One of the hardest things for a screen printer to do is print a full-color picture on a dark shirt. Regular four-color process uses transparent inks: Cyan (sky blue), Magenta (hot pink), Yellow, and Black. These inks are printed in different amounts, making a wide range of colours. This method works great on a white shirt, but the results can be disappointing on a dark shirt, which needs a white base layer and multiple passes of colours to get a thick layer of ink.
One of the hardest things for a screen printer to do is print a full-color picture on a dark shirt. Regular four-color process uses transparent inks: Cyan (sky blue), Magenta (hot pink), Yellow, and Black. These inks are printed in different amounts, making a wide range of colours. This method works great on a white shirt, but the results can be disappointing on a dark shirt. Dark shirts need a white base layer and multiple passes of colour, which results in a thick layer of ink and a colour that looks muddy. Even though it is possible to do good four-color process printing on a dark shirt, it takes a lot of trial and error, time, and tweaking during the print run. But there is another, much easier way to get the same results.
Simulated process uses opaque inks in more than four colours, usually between six and eight (usually White, Red, Yellow, Green, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Gray, and Purple). Most of the time, simulated process colours are printed wet-on-wet, with very few flashes (a drying process while the shirt is still on the press). For example, a simulated process would use a mix of tan, opaque yellow, and maybe white to make a skin tone. The dark background doesn't matter because the colours are opaque (or at least much less of one). And if specific colours, like a certain shade of red for a business logo, are needed, they can be mixed to order and printed individually.
So why would you use four-color process in the first place? When it is done right and well, it is the most accurate way to reproduce full colour. And shops with smaller presses and fewer heads may not be able to print the different colours needed for simulated process at all. Also, the bright, solid colours of simulated process don't work well for art with small changes in tone, such as pastels.
Even though it can be hard to print images on dark shirts with a screen printer, the results can be amazing and are worth the time and effort.
