Hey guys, Dave here with Transfer express, today we're talking all about transfer placement
so we're going to teach you how to nail a center chest placement every single time,
or left chest, or your sleeve prints- the common prints that everybody's using!
We're going to cover a few different methods of transfer placement and you could find which one
works for you some of them are very very quick and efficient right out of the bat
and some of them are a little bit more involved with the setup but we'll go through them and
you can find the one that works for you they vary from using zero tools to using
your hands or just your eyes and eyeballing it to using nice placement guides similar to these
or even a ruler so let's dive in and i'll show you all about how to place your transfers
all right now that we're over at our hotronix auto clam 16x20 the most important part of registering
and aligning and placing your transfers is the actual loading of your heat press so on this one
we do have the caddy stand and we're allowed to fully thread our garment on here so that looks
kind of something like this where you're going to open the shirt up
fit it completely onto the heat press and so you only are printing with the top area if your press
does not have this capability or semi threadable or not threadable at all you always can pull the
shirt off and just lay it onto the heat press so for a autoclam style or a clamshell style heat
press like this i like having the collar towards me so you have a little bit more working room
between the shirt and your heating element up here at the top all right so once we're threaded onto
the heat press it's a great idea to look down the sides on each side to make sure that if you have
a side seam it's aligned properly at the same distance all the way to the back of the platen
here we're going to make sure our collar comes off of the printing area to give us a nice complete
flat surface one of the nicest and quickest tips that we've seen used is taking your transfer
and actually folding it over and just creasing the top and the bottom here of the transfer now that's
going to give you your center line our goof proof transfers actually have this awesome grid pattern
on the back side so you're able to line it up and you can see from just the edges of the
platen because we've aligned the shirt on the platen correctly that were pretty much center
there now the first method to show you how to place a transfer just involves your fingers so
about one and a half to three inches down from collar here is about three fingers and that's
a similar industry standard for a lot of your typical center chest or full front placements
of course it's going to vary based on the garment size itself and your fingers now another method
that we could use for aligning your transfer you could take your fingers and trace along where
certain features of the shirt are now this is an awesome method for using on all different types
of sizes of shirts because you'll always nail the placement spot on for the specific size or
style you're working on so we'll start here we'll identify where our center is looking at the collar
and looking at the tag or measuring to the center line your garment or finding the center of the
press here so take that and trace the line going all the way down the front of the shirt and then
you're going to want to find where the armpits end on your shirt so we'll go from here all the
way over to the other armpit now that's going to put a center about right here now that's not where
you're going to start your transfer but that's where you're going to place the center of your
image so for an image like something similar to this where it's more of a horizontal design right
where i poked that right there we'll place the center of the image right there and if you take a
look it's just a little bit over three now that's fine because it is a very horizontal graphic
if we were to use something a little bit larger here we could trace those seams again all the
way down and our center is going to be about right there now obviously on a transfer like this that's
a little bit larger full front or a little larger center chest the center of this transfer obviously
is not going to work so for something like this you're going to want to definitely adjust
here but you don't want to go too low knowing that your center of the image should be about here
and anything else is going to be pushing a little bit lower so this is one instance where you're not
necessarily going to use fingers and you're not going to use this as an absolute center point
for your image but adjust accordingly we're going to be about just an inch down from the collar not
pushing this graphic too low and still keeping it safe now this is a little bit slower but with
practice you could get very efficient and the benefit of this is on any garment size you know
exactly where the center placement should be and then adjust accordingly obviously you don't want
to be printing on the collar or off of the top of the shirt all right our next method is a little
bit more accurate and you're either going to be using these guides that are available from tons of
places on the internet or just a regular ruler now this is an awesome quick guide to make sure that
you are centered they make these in a whole bunch of different sizes ranging from adult to toddler
the infant even tiny tiny ones and the youth so as you can see just kind of like we previously
talked about these vary based on the depth from the collar line to the top of the artwork
based on the size of what it is you can see how the youth lines up and then the toddler lines
up and even the infant gets closer and closer to the collar from the print area so now with
our two different methods here i'm going to show you how to use these and they're very very easy
so if we're going to be going one and a half to three inches down from collar obviously just a
ruler place there we know exactly where three inches down from collar is and we could go ahead
and place our transfer right there now we know we're on center line and then you could easily
just pull the ruler away and you know you're right there ready to press perfectly and judging
by the three finger rule again we're right in that same exact range if you want to see here
even when we're doing three inches you could hold up the seams and know we're right in the center
of the transfer going from armpit to armpit now to use this one we're going to move the shirt
up a little bit onto the platen so at least we have a good indication of the collar shape
to align the actual placement guide so we'll go ahead and place this right on here with the bottom
of the collar we'll go ahead and get our transfer and as you can see we have just a little bit of
room from the top of the artwork to this transfer sheet so we're just going to overlap a little bit
now we can line it up based on where our transfer center is and then you can see here too
on each side that it is aligned pretty spot on with the bottom of the armpit and
again three fingers down from collar which is one and a half to three inches so we'll just hold the
transfer where it is and we'll remove the guide before we press and just for this because we did
put the collar onto the platen as everything's already aligned we'll just back it off slightly
and nothing's moving too much on there and then we'll go ahead and press it alright now if you're
using one of these methods it takes a lot of the guesswork out of actually placing your transfer
which is awesome but if you're doing large runs it could actually increase your time by up to a
minute per shirt and if you're doing 100 shirts that's 100 extra minutes that you're adding to
each shirt you're pressing it may not be the best efficient option if you're doing those larger runs
if you're just starting out and want to make sure your prints are spot on every time this is
a great method find what works best for you but let's move on and i'll show you laser alignment
so now that we're over here at our dual fusion iq we're going to play with some lasers so lasers
are a little bit different of a setup than what we've looked at before for alignment however we're
going to mix and match a few styles as you can see we have the hotronix laser alignment wizard
currently on the press now now this helps you line up stuff for center or top front top back
left chest and a 15 degree angle print if you're doing like a script and tail so this already is
really easy to lay on a full size platen a 16 by 20 and align your lasers properly you can
see how everything aligns great on it and it even shows you where your collar and your tag should
sit which is great however it does take a little bit of time to set up but once you get it set up
you can get rolling you just have to make sure that you're aligning your garment on the platen
itself correctly every single time before you're placing your artwork so let's take a closer look
all right so as you can see on this print this is exactly how we would line up one print and be able
to position all of them now it does vary based on how you load your garment so you want to make sure
your garments loaded correctly every time which is awesome for the center seam to be lined up
directly with your tag as you have it here but as you can see where we have this laser line placed
right here it's perfectly three fingers down from the bottom of collar these kinds of placements
will help for any kind of placement or if you're going to use the techniques that we described
earlier if you're basing from off where the armpit seams are you could draw a laser line right there
or if you're doing a left chest you could align it right here where this one is aligned with the
edge of the collar and you could draw that line here an inch or two up from the armpit seam here
and you can place your left chest right there perfect every single time so alternatively for
your specific application you could set this up to align almost anything you need so you could use
it to draw the imaginary lines how we had talked about earlier steps from down from the bottom of
the collar where the collar meets the garment here to the center line and then one right here about
two to three inches up from the armpit sleeve to put us right there exactly where our center
of our graphic will be so we'll go ahead and take our left chest print and align it right there on
the lasers we'll move it down just a little bit and right there we're going to have spot on left
chest placement let's go back to the studio and show all of the methods that we just showed you
in actual application practice so now that we're back here in the studio i want to show you
a few different placements and utilize some of the methods that we saw so without further ado
let's throw a collared polo onto the press here and i'll show you exactly how perfect alignment
would work so here on polos a good rule of thumb to nail that placement now this does vary based
on different garments is go by the bottom most button now most of these have two or three buttons
we have one unbuttoned here but these will have three buttons go by the bottom most button and
that's going to be one of your perfect alignment here you could use where the collar seam meets
and goes straight down and that's going to be where the center line of this print should be
on regular t-shirts you could use this as your guide on polos you could also use this as your
guide we'll align with the second button down and we'll have that perfectly printed
now for heat printing here with the left chest print you definitely don't want to be printing
with these seams the collar and the button here so all we're going to do is slip a mouse pad right
up underneath there and that's going to raise that print area we could also
move it so that we slide off and get this collar right off the plate now you're going
to have a nice raised printing area that's going to keep these buttons out of the way
you could also measure if you want to be spot on perfect for a regular adult medium
it's going to be about seven and a half to nine inches down so right here we're right
in the middle at eight inches from the top seam down to the middle of the graphic now that's not
going to change based on kind of what you're going to be doing here if it is just one name
we recommend being on the top line if you're going to be here so if you're using this exactly where
this one is placed pretty much put that right on the top of the line don't center it on that line
and of course we're going from where the collar meets this button things look way different when
they're flat versus when they are on a mannequin or a body so that is a large part of placing your
artwork if you are unsure at any time of where something looks or after you've printed it it
looks low or looks high go ahead and throw the shirt on or throw it on your friends or family
or anybody who could fit the shirt to see where it's going to be placed we have our friend marcus
the mannequin here and let's throw this shirt on marcus to see exactly where this one's placed
so as you can see here on marcus this polo coming straight down from the collar goes right to the
graphic aligning with the second button on most polos or golf shirts or you could use it based
on the bottom of the actual armpit but moving up by about two inches two fingers three fingers up
from that puts the bottom of the graphic exactly where it needs to be on this specific graphic now
for the back of a hoodie you do not want to use the typical three fingers or even how we have our
guide here for the three inches down from the collar because as you can see this prints much
lower but on the back of a hoodie you want this to be lower because you have to account for the hood
being worn down you don't want it to completely cover the graphic when you're wearing the hood
down and you're not you don't have the hood over your head so as we go here obviously this
will not work so we'll remove this my rule of thumb and kind of on the industry standard is
going at least five inches down depending on what the graphic is so if we look here
we'll go five inches down right to the top of the artwork to allow this to not be covered when we're
wearing the hoodie itself so let's get this over to marcus and i'll show you exactly how it looks
now that we're back here on our mannequin this is exactly why you should be putting that down about
five inches from the bottom of the hood seam so as somebody's actually going to be wearing this
you could see where that hood's really going to lay and while you're covering up a little bit of
the graphic that's okay even lower would be better that's perfect for if you're placing numbers or
names on the back of hoodies it's the number one mistake we see people putting names up
where they would typically on a regular jersey where the hood completely covers the name you do
want to put those down a little bit lower so it is that five to six inches down from that hood seam
to completely avoid getting covered by the hood all right now we'll talk about
placing a print on the sleeve now most garments when you get them will have some sort of seam
right down the center line of the outside of the sleeve this is awesome use for placement
and you don't need to do anything you go right off this where this top seam comes
down trace it right to the bottom cuff here on the short sleeve t-shirt and you could print
so for a press like this you absolutely could take one of the mouse pads raise the area up and thread
this on in here so that you're away from the seams and you're able to print now you kind of have to
get a little tricky with how you want to balance it or get it up here and adjust your pressure
accordingly as you place this here but if you have one of our new tag along clinton's i'm going to
show you a pretty cool trick that you could use with that plan so you can totally perfectly print
with the mouse pad and a regular 16 by 20 platen just like i showed you but i absolutely love the
tag along platen and every single week we find cool things that our community is doing with it
so you could just take the seam as we talked about earlier and if you do have the tag along platen
and or another reason to get yourself a tag along platen is you could just go ahead and fit this
right up on this tag area and you could easily without changing any press setup set this up
so that seam that i was talking about we just want to make sure it's centered in the print
area let's go ahead and preheat our garment three to five seconds so go ahead and take our print
now a guide for placement is we're always going to want to keep it at least one finger length
or two finger lengths up from this sleeve you don't want it too high as it could go up almost
to the shoulder depending on where the actual shoulder seam ends up on the garment so we'll
just go ahead and place this one down one finger down from this sleeve and we're ready to press it
goof proof is a hot peel so we're immediately gonna peel this one boom nice and easy coming
off a perfect application and a nice soft screen print and look how beautiful that looks centered
up right on that seam and just like that you have an absolutely perfect sleeve print thank
you guys so much for watching i hope you learned how to make perfect transfer placements at least
for our standard locations if you want to see specialty locations in the future go ahead and
drop a comment below also if you have your own tips that you want to share we would love to hear
them from you just please comment below if you're not subscribed go ahead and click that subscribe
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at transfer express we are absolutely floored by your dedication to bettering yourself
and learning and building your business we are here to support you in any way we can
so that's what we're all about education and inspiration to get you
the maximum return on your t-shirt business but until next time i'm dave and happy pressing guys