Picture this: You’ve spent hours creating your design, only to find that, when it’s
printed on a t-shirt, the colors look different from what you saw on your screen.
Wondering how this happened and how to fix it?
Continue watching a learn how to color correct for print.
DTG, or direct-to-garment printing, is pretty versatile.
However, it’s important to note that the colors you choose for your artwork may appear
different when printed on an actual product.
So, what causes the difference?
Why is color correcting important?
As an online store owner, you strive for a great first impression, hoping to attract
returning customers.
This requires delivering a product that matches what customers see on their screens.
Well, the human eye can detect about 10 million colors, but each person sees them slightly
differently.
Meanwhile, computer monitors can display over 16 million colors and each screen may show
them differently, some appearing warmer with yellow tones and others cooler with blue tones.
That’s why your designs might look different on various screens like computers, TVs, and
smartphones.
Then the DTG printing process comes in.
Several factors can affect how colors appear on the final printed product like the type
of fabric, the color of the garment, whether a white under base is used, and the color
spaces used in designing.
Think of color space as a huge box of crayons, representing all the colors you can see in
digital images or on screens and printers.
Each color space has its own limits on the colors it can display or print.
So, if you choose colors outside the range supported by a printer, it won’t be able
to reproduce them accurately.
For instance, if you use a neon color that is beyond what DTG printers can handle, the
final result might not look as expected.
Just like how different brands of crayons offer different color sets, your devices and
software also use different color spaces.
So, to get better print results, it’s important to understand the color space you’re designing
in to get more accurate print results.
For DTG printing, you can design in two color spaces—RGB or CMYK.
RGB, which stands for red, green, and blue, is used for emitted light, like from monitors,
and offers a wider range of colors than CMYK.
If you’re designing in RGB, make sure you use the RGB color space in Photoshop.
To do this, go to Edit, choose Convert to Profile, and select RGB as the profile in
the Destination Space option.
When designing in the RGB color space, you also want to ensure that the colors you pick
are within the color range of DTG printers.
You can check this by turning on the Gamut Warning feature in Photoshop by clicking View
and Gamut Warning.
With this feature, you can view and spot colors that can’t be reproduced in RGB.
It helps you avoid using colors that won’t print well.
Here’s how it appears in Photoshop.
When you’re done designing in RGB, export your design as a PNG file with the sRGB color
space.
(sRGB IEC61966-2.1)
If you design in CMYK, which stands for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, you’ll already
be designing in colors within the color range of DTG printers.
However, you’ll have to switch your design to RGB once finished and export it as a PNG
file with that same sRGB color space.
To switch from CMYK to RGB, go to Edit in the top menu, pick Convert to Profile, and
choose RGB in the Destination Space section.
Select sRGB.
No matter if you’re designing in RGB or CMYK, make sure to export your final design
as a PNG file with an sRGB color profile for the best-printed results.
To help you understand how colors appear on screen versus in print, you can order product
samples to test your designs.
Samples are crucial as they offer a tangible reference for how colors will appear when
printed.
Here’s a quick guide to ordering product samples from Printful:
Log in to your Printful account and go to the Printful Dashboard.
Click New order in the top right corner.
Choose your store (if you have more than one) and select Create your order under Test your
designs.
You’ll be directed to a page where you can either select an existing design from your
account or create a new one.
For this example, I’ll select one of my existing DTG designs by clicking here.
For optimal results in DTG printing, try testing your designs on black and white garments.
When you select a light-colored garment, your design gets printed directly onto the fabric.
However, for darker garment colors, we add a white underbase layer before applying your
design.
This ensures that your design colors pop on darker fabrics.
Testing both light and dark-colored garments will give you a full picture of how your designs
will look.
How to create custom swatches of your designs
Here’s a tip: If you want to test a wide range of colors for your designs before selling
them, consider creating a custom color swatch to print as a sample.
Make a design with squares of different color variations and include their RGB values below.
This helps you see many colors at once and provides a reference for future designs.
When ordering a product sample, test not only its main colors but also some variations to
see how they’ll look in the final print.
I’ll do just that with this design.
After receiving your product sample with the custom swatch, compare the printed colors
with those on your computer monitor.
Decide if any adjustments are needed to match your original vision.
Ok, so I got my design and color swatch on a white t-shirt and a black t-shirt with a
white under base.
As you can see, each color has its RGB value, which I can add and modify in design software
like Photoshop.
Seeing the printed design now, I realize that the yellow color of the plane didn’t turn
out as vibrant as it appeared on the screen, and the red colors of the ribbon lost contrast
because the colors ended up being too close in tone.
So now I’ll show you how to color correct based on our printed swatches.
I’ll open the original print file, which has the design on a transparent background.
Then, I’ll create a new layer where we’ll place our new colors.
Next, open your color panel to add RGB values for the new, preferred colors.
To do that, select Window and click Color.
This will bring up a color panel in your workspace.
Right now, we’re using the Hue Cube view.
To change it, click here and select RGB Sliders.
Here, you can enter the RGB values from the printed color swatch variations or adjust
them as needed.
We’ll use the paint bucket tool to apply new colors to our design.
Keep an eye on the panel that pops up when you select this tool.
Make sure the All Layers box is checked.
If not, you’ll fill the entire layer with just one color.
The same goes for the Contiguous box.
If checked, it lets you change the color within one element only.
If unchecked, you’ll adjust the color of all pixels with the same color throughout
the entire design.
The next steps are simple: choose a variant color from the color swatch that better matches
your design idea.
Put the values in the RGB color panel, then, with the paint bucket tool selected, click
on the color you want to change.
Once you’ve corrected your colors, save your project file.
Here’s the corrected result.
It’s closer to the original design, and the colors are more vibrant and noticeable.
On our screens, the colors might seem too bright or intense, but remember, these colors
are based on the RGB values from the printed color swatch.
Outro
I hope you found this video helpful and inspiring!
I’m excited to see the colorful designs you create for your online store!
Remember, if you ever need assistance with your design process, our dedicated customer
support team is here to help.
Feel free to reach out to us at support@printful.com.
See you in the next video!