For t-shirt printing and other promotional garments and merchandise, screen printing is often employed using one of three different methods. ‘Spot Colour’ printing is widely used and works well with many types of graphics. The most suitable method used for the printing of graphics that are not photographic in nature is Spot colour printing.

Ink colours used in remaking graphic images, are usually Pantone, as specified by the graphic designer. Pantone coated or uncoated colour references are chosen to specify the ink colours of the design. Used in publishing, printing and design, the Pantone matching system, is internationally used to identify colors with a unique name and number.

When colour identity and uniformity is an issue, for example in branded promotional garments or a large selection of products, this method of spot color printing works very well.

The Four Color Process is another method used in tshirt screen printing. This method of printing is used mainly for photographic images and illustrations that consist of a wide range of colours, tones and graduations. Book and magazine images are also printed by the same 4 colour process.

These inks allow light to flow through and then merge together on white backgrounds to make all the hues and tones of the orginal one. It is a lot harder to process on fabric than it is on paper. But the method used is about the same.

This t-shirt printing method only works well on white garments and is unsuitable for coloured fabrics.

When t-shirt printers reproduce such full colour images onto coloured fabrics a method called ‘Simulated Process’ is used. The print set-up costs are higher than that of simple spot colour designs and as such only suitable for larger print runs of 100+ The artwork is separated into various colours and shades using a method similar to spot colour printing to achieve the overall look and feel of the original image.

This method is used by every printer and is very popular for reproducing heavy metal and fantasy images taken from CD artwork and reproduced on black t-shirts for band merchandising. Due to the higher set up prices which includes the separating of the colour as well as an increased amount of colours used to print the pictures, this works out to be the most expensive way of printing.