What Program Would Be Best?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by 1.000 Watts, Aug 12, 2009.

  1. 1.000 Watts

    1.000 Watts Senior Member

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    What program in the Adobe Design Premium Suite (CS3) would be the best one to use to design a tee shirt, hoodie, etc.. front, back, and side... So maybe a 3D model...


    Thank you.
     
  2. Sonic Gal

    Sonic Gal Respect my Authoritah!

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    Illustrator is highly recommended for t-shirt designs; your graphics are in vector format. Here are some tutorials for you to get started if you are new to it:

    http://www.ndesign-studio.com/resources/tutorials/
    http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/05...orials-best-of/
    http://www.noupe.com/illustrator/80-best-o...-resources.html
    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer..._type=&aq=f

    However, if you find Illustrator too difficult to manage, Photoshop may also work. Make sure that when you are making shirt designs in PS you work at a high resolution regardless of your design's size. I recommend a document size of 3000x3000 and a Resolution of 300 since this involves printing. Here are some tutorials for it if you are a new user:

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_quer..._type=&aq=f
    http://psd.tutsplus.com/
    http://photoshoptutorials.ws/
    http://www.tutorial9.net/
    http://www.tutzor.com/
    http://pshero.com/
    http://www.entheosweb.com/photoshop/default.asp

    Enjoy and I hope one of these programs works for you! :)
     
  3. 1.000 Watts

    1.000 Watts Senior Member

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    Thank you very much for that... :-)
     
  4. devour

    devour Well-Known Member

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    i know that gomediazine.com has some tshirt templates to show what your design will look like on shirts (with wrinkles and everything)
    not sure if it's free though, it's been ages since i've dabbled in tshirt tomfoolery.
     
  5. inverse

    inverse Banned from GR

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    Templates here.Anything that you intend to print on apparel should be done in Illustrator. Ideally you want to be using 4 to 8 spot colour screen printing, which means if you're working with raster graphics (Photoshop, Paintshop ---, etc) you'll need to be working in extremely high resolutions and doing colour seperation as you go (complex, and can be very difficult with intricate designs), otherwise you'll need to pay your printer to do it for you ( they will charge you full rates ).

    This is why vector graphics hold so much power. Colour seperation can be done in a matter of a few clicks, you can work at a reasonable native resolution, yet still have infinite scalability, and printers will love you if you do it correctly.

    Vellocets, it's not advertising. That's genuinely what he would want for apparel design, as already posted by someone else.
     
  6. Greasy Pete

    Greasy Pete Senior Member

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    Illustrator and photoshop, together.
     
  7. 1.000 Watts

    1.000 Watts Senior Member

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    Hahahaha. Thanks all. I'm probably gonna be doing this solely on Illustrator... I just need to get as good at it as possible as I am making shirts to help raise money for a charity... My best friend died in a car accident a week ago and she had a disorder that she was born with... So my friend and I (who was also her best friend) are designing, printing, and selling tee shirt to raise money... But if they don't look good, less people will buy them... And thus less money is raised.

    Thank you for all the input guys n gals. :) It is greatly appreciated.
     
  8. devour

    devour Well-Known Member

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    Sounds like you're doing a great thing. If you can ship one to Arizona I'll buy one.
     
  9. cngamemart

    cngamemart New Member

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    maybe :rolleyes:
     
  10. `Kakashi

    `Kakashi Banned from GR

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    In Printing Technology, we designed in Illustrator/Photoshop then actually laid them out + printed proofs etc with InDesign.
     
  11. inverse

    inverse Banned from GR

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    Apparel printing is different. The reason you used InDesign was because of all the important things you need to set for printing, i.e. bleed, margins, colour profiles etc, whereas with apparel printing, you'd use set printing software for Offset printing/DTG printing, and you'd set up screens for screen printing manually. It's a totally different ballgame.
     
  12. `Kakashi

    `Kakashi Banned from GR

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    Um.

    No.

    In Print Tech we designed and printed anything ranging from bumper stickers to t-shirts to flyer to random CD covers. We did screen printing, Heidelberg press, film cameras, and offset press projects.

    We did literally EVERYTHING in that class.

    And we used InDesign to set it ALL up.

    Including apparel. I don't know where you got your idea from, but I can 100% assure you it is wrong.
     
  13. inverse

    inverse Banned from GR

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    I run a small screenprinting business and I prep all files for making screens in Illustrator. I also create posters, flyers, brochures, for clients in InDesign.

    What printing methods did you use? When you say Heidelberrg press, I'm assuming you mean Offset printing. Offset and DTG printing can be prepped in InDesign, but most printers that do high volume runs will have their own software set up for their presses and printers.

    I imagine you did everything in InDesign to minimize the amount of software you'd need to learn. Forgive me if "Print Tech" class sounds like a dubious, low cost course. Hardly industry standard certification.

    Let me just say that if you're designing for the apparel industry, you'll be designing for SCREENPRINTING. All the screen printers that I know use Illustrator to prep transparencies for creating screens. NOT InDesign.
     
  14. 1.000 Watts

    1.000 Watts Senior Member

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    Yes sir. Right now we're still in Stage 1 and brainstorming ideas and drafting but we have an overall idea in our heads... It's just a matter of her being able to draw and me being able to do it... Haha. But thank you very much for your early interest. It means a lot. We both feel like doing this will make coping easier...
     
  15. Geox

    Geox Well-Known Member

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    the best thing is to use photoshop and illustrator. However, you can just use photoshop.

    the key thing you have to remember is to convert it from pixels to DPI(dots per inch) for printing purposes

    hope that helps a little bit
     

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