When using gradients and halftones in your design, it's worth keeping the following in mind: Black fading to nothingįeel free to read more on halftones here.

On dark shirts, the printers put down a base layer white first which sits underneath the colored layers, so the printers are effectively trying to lay down two layers over the exact same spot. Halftones and gradients in T-shirt printing are made by the 3rd-party fulfillers' printers spraying down layers of ink onto the shirt. Plus a detailed article on the Redbubble Blog: Here are a couple of tutorials demonstrating how to remove background color:

How to remove the background from an existing image (2:05).

How to create a new file with a transparent background (0:47).

The image on the left still has a background, while the image on the right has had the background removed. This means you can have the color of the fabric appear through the image. One of the best features of designing in the PNG format is that you can utilize transparent backgrounds.

Adobe Photoshop (Paid, CMYK feature built-in)įor more information on setting up your designs for success (such as resolution, file type, and color profile), check out our Dimensions & Format article.

We also recommend choosing a software that supports the CMYK color profile. The uploader accepts both JPEG and PNG, but we recommend uploading in PNG format because they allow for transparent backgrounds and their small size makes for quicker uploads.

While we welcome and encourage a wide range of art styles and media, there are a few key things to consider to optimize your work for print.

Creating t shirt designs in illustrator