Impressions - Digital Decorator - Fall 2015 - 12

STEP 3 - Lay It Out in
Your Design Application
Whether you use Adobe Illustrator,
Adobe Photoshop, CorelDRAW or a combination will be determined by the style of
art and the preference of the designer. Keep
in mind that if your art scales with each
garment size, the work required from the
designer will be multiplied by the number
of sizes ordered by the customer. An order
that only includes sizes small, medium and
large takes much less time than an order that
needs XS-3XL, regardless of quantity.
As you design for each panel, keep in
mind that you allow a certain amount of
tolerance between pieces. Customers need
to be aware that there is an allowance
where some art is lost into the seams and
hems. It can be tricky creating art that has
critical parts blending from one panel to
the next or trying to line up elements like
stripes coming off the front and back and
going onto the sleeve.
If your cut includes ribbed fabric on the
collars or cuffs, keep in mind that printing solid color on these pieces could produce an undesirable look when the ribbing
is stretched. Having some sort of pattern or
image to hide this issue is recommended.
A critical part of the process is labeling
each piece with text on the inside edge of
the design that will be hidden in the hem or
seam on a completed garment. The people
sewing the garments don't have the luxury of
seeing digital file names or folder structure.
Oftentimes, they are dealing strictly with
cut pieces. Having the correct identifiers on
each piece, including garment cut, garment
size, piece name, client name and design
name, will help them correctly assemble all
of the correct pieces for each garment.
You also will want to show a mock-up that
labels all of the pieces to not only help the
sewer, but also help the client understand
the flat pieces he is looking at.
Once the client has approved the art, the
designer needs to organize the pieces in a
way that minimizes paper and fabric waste
while keeping the fabric grain in mind.
Rotating pieces the wrong way could lead to
parts of the garment stretching in an undesirable way.
Organizing your print-ready fi les in
fabric-specific folders is another way to
help your printing and pressing production teams keep garments with multiple
fabrics organized.
12  FALL 2015

There are a number of large-format dye sublimation printers on the
market today that work well for cut and sew.

Queue up your job in the RIP software application and you are
on your way.

STEP 4 - RIP and Print
Now you are ready to start printing. Load your art into your RIP software. There are
several known RIP oftware packages that are ideal for sublimation. ErgoSoft, Wasatch
and Gans Pyro RIP are just a few of the options. Many printer companies including
Roland offer a proprietary RIP as part of their solution.
You now can manipulate your order to fit the print platen. Keep in mind the orientation of the art and how it will meet up with the fabric because this will dictate which
direction it can be rotated. Once you have maximized your media, name it and print
your job.
Th is print job now goes through a RIP server that gets all the information ready for
the printer to interpret and lay down some ink. Something to remember so as not to
overload your RIP servers, print in portions, like by sizes, instead of printing the full
order. Th is will make it easier to track and will be gentle on your RIP server. If you try to
load everything at once, it will take your job longer to RIP and prevent you from printing smaller items or jobs to other machines.

Impressions - Digital Decorator - Fall 2015

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