A Guide to The Art of T-Shirt Color Separation

To purchase the PDF download for $29.99 USD, go to this page:

The exercises in this book will teach a hands on approach to learning step by step color separations in Photoshop channels and you will learn how to think. How to solve the problems that you, the T-shirt artist, will be challenged with daily. You will learn the difference between RGB and CMYK channels, and how to use both of them to your advantage. How to separate 4 color process, simulated process, spot colors, creating base whites for dark t-shirts, mixing channels with vector graphics, splitting channels, creating halftones without the rip software, hot keys and the right tools to use in your daily routine and much, much more. Everything is written in an understandable day to day meaning and not in scientific mumbo jumbo. Complete and fully illustrated with exercises of actual working files and is accompanied with downloads of the same working Photoshop files used in each exercise. Included are files of complete separations for you to check your work to see how well your progress is going. All you need is Photoshop and a compatible vector program. After studying this book, you will know and understand channels in Photoshop. More importantly, you will know how to make T-shirt color separations.

My advice to new artists is not to limit yourself to one style or medium. Cross over into other avenues to get the most out of your art and don’t limit yourself to one thing. You should constantly be exploring and developing different styles so you are not limited when a client wants to hire your service.

I was commissioned to paint two portraits. Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings. I had not picked up a paint brush in 6 years, so there was a little bit of a learning curve to jump back into traditional art. I really enjoyed it and had time to work on them in between my other assignments.

Here are images of an idea for the River City Art Department that I came up with during a slow period. It began with just a sketch in Photoshop. From there, I pen and inked digitally in Illustrator. After I finished the inking, I decided to bring it back into Photoshop for coloring to create a cool T-Shirt design. From there it developed into a wall decal mural. I made a die cut for an image that was 8’ x 10’ feet. This was split printed on two 12’ x 4’ foot vinyl sheets. It took about five of us to apply one, then peel the backing as we did this, then repeat with the second and match it. No easy feat on ladders and a very tacky substrate. After all was said and done, we had a very cool and inviting piece of art to show when clients tour the facility.

Sketched in Adobe Photoshop

Pen and ink in Adobe Illustrator

Colored in Adobe Photoshop

This is a DTG Print on a T-Shirt

Color Saturation and Hue Change for a Wall Decal

Marking Register Marks Between the Two Prints

Peeling Backing and Aligning the two Decals Vertically

Final Presentation!

Check back for more things to come as I work on developing my online tutoring and for some peeks at art and methods as I go. Thanks for stopping by my friends!

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