

The April 23 event, was hosted by Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, and was streamed over the Web on Adobe’s launch site. If you miss this event or read this article after the event the presentation will be/is  available for replay at tv.adobe.com.

Naturally we watched the entire 1-1/2 hour event online which was full of surprises of new features, a view of things to come, and an obvious showing that Adobe is taking the Apple approach of keeping it simple (pricing) and giving an “all you can eat” approach.  Bravo!  Nice presentation. Most of the news versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Premiere Pro were demonstrated to the public for the first time with a lot of emphasis on the interactivity of the program across platforms and file sharing.

The one to watch is the Creative Cloud service which gets users all of the CS6 apps—Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, DreamWeaver, Premiere Pro and the rest—along with updates, starting at $49.99 per month for an individual user – including 20gb of online storage in the cloud. The service includes all of Adobe’s mobile apps, too, as well as online collaboration and project hosting capabilities. This one is huge – especially if you don’t already own any of these programs. For a simple monthly fee you get them all!

AND…. if you are a registered user of CS3 or higher they have a first year introductory offer of only $29.95 per month! More details here.

The fine print….we ordered a membership to the Creative Cloud and had to enter our Adobe account info to see if we qualified. We did! We then proceed to checkout. There is a comment that the product will not be available until May 7. But, this is a ONE YEAR contract. You can cancel in the first 30 days and get a full refund but after the 30 days if you cancel you will have to pay 50% of the contracted amount. They will authorize your credit card each month for the monthly service.

In addition to the product launches, Adobe “unveil new primary research on the impact of creativity on our culture and economy, and reveal new initiatives that encourage creativity in education.

Watch for more news on the new Adobe product updates as it becomes available.  To the cloud!

How are we really doing?

I wanted to write a short comment on my observations of the state of the garment decorating industry. This is not scientific but just a seat of the pants feeling. I now do a LOT of color separations and deal with hundreds and hundreds of printers worldwide. And, we have thousands of customers and users of T-Seps, T-RIP and of course our older programs like FastFilms and FastRIP. My day is spent doing seps and talking to my software customers so my observations are based on feedback from them.

What I keep hearing is how busy printers are. Yes, this could be regional and as with everything, I talk to printers because they need my services. This means I don’t talk to those who are sitting around with no business – but then again – if that is the case why are they sitting around?  Different topic. Different article.

In general, our customers are large and small. I will go from doing high-end seps for people who print for Disney, Harley, and others, and people who print for country western stars like Eric Church, to people who are printing Bob Marley shirts for the new movie, Avenger movie shirts – all the way down to smaller printers doing local events, festivals, rod runs and more. The are all saying things are good. And, in many cases they need either my products so they can do their own seps and output films or they need my separation services – yesterday! They need things right now to help them fill orders.

This is not very scientific but my observations are also based on my own trade show travels seeing how the booths are busier and exhibitors smiling because people are spending money. I have also done a number of separations for political candidates and I suspect the political business will help out this year.

It also probably doesn’t hurt that the weather has been unseasonably warmer and of course there are always shirts needed for natural disasters and we know there has been a lot of those.

My other gut feel is regardless of what the GOP says – unemployment is declining (slowly) and the economy is giving good signals. I think this trickles down to confidence so when people are trying to promote events, products, corporate ID, etc., they probably buy more than they use to.

What I also see is a lot more GREAT artwork and colorful designs. I think we have weathered the storm of “skulls, wings, and monochrome image” that have been the norm the last few years.

That said the “distress look” is NOT dead. I have never seen as much artwork with distressed images. It is just part of the landscape of this industry. If you don’t know how to do it there are a couple of good articles on this website about it and you can download free distressed overlays from my Free Downloads page.

What is also hot – as you know if you are in the trenches – are safety green, pink and orange shirts. Wow. Just like the old days.  For a long time the standard shirt color for separations was black and white. Now, it seems every other job is for orange, green, light blue and pastel colors. Refreshing!

I also talk to a lot of printers who are now stepping their foot into Simulated Process, Index and real CMYK jobs. I hear a LOT “I have not done this before but customers are asking for multi-color on different shirt colors.” Time to step up and learn how to do high-end work to get more business.

Long live the T-Shirt and T-Shirt printers. It is a fun business and I think there will be great rewards in 2012.

Scott Fresener

Do you need a way to convert Photoshop files to halftone dots? Are you searching for the missing “Screen” button in Photoshop CS5?

Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t call to say they upgraded to Photoshop CS5 and they can’t find the “Screen” button that they use to set the halftone frequency, angle, and dot shape. Adobe removed the Screen button in CS5 and now it is much harder to make these settings.

The T-Seps Halftone Converter is a Photoshop plug-in that takes any channel separation you created in any version of Photoshop on a Mac or PC and converts those seps into individual files that are already halftoned and ready to print. (This program does not create color separations.) In fact the program works on one-color grayscale images that need to be converted to halftones, too. After running the program simply print the individual files to a software RIP like T-RIP (or any brand of RIP), print the files direct to an inkjet printer or laser printer, or save the indiviual files and print them from Corel or Illustrator.

The T-Seps Halftone Converter is not a full “RIP”. A standard software RIP (raster image processor) not only converts a file to halftones but also controls ink volumes, nesting of multiple images on one page, and printing with black ink from all the ink slots (to conserve ink). BUT, if you don’t have a RIP, then this is the next best thing. And, even if you do have a RIP, it is a real pain to change the RIP to the correct frequency, angle and dot shape for each job now that there is no longer a Screen button in CS5. With the T-Seps Halftone Converter you are just a couple of mouse clicks away.

Watch our short YouTube video and download the Instruction Manual here. When you purchase the program (which is a download only), you should download the Instruction Manual so you will know how to install it.

With the popularity of the iPad and other tablet devices it was only fitting that the popular book, How To Print T-Shirts For Fun And Profit by Scott and Pat Fresener be released a digital eBook version. For over 32 years their popular book has been the guide for countless thousands of garment screen printers. In fact, the book has sold over 140,000 copies since 1978 and has been continually updated over the years. It has 260 pages and 16 chapters on every topic. Read more details and see a chapter list here.

What makes this digital version exciting is that you can now read the book and watch training videos right in one document on your computer – but better yet – on an iPad or any tablet that will let you use an interactive PDF file! Frankly, seeing the book on a iPad and watching over 2.5 gigabytes of videos is simply amazing!

What makes the new version special is the amount of videos that play on every topic in the industry. From step-by-step screen making directions, to how to setup and print a multi-color design, you have the printed word and videos to go along with it. There are over 40 videos – FIVE hours – PLUS links to additional technical articles. If you needed a reason to buy an iPad – this is it!

You can purchase the new digital eBook a variety of ways. If you have an iPad then you can purchase the version that lets the videos stream over the internet (an iPad will not play embedded videos in a PDF document).  Video start and stream VERY FAST on an iPad. If you want to use the book on your computer, you can purchase either the download version (with no videos embedded) or better yet, you can purchase a DVD with almost 3 gigabytes of data and the videos embedded in the book. The DVD has both versions (iPad and with embedded videos for computers). The best part of either version…..click on a video and within seconds they play.

The new eBook is an interactive PDF file that will play on all computers (Mac or PC) and most tablet devices. Some tablets are book “readers” (the Kindle and Nook) and will play a PDF but will not let it link to outside videos or documents.

Best of all, if you already own the paperback version of the book, you can now get a companion digital version to go with it! And, you can print out the entire revised book from the digital version.

The FBI announced that millions of computer users could lose service on July 8.  International hackers ran online ads that when responded to took control of million of computers and changed how they looked up the DNS (domain name) of sites and re-directed users to bogus similar sites when they clicked on links. Malicious software called a DNS changer was installed on unsuspecting users computers.  The hackers made millions on the ads and offers on these phony sites.

Where is all this heading? Once the FBI arrested the hackers they realized that the unsuspecting computer users would lose service if the FBI simply pulled the plug on the hackers computers. They decided to set up their own computers instead and that the prudent approach was to tell the world of computer users to check to see if they were infected. This has been widely written about in daily and national newspapers and computer magazines.  This is no joke.

What do you do? The FBI has setup a site that with one mouse click you can check to see if your computer has had a DNS changer malicious software installed. It took us one minute to check the computers in the T-Biz Network office to see if we were infected.

The problem is once the FBI shuts down their server ON JULY 8 – if you are infected – when you click on a link it will take you to a dead website and you will not be able to access real websites.

Read more about this in PCMag.com here

The FBI’s site that tells you if you are infected and how to correct it is dcwg.org.

Back in the mid ’90s Images Magazine in the UK had a great guy named Peter Rose doing their website.  Peter was also a screen print supplier.  He had his own site named Zodd’s Law for Intergalactic Screenprinters.  It was/is out of this world with typical Monty Python humor with a screen print edge.  And, there are some “R” rates articles and audio clips.

We had not talked to Peter in years and when we first made this re-release post of Fist Full of Squeegees. Peter contacted me to catch up and said he had left the industry. BUT…. his website Zodd’s Law for Intergalactic Screenprinters is still LIVE! Yes, it is still up.  Some links have been removed and the site has not been touched in years but if you want a HOOT, check out www.Cyberscreen.com.

Mike “Maliaki” Fresener and Peter schemed and worked on a couple of projects.  One of them was called Fist Full of Squeegees.  It is VERY FUNNY!

Here is an mp3 file for your enjoyment.  Keep in mind that Mike Fresener did some voices, his daughter, Cinammon, did “little Jimmy” and she was seven years old then! Peter Rose did all the effects and other voices.

This is circa 1996.  For your enjoyment and listening pleasure we now present…. “Fist Full of Squeegees.” Print long and prosper!

We would love to hear your comments and life in screen print land in 1996.

Click to listen to this outlandish old fashion radio broadcast. It is just under 15 minutes in length.

We are pleased to report that we love the new look, feel and function of Photoshop CS6 – AND T-Seps works great in CS6! See the short section on Quirks at the bottom of this page.

Adobe has changed a couple of folders where we would normally install T-Seps and we will be updating the T-Seps installer prior to the release of CS6.

For now follow these simple steps to install T-Seps in CS6.

Click image to see larger view.

1. If you have not installed T-Seps and are just going to try it, you need to download and install the Beta of CS6 and then run the T-Seps Installer. If you already have T-Seps installed – install Photoshop CS6 and then proceed with these steps.

2. In Photoshop on a PC go to Edit/Preferences. On a Mac go to the Photoshop logo (upper left) and then Preferences.

3. Click on Plug-ins.

4. Check Additional Plug-Ins Folder.

5. Drill around to your C: drive (PC) or your Mac Hard Disk and find a folder called TSEPS. Select the Actions folder.

6. Say OK to this window.

7. Say OK to the Preferences window.

8. Re-start Photoshop.

Click image to see larger view.

9. Go to File/Automate and make sure you see T-Seps and T-Seps Custom Index.

10. If this is your first T-Seps installation make sure to watch the short Installation video at www.T-Seps.com. You have to make Color Settings changes and you still have to load the T-Seps Action in the Actions palette. This is covered in the T-Seps manual and in the Installation video.

CS6 and T-Seps quirks
We have found a couple of quirks with CS6 and T-Seps.

1. CS6 seems to forget the Color Settings changes you make to display the separations with dot gain applied. It is not consistent but when you are testing in CS6 make sure when you open it a second time that you go to Edit/Color Settings and make sure under Working Spaces that Spot and Gray are set to 30%.

2. Adobe has a new default color palette called Pantone Solid+Coated. This palette is not available in older versions of Photoshop. If you create a set of separations using T-Seps in CS6 and want to bring the file into an earlier version of Photoshop you will get a “missing color palette” error. You will need to change the assigned color for each channel in your CS6 T-Seps separations to Pantone Solid Coated and then save the file.

To learn more about Photoshop CS6 and watch some short sneak peek videos CLICK HERE.

This one has been bouncing around for a few years and was stayed a year ago pending review and defining the guidelines better. On October 19, 2011 this was law finally went into effect and frankly it seems that the garment decorating community (printers – not magazines) have either been ignoring it hoping it would go away or just not up to speed on what it means.

The new law called the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act may be very hard on manufacturers of products designated for children. The law is design to limit the lead exposure to children – and while that is a good thing – this one might drive smaller companies out of business.

The good news is the law and reporting requirements seem to rule out basic cotton T-Shirts (follow the links below), but does not rule out coatings/inks like plastisol, heat transfers and other items that might be applied to T-Shirts. And, if the garment has zippers, buttons or other embelishments then these will fall into the “testing” category.

Keep in mind that I am NOT a lawyer and am just presenting the data. It is really tough to find hard facts about how this will effect garment decorators. But, the key point is the CPSC (Consumer Products Safety Commission) made a final ruling on their definition of “children’s products” and it went into effect October 19, 2011.

What is very disturbing is that if you go on almost any industry website and try to find out if their products are in compliance – you can’t find it! If you do have links to industry sites with more information please comment on this article.

It is hard to keep abreast of what all this means and it seems the industry trade association, SGIA, and Magazine like Printwear and Impressions are now running articles about this and are trying to give advice and direction to the industry.

Here is a good article by Impressions Magazine published in March of 2012:
The CPSIA Effect: A Screen Printer’s Perspective

Printwear Magazine is doing a great job of following this with these articles:
CPSIA Breakdown – February 2012
Play It Safe – CPSIA on Teamwear – February 2012
CPSIA Solutions – April 2012

SGIA – Specialty Graphics Imaging Association is also tracking this. You can read about the law for free even if you are not a member and for $39.95 per quarter you can get access to their webinars and webinar archives. SGIA also has a CPSC FAQ online HERE.

There are a number of excellent non-industry articles and websites – including FAQs right from the CPSC site. You should read all of these and then determine your next move. My guess if you are a screen printer is to talk to your ink company or supplier. Don’t be surprised if you get a blank look. You might also continue to monitor the SGIA website and articles in industry trade magazines.

CPSC Small Business  Ombudsman

Wall Street Journal Article – December 2009

We just updated the Events Calendar to include all the major trade shows through the end of 2012 – including key international shows. Learn about industry Trade Shows, Open Houses, Training Classes and more with our Industry Events Calendar. If you have an event coming up make sure to let us list it. Click on the Events tab at the top of the home page.

This article was promoted by yet another call from a new T-Seps user (large company) faced with the same old “we can’t print that” comment from the screen and production departments. Over the years I have had this call and conversation THOUSANDS of times. True. It comes from the fact that in the every day world of garment screen printing, many shops NEVER do high-end work and rarely have to expose a halftone dot. And, if they do have to burn halftones it is probably something simple that still works if they don’t hold anything lower than a 20% dot. Plus, a lot of printers print white ink through a 110 mesh and are convinced they can’t get white to go through anything higher – let alone a 230 (90cm) mesh!

If you plan to do any high-end printing on light or dark shirts – regardless of who’s color separation program you use – you need to read this article and force your screen makers and production people to read it. And, when they tell you it is BS you need to tell them to “just do it.”  I have often used stronger words over the years. Yes, there are certainly variables and each job seems to have a life of it’s own. But, for most jobs you can take the following information as “the word.”

Quick Tips for Successful High-End Printing
Printing Simulated Process Color, CMYK and Index Color on light and dark shirts can be very rewarding and also very frustrating. If you have never done this type of printing you might be shocked at the high mesh counts and type of ink used. If you normally print spot color and heavy athletic printing this will be MUCH DIFFERENT. In order to have great results with T-Seps/FastFilms or color separations provided by us you may need to change your thinking on how you print and make screens. It is important to try to follow these guidelines.

The first reaction screen makers and printers have when presented with their first high-end job is “we can’t do this.” The truth is if you go to www.T-Seps.com and look at the handful of sample images, they are ALL done using the following techniques. Hundreds of thousands of shirt jobs have been printed using these methods. This is NOT the same as general logo/spot color printing and it requires an open mind. The truth is that printers and screen makers just need to buy into how the world of high-end printing is done and be open to new ideas that on the surface appear impossible.

Color Separations
You can pay to have an experience color separator do the seps or you can use a program like T-Seps or FastFilms. These programs have been used for over 10 years by most of the world’s largest printers. The following directions are the same exact specifications found in the Manual for those programs.

If you own T-Seps or FastFilms why would you need to use an experience separator? The truth is I do separations all day long for large and small companies. Large companies doing work for NASCAR, Disney, Harley and others often have a season rush and get behind. I do their overflow. Most printers who do this type of work use FastFilms or T-Seps. Smaller printers with these programs often get complex jobs where they want to really shine. And, some printers don’t do enough high-end work so they are not always as familiar with the tweaks needs for critical jobs. For a flat fee of $50 it is sometimes easier to have the seps done outside to save the hassle.

Film Output
When trying to expose very fine halftone dots you must have a film positive that is dense black in the image areas. That means vellum many not be the best choice for critical work. Many printers still use a laser printer with vellum and if that is all you have then you will just have to work hard to hold the small halftone dots.

You can get excellent and dense black film output from imagesetters or from inexpensive inkjet printers using a software RIP like T-RIP (raster image processor) that tells the inkjet printer to lay down more ink. One of the secrets to printing photorealistic images is HOLD THE DOTS on the film and on the screen. If you lose halftone dots then the image on the shirt will not look like the image on the computer. Halftone dots on vellum or laser acetate are not very dense and the exposure light burns through the fine dots.

The proper halftone screen angle is also important and may seem unorthodox to the untrained printer. For Simulated Process Color (not CMYK), use 25 degrees, elliptical dots for ALL COLORS. Trust me.

For real CMYK prints use the angles of C 15, M 45, Y and K 75. Again, trust me.

For most general high-end jobs use a line count/frequency of 55lpi. If you run automatic presses and have critical jobs you can go to 65lpi and even 75 lpi. If you are using vellum or laser acetate then drop down to 45lpi.

If the job is Index Color (no halftone) the art department MUST have the job at the final print size and around 200dpi resolution before they separate it. The resolution will be the size of the small square pixels/dots and these will be VERY SMALL on the films and a typical screen maker comment is “we can’t burn that.” Read the following….

Screen Making
All screens should be properly tensioned. At best, use retensionable or rigid aluminum screens that have a tension of 25 – 30 Newtons. If you have wood frames, use the tightest ones you have. Yes, these images will work with wood, but you will lose some detail and may not have as good an Underbase. Don’t let your lack of the best frames stop you. Just work to use tight screens that are on stable frames.

The proper mesh count is critical. For most photorealistic jobs use a 230 mesh (90cm) for the underbase (go lower if the design has a lot of solid bright colors), and a 305 mesh (120cm) for the top colors. The first reaction is “I can’t get my white ink through a 230 mesh.” Not true. If you use a small amount of curable reducer and reduce the viscosity of the white so it is creamy it will work. You are NOT trying to lay down a rock solid white layer of thick plastisol for an underbase. The highlight white (last color down) will make the white pop where you need the pop.

When ordering screens try to get the 230 mesh screen for white ink with a thicker thread diameter. This will help make the stencil thicker and give you a better deposit of white.

Proper stencil preparation is critical and goes along with HOLD THOSE DOTS. If you have never exposed high mesh screens you need to forget what you know about exposure. Your exposure times for 305 mesh will be 20% of that for your 156 mesh. You MUST use direct emulsion. You must use thin coats of emulsion (1 coat on outside/bottom, 1 coat on inside). If necessary come back after you dry the screen and give it another coat on the outside. And, use the sharp edge of the scoop coater.

The best emulsion to use is a dual-cure (two part) emulsion. It has more latitude and is more forgiving that one part photopolymer emulsions which have a very fast exposure time.

The way to tell if you can hold the small 5% dots is to do test screens. Have the art department create a test film with squares filled with 2%, 5%, 10%, 20%, etc., halftone dots. That way you are not guessing at what size a dot is. Coat and expose the screen. Work hard to expose the 5% dot. Yes, it can be done. You will probably not be able to hold the 2% dot. That means if there are very subtle design changes these might be in the 2% to 5% area. Great screen makers do it all the time. The secret is keep reducing your exposure times. If you are using a pure photopolymer emulsion (one part), you might find times as low as 10 seconds!

For most non-critical cartoon or freeform graphic images it may not really matter if you don’t hold anything below a 10% dot.
If the job is Index Color then all the dots on the films are the same size. If you can burn one of them you can burn them all.

Inks
Simulated Process jobs are normally printed with a good high-opacity white for the underbase and highlight whte, and standard off-the-shelf plastisols for the top colors. Most colors are fairly creamy in the container but the white can often be very stiff. To get the white to print better simply add a small amount of curable reducer to the ink. Many brands recommend “soft hand” and this can work but a liquid reducer is better. It may seem counter intuitive to reduce white ink to get better opacity but the truth is when it is very thick it requires much more pressure on the squeegee which drives the ink into the shirt. By reducing the ink it clears out of the screen easier and lays ontop of the shirt.

If the job is Process Color CMYK, you must use special inks. You need the colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. These inks are very thin and transparent. They work well on light shirts but tend to mute down if printed on a base of white. That is why they are rarely used on black shirts. Some companies offer “triple strength” process plastisol with a heavier pigment load. If you must print CMYK on an underbase on dark shirts, consider using triple strength.

Printing Technique
Use medium-hard squeegees that are sharp. Triple durometers are better (70/90/70).

For the underbase try to do one good stroke. If necessary a second stroke may help coverage. You may need to slow down the stroke to get the ink to clear. Try to hold the fine detail in the image. You ARE NOT really looking for the white to jump off the shirt. This is the job of the Highlight white! Flash cure after the Underbase. This is the most critical print. If the underbase looks good as a black and white image then everything else should look good.

If the job has a lot of solid spot colors you may have to print the underbase through a lower mesh count and in some extreme cases print the base, flash cure, print the base again, flash and then print the colors. This more important when doing athletic type photorealistic images where the final feel/hand of the print is not important.

Since the underbase is through a high mesh, it will flash cure very quickly. You can place the flash cure unit 1 to 2 inches above the print and often get a skin cure in five to ten seconds.

The colors are printed wet-on-wet ontop of the underbase white. If they are smooth and creamy on a high mesh you should be able to do one clean stroke. Some jobs with a lot of colors may need an additional flash part way through the print order.

DO NOT PANIC until the last color is printed. Often, it is the Highlight that brings it all together. It brightens areas and lightens other colors. If printing a second white last in the sequence seems totally wrong, just give it a chance. This is often the magic that makes the print pop off the shirt.

For CMYK Process jobs, you must use a very consistent squeegee stroke. If you do too many strokes or “mash” the ink through the mesh, you dots will gain too much and the print will be muddy.

General Suggestions
If a design does not look like the original art, modify an ink color and try different color sequences. This is normal when printing on dark shirts. It generally takes more than one shirt for an image to settle in and print correctly. There are many variables that affect the final print, from screen tension to quality of the printing press, and technique of the printer or machine. Adjustments at the screen press are commonly performed by high-end printers.

Print on a good shirt. DO NOT use a test square – other than for lining up the screens. The print needs to have the absorbency of the shirt AND the tighter the knit the better. 100% cotton is obviously better than a 50/50 Cotton/Polyester blend because of the dye migration from the shirt.

If you are printing on fleece or a polo shirt with a rough texture you will need to lower your line count and accept the fact that the print will not be as clean as on a T-Shirt.

Be Positive
Having done thousands of separations and sold thousands of copies of T-Seps and FastFilms, I know that some customers will simply not agree with the proper techniques and will use low mesh counts (110 is all we had), poor film output, and bad printing technique (this is not athletic printing). At the end of the day, the bad print quality is blamed on bad separations. Once you have had success with these techniques you will go out of your way to tell customers to “bring it on.” You won’t turn down any jobs or be afraid of photo realistic images.

Mike Fresener here posting from a secret location deep in the Kentucky Wilderness. Blogging from this location gives me a unique perspective of the printing industry. Enjoy the ramblings that 40 years of screen opener will get ya!  Here is Part Two of my adventure.

If you want to see the inside of the secret supply depot you can find me here:

http://IndependentPrintSupplies.com

or on FaceBook here:

https://www.facebook.com/printsupplies

ENJOY!

The Print Cycle of Life c.2 – Part Two

I like to joke that I’m the reason that kids aren’t allowed at the shows anymore. As a young boy going to trade shows was always a blast. During setup being shooed away from the booth was great! It meant not helping with set up and free reign of a convention center that was generally closed to the public, with almost no security (except for the loading dock). You would be amazed at some of the crawlspaces you could get into back then. Talk about “behind the scenes”!

“Gopher It Food Service – I work on tips”. One of my first private ventures. Finding myself with some time to kill during the trade show day, I noticed a lot of booths where only one person would be working it. With valuables all around, people didn’t want to leave their booths unattended or potentially miss out on new customers by leaving the booth empty. I saw a void that needed filling so I created “Gopher It Food Service”. I would walk the isles looking for people who needed a restroom or lunch break and I would stand guard at their booths handing out literature and taking contact information. While MOST people tipped pretty well, I did get the few “buy low, sell high” tips. Those people just had to fend for themselves in the future ;) I still see this need at the trade shows however, I think it takes a kid’s touch to pull off.

Back then there were a lot of other kids to play with. We were basically a ragtag gang of suppliers kids. We would run around and see what we could get into always pushing the limits of where we were allowed to go and what we were allowed to do. Balloon hunting was a good past time at first. Back when you were allowed to give away balloons in convention centers the ceiling was always covered with them. We would take one balloon, put tape on the top with a looong string and try to fish the others down with it. It’s funny to see these same people, now second generation suppliers, running their parents companies. No time for balloon chasing anymore, there’s WORK to do!

As I grew up so did the adventures. I don’t really recall the point when we transitioned to full time set up help. As we all matured the fun and games turned from the arcades to the bars. Of course there was the transition time when we weren’t old enough to go to the bars but were old enough to get into trouble (much of which I cannot put into writing to protect the guilty). “But that is another story” ;)

This is good news and bad news. It could be great news if Adobe does not screw things up. Many of us have stayed on earlier versions of Photoshop just because they seemed more stable. And, when Adobe removed the “Screen” button in CS5, it meant having to spend more time with RIP settings for the halftone frequency, dot shape and angle. I have been lobbying Adobe to re-introduce the button and there is a good thread on the Adobe Family Forums.

In fact, if you want to reply to this thread, here is a link. Go for it! Let Adobe know that they have totally ignored our small little industry and that their silly workarounds are not acceptable.

With Photoshop CS6 expected to be released this spring, Adobe’s started posting weekly sneak peeks of Photoshop CS6′s new features.

UPDATE: Adobe is having a Creative Suite CS6 Launch Event on Monday, April 23 at 10:00am PT. Read more HERE. If you miss this event you can watch the replay on Adobe TV.

On March 22, Adobe released a Beta version of CS6! You can download it HERE. The GOOD news…. T-Seps is compatible with CS6. If you want to try out T-Seps with CS6 CLICK HERE for installation details.

Check out the videos embedded below to catch a glimpse of what Photoshop will be like in the future. We’ll be adding more sneak peek videos to this page as they become available, so remember to check back.

Watch Photoshop CS6 sneak peek video #6

Here’s a peek from Photoshop Product Manager Stephen Nielsen of a tool that will add blur to any image without masks, layers or depth maps.

Watch Photoshop CS6 sneak peek video #5

Stephen Nielson, Photoshop Product Manager, shows us the improvements Adobe has been working on, including migrating presets to some of the JDIs (Just Do Its) that have been most requested by the Photoshop community – think brush improvements and better printer settings.

Watch Photoshop CS6 sneak peek video #4

See more advanced features of Photoshop Content-Aware technology. Straight from Photoshop Senior Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes. In this video he shows how to seamlessly move or remove an object from an image.

Watch Photoshop CS6 sneak peek video #3

Product Manager, Zorana Gee, gives a hint at what’s to come – creating dashed and dotted lines with just one click in Photoshop. A top-requested feature brought to life!

Watch Photoshop CS6 sneak peek video #2

Get an early look at a popular Facebook fan request – background save and the most powerful liquify tool ever, from Photoshop Product Manager, Zorana Gee.

Watch Photoshop CS6 sneak peek video #1

In this video taken straight from the laptop of Adobe’s Senior Product Manager, Bryan O’Neil Hughes, get an early look at some of the things the Photoshop team is working on for Camera Raw.

You can submit your feedback via the Photoshop feedback page. Tell them your thoughts on the missing Screen button. Be bold. Let them know the screen print community wants the Screen button back.

Here is a list we found called a JDI (Just Do It!). This is what Photoshop is supposedly working on. It does not mean this is everything nor does it mean they will do all of these. We kept hoping to see “Restored Screen button” in this list. No go.

• Contact Sheet II has been restored as an Automate option
• PDF Presentation has been restored as an Automate option.
• HUD brush resize and hardness can now change opacity (CTRL-OPTION up/down)
• Increase brush size to 5000px
• User option per tip for color dynamics
• Brush tip cursor reflects brush pose and jitter for round and captured tips
• Brightness/Contrast slider for textures when painting
• Brush projection for static tips
• Add ability to record brush strokes in actions with “Allow Tool Recording” option
• Enable Split Channels for documents with layers
• Select Hex field by default and allow clip-board past with # in contents (i.e. #ffffff)
• She the sample size for pop-ups for the various eyedropper tools (block point, white point, etc.)
• Add ignore adjustment layers options bar item for the eyedropper
• New mode for eyedropper to select layers current and below
• Read common stereo image pair formats (JPS, PNS)
• Allow for more bit depths in TIFF files
• Read BIGTIFF format
• Give the user the choices regarding how they want transparency treated in Open
• EXR on file open
• Increased GPU stability by prequalifying GPUs on the fly before use
• Grammar policed throughout app
• Use consistent grammar style in the title of dialog windows (no commands such as “Choose a color:”)
• Auto select the best re-sample method based on type of resize
• Import images from devices provides Image
• Kit scanning and camera acquisition support
• Add a contextual menu item that deletes a layer effect not just disables it
• Add dither options to Layer Styles for Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke
• Allow 00 or Shift 00 to work when setting layer/fill opacity when free transforming layers
• Allow changing of blend modes for multiple layers at once
• Allow locking of multiple layers
• CMD+J to duplicate selected layers and layer groups (in addition to layers)
• Allow changing color labels to multiple layers at once
• Layer tootips to include layer name (If defined)
• Opt-click to toggle arrows (groups and effects) in layers panel should close all targets
• Show blend if/blending effect badge on layer
• Show correct opacity and blend mode values for hidden layers
• Tab goes to next layer on inline layer rename, SHIFT+TAB goes to previous
• When creating a shape layer, the layer name should not be like ‘Shape 1″ but instead reflect the tool names such as “Rectangle 1″
• New command to raster layer effects into layer, merging the selected layers into themselves
• Reorder effects in the layers palette to match the Z-Order style/blend mode (bottom most effects in terms of blending order, drop shadow is below the other effects)
• Resize Liquify brush with shortcuts
• Increase maximum Liquify brush size
• Add options to load last mesh
• Enable Invert and Threshold adjustments for mask in 32-bit
• Hold SHIFT during startup to disable 3rd party plugins
• Add new Gradient Map presets for toning and split toning
• Add new documents presets for common devices (e.g iPhone, iPad, etc.)
• Sticky reorganization of tools presets (changes persist after relaunch)
• Add “Edit” button for the description field in the print dialog
• Hide color profiles that are inappropriate for currently selected printer when using “Photoshop Manages Color”
• Allow user to change the “preview well” background color in print dialog
• Allow print dialog and print preview to be resized
• Allow users to manually position the printed area on the page
• Reintroduce “Print selected area”, allow user to modify selection in print dialog
• Add warning message that 16 bit images cannot display their file size in the Save as JPEG dialog
• Add ability to access tool name associated with tool preset name via scripting
• Add the ability to return an array of guides in a document from the scripting SDK
• Make the marquee, lasso, and mask panel feather values support decimal places like the feather dialog
• Remember feather radius when showing dialog for selection from a path
• Don’t hide smart object icon when transforming a layer
• Rotate 90 with even x odd pixel dimension to be smooth (bjango.com)
• Improved dragging of vector curves
• Undo or disable auto-rotate on open
• Add command to insert “lorem ipsum” for type
• Remove the app bar and reduce the drag/app bar of 30% (Windows)
• New/Open document to context click on a document tab (has always been on MAC, now on Windows too)
• Add “Don’t show again” checkbox to purge warnings

Get your QR Code on. They are fun, cool, and cutting edge. By Scott Fresener.

You’ve probably seen those little box “maze” graphics in ads but maybe didn’t know what they were for. Or you might have heard the term QR Code (sometimes called a QR Tag) but again, what the heck is that? If you don’t know, you have not been keeping up with the latest trends. QR Codes are the rage and are only going to get bigger.

Note: click on images to enlarge them.

What are QR Codes?

They are small 2 dimensional maze like graphics that are designed to be scanned with smart phones (iPhone, etc.) that have special bar code or QR Code reader software. Figure 1.

Figure 1

Phone Apps for reading a QR Code are abundant and often free. When you aim your phone at one of these either in an ad, in the newspaper, or even a large billboard, the image you scan can take you to a website, show you text, deliver a vCard for your address book, dial the phone, load a YouTube video and much more! Figure 2.

Figure 2

The information is embedded in the mystery code. This is the barcode world gone wild. Wow! How simple. How magical. But wait….. what if you print one of these images on a T-Shirt?  OK, it’s being done now but it seems to be one of the best kept secrets.

Unlike traditional bar codes that are considered 1D or one dimensional because you read them only along the width – the QR Code is a square that is read for both the width and the height information.

Where did they come from?

A QR Code is a matrix code or two-dimensional bar code created by Japanese subsidiary of Toyota called Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response” because the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. Denso-Wave chose not enforce the patent on this technology and the QR Codes are now used around the world.

There are other “me to” codes including Microsoft Tags, plus others like JetTags and Data Matrix. But, QR Codes seem to have a huge lead and are what this article is about.

QR Codes are commonly used for inventory management in a wide variety of industries. More recently, the inclusion of QR Code reading software on camera phones has led to a wide variety of new, consumer-oriented applications, aimed at relieving the user of the tedious task of entering data into their mobile phone. The addition of QR Codes on business cards is also becoming common, greatly simplifying the task of entering the personal details of a new acquaintance into the address book of your mobile phone.

Where do you start?

First, you need to find a service that will generate a QR Code for you. There are dozens if not hundreds of them online. The neat thing is you simply go to one of these free websites, type in the details and the code is generated right there on the computer monitor. Figure 3 & Figure 4. Again, the details could be your website, your phone  number, a link to a video about your company, etc.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Here are a few QR Code generators that are free to use:

www.myQR.co

www.keremerkan.net

www.goQR.me

www.snapmaze.com

Actually, the first thing you need to do is download a QR Reader APP for your smartphone. The easiest way to find an APP for your phone is go to where you currently get apps for the device. Figure 5.

Figure 5

The app I use on my iPhone is Shop Savvy. It appears to be one of the leading apps for a wide variety of phones. Of course its main mission is to read barcodes and tell you the price and where you can get an item cheaper….. but that’s another article. Figure 6.

Figure 6

Here are a few sources for QR Readers:

www.mobile-barcodes.com

www.708media.com

www.cellphones.about.com

www.shopsavvy.mobi

All of these sites generate the code for you right there with a click of the mouse. You can see the code on the screen and you can download the files in a variety of formats. Once you have generated the code on your computer, simply open the scanning app and then aim the phone at the image on the monitor to test it. In a couple of seconds your phone will load a web page, dial the phone, or much more depending on what you entered. If the code works the way you hoped then download the file and you are off to the races and ready to incorporate the image in a design, create a new design or promotion – or, come up with your own grand marketing plan.

What are the rules?

The rules are pretty simple. The smartphone reader needs to read the image and see all the squares. If the image is not clear or is not flat then the phone may not be able to read the QR Code. Older smartphones have lower resolution cameras so you need to take into account the lowest possible denominator.

Keep information short

The more text or information in the QR Code, the smaller the squares become. Although the standard says you can use up to 4,296 characters but, if you do the squares become very small and hard to read.To test this just enter a lot of text in a code generator and see how small the squares get. Most sites recommend using less than 300 characters. This means if you are going to present text then keep it short. Figure 7.

Figure 7

If your website link is very long use one of the Tiny URL sites that shorten a web address. See www.TinyURL.com.

To have a little fun, take your smartphone and scan the various images used in this article to see if they really work.

Keep the image high contrast and high resolution

The truth is you don’t have to have these images in black and white. But, the code/maze has to be in darker colors so the QR Reader can differentiate the difference in color. That means you can’t print the image in white ink on a black shirt without putting down a base of white (simply “invert” the image for the film output and then put white ink in the screen and print on a black shirt. The “maze” will be the shirt color. Many of the QR Code Generator sites offer to let you chose a foreground and background color.

But, the key in generating a code is to have it as high a resolution as possible. This is no different than traditional printing – if you take a low resolution JPG image and enlarge it 1000% it is going to get rough.

All the code generations sites I tested allowed you to choose a resolution but none really offer high resolution (for T-Shirt size images). The key is some sites offer an EPS file format which is vector based meaning it works in Corel Draw and Adobe Illustrator.

This is great because not only can you output the final image as high resolution but you can also color the image because each small square is an object that can be manipulated – just remember to use darker colors with contrast. Figure 8.

Figure 8

How to use QR Codes

You can get creative when using QR Codes. The obvious use is to print it on a shirt. But, what do you expect the QR Code to do? Have it just go to your website? That’s OK but could be boring. How about having it go to a special web page that thanks the user for taking the time to scan the code and offers a discount.

Scan the T-Shirt in Figure 9 to see what I mean.

Figure 9

Simply type in QR Codes as a web search and you will get hundreds/thousands of pages with ideas and suggestions.

Other issues

When you generate a QR Code, most generators will ask you for the amount of error correction. To be safe take use a higher setting. It may talk a little longer to scan the image. You will also notice if you compare the output of one generator over the other – for the same information – that the QR Code will look different. My guess is it depends on the amount of error correction settings.

And, the area around the QR Code is called the quiet area. Some QR Readers need a larger quiet area – also called a margin. This is only important if the QR Code is going to be placed next to or in other graphics. Give the image room to breath when mixing it with another design element. Figure 10.

Figure 10

Make the graphics a complete statement

To make it a little easier for someone to understand, think about at least putting your name above or below the code or your web address. Most codes are placed on printed pieces where you can see who the company is. With the code alone on a shirt I think you are losing the marketing/branding opportunity to show your name without the user having to scan the image.

Track the number of scans

There is now an entire sub-culture helping you track how many times your codes are scanned. These services charge by the month or year. I have not used any of these services. One I found in researching this article is www.qreateandtrack.com.  Figure 11.

Figure 11

What can you do with QR Codes?

Currently you can do the following actions with 2D QR Codes:

• You can browse to a website.
• You can bookmark a website.
• You can make a phone call.
• You can send a short message.
• You can send an e-mail.
• You can create a vCard (v2.1 or v3.0) with coordinates to add a contact to your device.
• You can create a meCard to add a contact to your device.
• You can create a vCalendar event to add to your calendar.
• You can create Google Maps URLs.
• You can create Bing Maps URLs.
• You can create raw geological coordinates.
• You can create market:// URLs for searching for publishers or packages on Market app for Android.
• You can create special youtube:// URLs for YouTube app on iPhone.
• You can fetch and encode the latest tweet of a Twitter user.
• You can overlay a Twitter profile image over the code.
• You can create a mobile URL to tweet on Twitter.
• You can initiate a chat to a particular Blackberry PIN on Blackberry Messenger.
• You can connect to a WIFI network on Android devices.
• You can read plain or free formatted text on your device.

Not all online QR Generators offer the above depth of uses. Figure 12 shows a drop down box from the www.keremerkan.net website which seems to have a pretty complete list.

Figure 12

Be the first!

That won’t happen on a large scale. Companies like Café Press, Zazzle and a lot of others already offer shirts and products with QR Codes on them. Figure 13 & 14. But, don’t let that stop you from doing your own thing and jumping on the band wagon. With creative marketing let your customers know you can now do this – even by simply embedding a QR Code in a standard image. Just make sure to TEST the code after you have screen printed it!

Figure 14

Figure 13

Summary

Have fun with QR Codes. They are cutting edge (even if they were invented in 1994). They are cool, fun and they show your company is on the cutting edge. Use them to promote a special, drive traffic to a landing page on your website, or more. Offer it to your current customers as another Special Effect. Scour the web for ideas and get started using QR Codes in your marketing campaign.