Software For Creating Art For Screen Printing
Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2012 1:44 pm
Creating artwork for screen printing tee shirts will be the most challenging part of the process to learn for anyone who has little graphic art experience. This is the first step in which you need to sort out the graphics to be printed. The artwork must be created specifically for screen printing in order to give the best results with the minimum effort. Many people under estimate the importance of this step and often attempt to create complicated designs using JPEGS and other non-vector graphics. In fact it is vector art that will work the best and allow us the most flexibility when it comes to setting up screenprinting artwork. Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygons, which are all based on mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics. On the other hand bitmap graphics is the representation of images as an array of pixels, as it is typically used for the representation of photographic images. Bitmap or “raster” art is identified as art with file names ending in .GIF, .BMP, .JPEG, .JPG, and .PCX. Vector art often ends in .EPS.
The most common software programs used for the creation of screenprinting artwork are Illustrator and Corel Draw. Photoshop is also helpful at times when we need to do some work to high res JPEGS or TIFF files that we may then vectorize or place in a vector art file. It may also be possible at times to use Photoshop alone to create simple one color designs or even more complex designs which can then be imported to Illustrator.
There are also color separating “add ons” for Photoshop and Corel. These add ons will automate certain tasks for you and in many cases can be a great help to those who are less experienced. They also can be confusing and take some time to learn how to use properly. But in the end these programs can be a huge help.
For a listing of free vector art software and graphic programs, please visit this page of the Catspit website: http://catspitproductionsllc.com/free-g ... tware.html
You may also want to watch this video about artwork:
What type of computer do you run and what are its stats? What graphic software do you use and which programs do you find the most useful for which tasks? Does the software run well on your computer? And finally what would you recommend to a fellow beginner in screen printing T shirts from what you have learned or experienced?
The most common software programs used for the creation of screenprinting artwork are Illustrator and Corel Draw. Photoshop is also helpful at times when we need to do some work to high res JPEGS or TIFF files that we may then vectorize or place in a vector art file. It may also be possible at times to use Photoshop alone to create simple one color designs or even more complex designs which can then be imported to Illustrator.
There are also color separating “add ons” for Photoshop and Corel. These add ons will automate certain tasks for you and in many cases can be a great help to those who are less experienced. They also can be confusing and take some time to learn how to use properly. But in the end these programs can be a huge help.
For a listing of free vector art software and graphic programs, please visit this page of the Catspit website: http://catspitproductionsllc.com/free-g ... tware.html
You may also want to watch this video about artwork:
What type of computer do you run and what are its stats? What graphic software do you use and which programs do you find the most useful for which tasks? Does the software run well on your computer? And finally what would you recommend to a fellow beginner in screen printing T shirts from what you have learned or experienced?
