On November 9, Adobe (you know…. the guys who make Photoshop and Illustrator), announced a new – and very unpopular – upgrade policy. As any Photoshop or Illustrator user knows, you could be back a couple of versions in the past and still get a discounted price on an upgrade to the latest and greatest version.

Well folks….. the party is over. Adobe has gone full circle and become a little too arrogant. First, starting in version CS5, they removed the beloved “Screen” button that thousands of us used every day to set the halftone frequency, angle and dot shape. It has force a LOT of users to stay on CS4 just so we have this feature. Adobe’s response…. “people should not print that type of stuff from Photoshop – they should use Illustrator.” Duh! A LOT of us do Simulated Process and CMYK separations IN Photoshop and we want to press the “Print” button and walk away.

Now, they just announced that they would no longer let you be a few versions down to upgrade. If you want to upgrade to their “soon-to-be-released” version CS6.0 in early 2012, you MUST have already upgraded to CS5 or CS5.5 to get an upgrade price. If not, you will pay the full $699! Holy “magic wand tool” Batman! For a company that just walked away from Flash and is laying off 750 workers to “realign” things it sure seems like the wrong time to piss off hundreds of thousands of users. Read their recent layoff news at Reuters here.

All you have to do is type a search of “Adobe Pricing” and you will find all the message boards ablaze with unhappy users who think Adobe has gone too far. But hey, they grossed just over $1 billion last year. What the heck. The ARE the 1000 pound gorilla.

Click here to read the Adobe Featured Blogs post from November 9 that started all of this.

Here are the paragraphs from the post that sums it up:

“We are excited to announce that membership to the Adobe Creative Cloud will be available in the first half of 2012 at a price of $49.99 per month for individuals and $69.99 per month per seat for workgroups, both for an annual plan. Our move to this membership model allows us to keep our customers up to date with the latest Adobe innovations in our tools and related services. Creative Cloud will provide maximum flexibility, offer lower cost of entry, and add cutting-edge innovation on an on-going basis to keep our customers ahead of the changing technology and device landscape.

For customers who prefer to remain on the current licensing model, we will continue to offer our individual point products and Adobe Creative Suite editions as perpetual licenses. With regards to upgrades, we are changing our policy for perpetual license customers. In order to qualify for upgrade pricing when CS6 releases, customers will need to be on the latest version of our software (either CS5 or CS5.5 editions). If our customers are not yet on those versions, we’re offering a 20% discount through December 31, 2011 which will qualify them for upgrade pricing when we release CS6.”

In other words – get your checkbooks out and upgrade by December 31 or pay the full price afterwards.

An Open Letter to Adobe
A guy who has made a great living off of Adobe is Scott Kelby. He is the editor-in-chief of Photoshop User Magazine, the president of NAPP – National Association of Photoshop Professionals and owner of Kelby Training.

He also has a blog at www.ScottKelby.com and wrote an EXCELLENT and LONG “Open Letter to Adobe” that you must read. He pleads “our” cause and has some good advice for Adobe. I doubt they will listen but who knows.

Read Scott’s letter by clicking on the graphic below.

If you have a DTG printer then this is a sale you can’t afford to miss. Scott Fresener’s T-PRINT direct-to-garment ink is being used by printers around the world and gives bright prints with minimal white ink settling. As a New Years special offer – for every bottle of T-Print you buy you get one of equal value for FREE!

This offer has been extended through January 6 , 2012 for any of you who got back late from the holidays and is only available from T-Print Products at www.T-PrintProducts.com. Don’t miss out!

Hey….. it’s even cold here in the desert. We are having a huge year end Bundle Up Sale. Save big on our product bundles and help make 2012 a great year with products that help you become a better printer. We have put together great packages that include T-Seps, T-RIP, DVDs, the new Halftone Converter and more. If you have these products on your wish list, now is the time to buy them.

Here is a breakdown of the great Bundles you will find at the T-Biz Store. Don’t miss out. This offer has been extended through January 6 , 2012 for any of you who got back late from the holidays.

T-Seps Full Version Bundle ONLY $449.95 This bundle includes the full version of T-Seps software along with the T-Seps Halftone Converter, T-Biz ART volume 1, T-FX Photoshop special effects plugin, and the four DVD Photoshop Training set featuring Scott Fresener. This bundle has a retail value of $883.85!
T-Seps Upgrade Bundle ONLY $249.95 This is a bundle of T-Seps Upgrade from FastFilms, T-Biz Art volume 1, and the T-Seps Halftone Converter. This bundle has a $428 retail value!
T-RIP DTP Version Bundle ONLY $449.00 This is a bundle of T-RIP Full Version (DTP version), T-Biz Art volume 1, and any TWO DVDs of your choice. This same bundle applies to the XL and LF version (larger printers) for additional money. This bundle has a $650 retail value!
How To Print Book/eBook Bundle ONLY $39.95 This is a bundle of the soft cover book How To Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit, and the eBook Tablet version (download) that works on most tablet devices including the iPad. The tablet version includes over five hours of video! This bundle has a $79 retail value!
How To Print Book/eBook Bundle ONLY $49.95 This is a bundle of the soft cover book How To Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit, and the eBook DVD version that works on your computer. The eBook version includes over five hours of video! This bundle has a $89 retail value!
Buy Any Four DVD Titles for $99 This is a great deal. You can choose from ANY of our titles including those with more than one DVD in them. What a deal. Get the Photoshop, Corel, and Starting a T-Shirt Screening Business – all for only $99. This bundle has an up to $200 retail value!
T-Print DTG Ink - Buy One Get One FREE! Here is a deal you can’t pass up. If you have a direct-to-garment printer that uses bulk ink this offer is a huge savings. For every bottle of T-Print Ink you purchase you get another bottle of the same size and value for FREE! This offer is available from the T-Print website at: www.T-PrintProducts.com
Shop In A Box – Almost everything! ONLY $985.00 This is a great starter package. You get all the training you need and you get our popular T-Seps color separation software and T-RIP DTP for film output. Over 20 hours of video and the book How To Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit to go along with it. Sit back and learn everything from how to print, to computer graphics, the business and marketing side and much, much more. Start to do high-end color separations. This bundle has a $1,313 retail value!
Class In A Box – All Our DVDs ONLY $277.00 Get all our DVDs in one package. If you are just starting out this is almost all you need! Over 20 hours of video and the book How To Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit. Sit back and learn everything from how to print, to computer graphics, the business and marketing side and much, much more. This bundle has a $369 retail value!
Inkjet Film, Ink, Supplies and More Mike Fresener’s new company Are you looking for a great source of waterproof ink film and dye based ink for your film positives? How about a new source for Union Ink, Fran Mar, Geo. Knight, and Tekmar. Check out the new company by former U.S. Screen VP, Mike Fresener. Special Bundle from IPS. With the purchase of a full version of T-Seps you get a FREE box of 8-1/2″ x 11″ (100 sheets) of their popular HOW waterproof ink jet film. This is a $52 value! www.IndependentPrintSupplies.com

It was bound to happen. Our good friend, Andy McDaniel with Easy T Printer has come out with a low priced direct-to-garment printer that prints on white or light shirts (no white ink) for ONLY $3,495. The machine has a simple design, is easy to use and prints just like printers costing three times as much.

Easy T Printer also has a Deluxe model that prints white ink for ONLY $4,995! And, this printer prints as fast and good as printers costing three times this price. Watch a short YouTube video here.

Andy is a long time DTG user and has been digitally printer shirts for a number of years using printers like the Mod 1 and T-Jet. He knows this business very well and his  new low priced printers are sure to be a hit.

Tell Andy you saw details about his printer at T-Biz Network and he will throw in TWO LITERS of extra ink with a purchase. You can contact Easy T Printer at www.easytprinter.com.

Watch the Easy T Printer in a couple of short YouTube videos here.

Do you print tags/labels in the back of shirts? Do you print small images (up to 6″ x 6″) on sleeves, baby clothes and other items? Do you need a way to print these FAST? Check out the new Rapid Tag from All American Screen Mfg. Save $500 as a “friend of T-Biz” by using Coupon Code SCPC01. Read more here. Watch a short YouTube video here. Check out Scott Fresener’s interview with Peter Choi from All American here.

Coupons are the hot ticket right now so why not coupons for garment decorators. We have started a new Coupon Page with a few offerings. We hope to build this page to have hundreds of discounts and promotions from the industry. If you are an industry supplier and want to offer discounts to “friends of T-Biz” send email to info@tbiznetwork.com.

Click HERE to go there NOW.

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.

By Scott Fresener. Fespa is on the move again and in early 2012 they will once again have their huge Fespa Digital show along with a smaller show-within-a-show called Fespa Fabric in Barcelona Spain, February 21 – 24, 2012! Wow. Tapas on Las Ramblas. Nothing finer!

They have again asked me to present a seminar program called Textile Talk and to do a few video interviews from the show floor. As with past shows I am offering a variety of speakers covering both screen printing and direct-to-garment topics like I have done at Fespa Hamburg, Fespa Mexico City and Fespa Munich.

Read more about Textile Talk here.

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.

On November 9, President Obama signed what might be called the “Anti-Trinkets and Trash Bill” as part of a bill to cut government wasteful spending. Wow. Regardless of your political leanings, this one hits home at our industry. No one can argue that the governments wastes billions of dollars but when you single out promotional products including items like printed T-Shirts – that is like a stab to the heart.

Here is an excerpt from the WhiteHouse.gov website:
WASHINGTON, DC – This morning, President Obama will sign an Executive Order that will cut waste and promote more efficient spending across the federal government.  With this Order, the President is directing agencies to reduce spending on travel; limit the number of information technology devices (e.g. cell phones, smartphones, tablets, laptops) that can be issued to individual employees; stop unnecessarily printing documents that can be posted online; shrink the executive fleet of the federal government; and stop using taxpayer dollars to buy swag — the plaques, clothing, and other unnecessary promotional items that agencies purchase. Overall spending in the areas covered by the Executive Order will be reduced by 20 percent, saving billions.

Of course there was a huge outcry from the Advertising Specialty Institute.

Read their Industry Response here on Tim Andrews Blog.

Also, there is a great response titled Obama Attacks Fed Promo Product Spend - with action items at Tim’s Blog here.

Here is an excerpt:
We’re calling on everyone to reach out to their senators and congressmen – they need to hear from each of us, collectively and individually. I am sending a letter directly to President Obama. Below are talking points you might consider in a letter to the editor of your local paper and to your senator or your representative.

• The promo products industry helps create jobs. The industry employs nearly 500,000 people throughout North America and includes thousands of small and women- and minority-owned businesses.
• Promotional products, which cost just half a penny per impression, beat out prime-time TV, radio and print advertising as the most cost-effective advertising medium available, meaning even smaller companies can pack the advertising punch of multimillion-dollar companies. ASI studies show 83% of ad specialty recipients in the U.S. say they can identify the advertiser on a promotional item they own.
• As more companies shift to lower-cost advertising like promo products, it’s helping the industry bounce back. A recent ASI Q3 industry survey found sales rose for the 7th straight quarter.
• Promo products save taxpayers money. The U.S. government used promotional items as reminders to mail back the U.S. census – instead of sending government representatives door-to-door – a move that may have saved taxpayers up to $85 million. The ensuing response rate surpassed that of the 2000 census.
• Obama himself knows promo products work – he relied heavily on them to get elected in 2008, and his reelection website today offers everything from logoed T-shirts to leather bracelets, bumper stickers, buttons and beyond.

We will follow this story as it unfolds.

A huge congratulations to industry member, Tom Rauen, of EnvisionTees.com in Dubuque, Iowa for beating the Guinness Book of World Records for the most T-Shirts worn. Tom did this amazing feat at the Diamond Jo Casino in Dubuque, on November 11 by wearing 247 shirts!

With an official Guinness Book of World Records judge present Rauen beat the world record by two t-shirts. The current record was set last year by Croatian. Rauen’s supporters say he was wearing just about every shirt size possible.

While this seems like a “simple” feat, according to Rauen it takes practice on how to put that many shirts on and the largest size they used was a 20 X.  My question is….. where do you get a 20X shirt?

Tom got a ton of publicity around the country on this feat. Great job!  But, how do you get all those shirts off AND it would appear from the videos and pictures that you could strangle yourself doing this. The other question is how much do all these shirts weigh? Tom is not a huge guy.

All $5,000 dollars raised during the event will go to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Here are some videos that ran on local and national news.

I have been a member of the Academy of Screen Print Technology since 1995 and each year we induct new members from around the world at our annual dinner/business meeting at the SGIA Show. This year we had a great meeting at the Marriott hotel in New Orleans on Wednesday, October 19. There were about 30 members in attendance and as usual, there were a lot of foreign members who could not make it. In the past we have had casual meetings at international shows like FESPA so the foreign members could get a chance to say hi.

This year we inducted three very worthy new members who just happen to be good friends. They are:

Ad Versteeg – Evident – Netherlands

James Ortolani – Hix Corp. USA

Johnny Shell – SGIA USA

Congratulations to our new new members!

The Academy also sponsors the Student Awards Competition as part of the Golden Images and we choose the Best In Show awards from the Graphics and the Garment Gold Winners. See a list of all the winners here.

Click here to learn more about the Academy. (The group photo from this years meeting has not been posted yet.)

SGIA has its annual Expo last week in New Orleans. Scott Fresener was there roving the isles and talking with friends and customers. There are number of short videos below. Check them out. Watch for a complete show report with show footage no later than Sunday night, September 23.

While the show did not seem as packed as previous shows, key exhibitors were reporting that traffic was light but BUYERS were there. People were spending money. It seems the show brought in quality attendees which is what every exhibitor prays for. We heard there was a lot of order writing. Congrats to SGIA for another great event.

SGIA Show Reports and Interviews
Simply click on the ones you want to see.

Scott Fresener interviews Peter Choi at SGIA 2011

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Scott Fresener interviews Peter Choi at SGIA 2011

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See the new Rapid Tag printer for shirt labels, small sleeve prints and more. This thing is fast.

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Scott Fresener SGIA 2011 Final Show Review

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Scott Fresener reports from the SGIA Expo 2011 in New Orleans and talks about the quality of the show, a show overview, new products and more. www.T-BizNetwork.com

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SGIA 2011 First Day show report with Scott Fresener

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Check out what's going on at SGIA 2011 in New Orleans

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Scott Fresener third day SGIA show report

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Quick update on the third day of SGIA 2011. To learn more see the Final Show Report. www.T-BizNetwork.com

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Scott Fresener interviews Richard Greaves at SGIA 2011

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Learn a little history and watch a short interview with industry Pioneer - Richard Greaves. Richard was responsible for a lot of the early R&D on process printing, screen making, color separations and more. He has given thousands of seminars around the world.

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Scott Fresener talks with printer Kleo Blue at SGIA 2011

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Kleo and his brother own Faux Pas printing and Scott has been doing a lot of separations for them.

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Scott Fresener interviews David Landesman from Lawson

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See their direct-to-garment printer and their new direct-to-screen machine.

**

SGIA offers a number of  Webinars on a regular basis and many of them are very important to Garment Decorators.  Click here for more details. There is no fee if you are an SGIA member and $25 fee for non-members. These are well worth it!

Besides their regularly scheduled future programs they also archive previous topics. The following two topics are very important to garment decorators and were discussed in Webinars in early December. If you missed these you can see them again at the SGIA Webinar Archives page.

CPSIA Testing Programs – Who Has to Test What, and How!
The stay of enforcement expires on December 31st! Facilities will not only be required to comply with the lead and phthalate content limits, but have the testing programs in place to prove it! This session outlines the required testing programs and your responsibilities.

Who Should Attend: Company owners, compliance mangers.

CPSIA Certification – What You Need To Do
Starting January 1st, to be in compliance with the expiration of the stay of enforcement, your facility will be required to provide a general conformity certificate for all children’s products produced. This session will cover what is required on the form and how to incorporate the testing information covered in the December 7 program!

Who Should Attend: Company owners, compliance managers.

Figure 1

A Little Background First

Choking and Trapping are two very common printing terms that relate to creating artwork that prints easy at the press.  Computer graphics programs can create outstanding graphics but when you output the films for the separations all the colors butt up against each other. In a perfect world this is great. But, in screen printing, the press might be sloppy, the mesh loose, the screen frames not stable, the film or vellum might not register perfectly, etc., etc.  If any of the above is a problem then the job won’t line up and you will see shirt showing through where the colors don’t butt. Press people often spend hours tweaking jobs to try to get them in register.

The solution is to fatten up the fill colors a little. This is called a “trap” or even a “spread.”  See figure 1. Click on images to see larger version.

Figure 2

Conversely, if you are printing solid text on a dark shirt with a white underbase, if the stars  don’t align then you will see white peeking out around the text from the underbase. You need to “choke” the underbase a little or make it skinny. See figure 2.

Typically to make an image area fatter or skinnier you work in a vector program like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw where a stroke or outline is place around certain objects. To trap something you place a stroke/outline around an area and you make it the same color as the object you are trying to fatten. To choke an object you would typically put a white outline around an object which would make the object a little skinnier. Simple.

Figure 3

Trapping and Choking in Photoshop

This is where it gets a little harder. Photoshop is a pixel/raster based program so it does not know that something has an edge or outline. And, when you have a combination of grayscale images that are to be halftoned and solid text that might need to be choked or trapped, it is not as easy as pushing a button.

And, to make things worse you often get a very low quality JPG image that has soft edges to the type.  See figure 3. When in doubt use the Zoom tool and see what you are really working with.

Plus, if you have solid type that runs into the grayscale/photographic elements it is almost impossible to choke or trap just the type.

How To Do It

Here is what I do to choke and trap and along the way try to fix soft type in Photoshop

Figure

Choking Type for a Dark Shirt

If the type is separate from the photographic portions of the image it is not too hard. Your goal is to make the underbase thinner/skinnier so any color that prints on top of the underbase will print off of it and onto the shirt.  If you are printing a dark shirt image correctly then you will be using high mesh counts for the colors. When the colored ink prints directly on a dark shirt you don’t see it. Where it prints on the underbase it is very bright. Figure 4 shows a choked underbase with light blue printed ontop on a sand colored shirt and the same image printed on a black shirt. The blue practically disappears on the black shirt where it prints off the base.

1. Sample the entire image to 300dpi. This is a resolution that is good to work at.
2. Separate the image into Channel Separations using your favorite color separation program.
   

   Figure 5

3. Choose the Underbase channel.
4. Use the Magic Wand tool and select all of the type or solid areas you want to choke. You may have to play with the Tolerance setting to get the entire image. These areas can’t touch areas that are grayscale. They should be 100% but they don’t have to be.  They simply need to be uniform with no gradation.  See figure 5.
5. Go to Edit/Stroke. Set the stroke Width 4 to 6 pixels (trust me……). Set the Color to White. Select Location/Center. This is very important.  See figure 6.
6. When you say OK the image will now be skinnier by 3 pixels! See figure 7.

If you select Inside and if the text has a soft edge, there is a good chance your stroke will miss some of the soft edge and not give a solid reduction in the text – skinny.

If you select Outside, that will be OK but you will need to make the stroke size to be 2 or 3 pixels. I like to choke or trap 2 to 4 pixels.The pixel size will vary depending on the file resolution. Work at 300dpi.

Figure 6

If you Stroke from the Center at 6px then your stroke will actually be 3px because the stroke will go from the center out from the selection and in from the selection.

Trapping Colors on Light and Dark Shirts

This technique is used when you have a black outline and a fill color and used when you want to fatten up text over an underbase rather than make the underbase skinny. Sometimes when the type is very thin you can’t really choke it without making too skinny. Then you would fatten or spread the top color. The techniques here are similar to choking.

This technique is also GREAT if you have type that has a soft edge. It will help sharpen the edge.

1. Sample the entire image to 300dpi.
2. Separate the image into Channel Separations using your favorite color separation program.
3. Choose the channel with the type you want to make fatter or spread.
   

   Figure 7

4. Use the Magic Wand tool and select all of the type or solid areas you want to fatten. You may have to play with the Tolerance setting to get the entire image. These areas can’t touch areas that are grayscale. They should be 100% but they don’t have to be.  They simply need to be uniform with no gradation.
5. Go to Edit/Stroke. Set the stroke Width 4 to 6 pixels.  This time set the Color to Black. Select Location/Center.  See figure 8.
6. When you say OK the image will now be fatter by 3 pixels. See figure 9.

Using the Center setting will help cover up the soft edge and make the edge solid – very important! This is a great technique to help cleanup soft text.

Have fun. Each design is different and the amount of choking or trapping often depends on your situation. If you use wood frames and a loose press, then you might need to choke or trap more than 4 pixels. If you are a great printer and can hold close registration then 2 pixels should be all you need.

Figure 8

Figure 9