(Quoted from Ray Smith and Printwear Magazine. Full article here.)
The design is completed and approved. Your customer has selected the type and color of the shirt. Now it’s time to create a product that reflects the comp you provided to the customer.
The conversion from art to separations is the first important conversion needed to achieve this goal. The most popular programs used in the apparel screen-print industry are Photoshop (raster program), Illustrator, and CorelDraw (both vector design programs). These programs provide the opportunity for a skilled separator to create excellent separations. To achieve the best results, the artist must be diligent to deliver some minimum requirements with the design before going through the separation process.
- On vector designs, make sure the colors in the design are easily identified (and there are no mixed CMYK colors hidden in the image).
- For raster designs, make sure the design is at least full size and of high-resolution quality. Use RGB mode throughout the design and separation setup process.
These initial points are important to deliver the best image for separation and achieve a successful result. Failing these points may deliver a final separation with poor color, bitmapped edges, or confusing color blends.
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