T shirt screen printing is often used as a search phrase just ast shirt printing is, by people who do not know the specific technologies and processes involved when getting t-shirts printed. Having said that the phrase would be used correctly if you were after longer production runs or generally larger quantities of t-shirts printed.

screen printingThis is because Screen Printing is a type of t-shirt printing that has high start up cost because you have to make separation and screen before you even start printing the first t-shirt. For longer runs of t shirt printing this is not a problem because any start up cost can be absorbed in the saving you make at the actual printing stage, which can be very substantial.

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You may well ask why the setup charges for screen printing are so expensive and what exactly are screens and separations. In order to enlighten you on these questions I will have two explain the methods used when people are printing your T-shirts by screen printing.

Screen printing, as the name suggests is a process where ink is pressed through a screen onto a T-shirt or polo shirt. The screen, sometimes called a silk screen, is attached to a frame and stretched tight. You can have many screens or as little as one, depending on the number of colours in your design. This means you need one screen per colour.

A negative is produced of the design which is placed onto the screen and only allows ink to pass through the screen where the design has been exposed. Ink is then squeegeed across the screen and the ink passes through the screen where the design lets it onto the T-shirt.

The whole process becomes even more complex when you have multiple colours in your design. First you have to separate colours into separate screens, then when you actually print the T-shirt, the difference screens have to be printed in perfect alignment with each other. This is done accurately with the use of registration marks.