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Great Dane Graphics is here for you. If any of the following information does not solve your problem, we would be happy to help answer any questions you may have.
Our phone number is (800) 829-0836, or you can e-mail us at
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. Our office hours are Monday - Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. CST.
If you reach us after hours please leave us a message or send us an e-mail so that we can contact you as soon as possible on our next business day. We make every attempt to respond to all calls and e-mails within 24 hours. If you do not get a response within that time during our usual business hours, please try to contact us again to ensure that we received your message.
While we will attempt to do everything possible to make your experience using our images a good one, please keep in mind that what we offer is a good, valid, operating art file, and that we cannot be tech support for other applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, Corel Photopaint, Painter, Corel Draw or any other application.
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Great Dane Graphics royalty free designs are especially suited for the digital printer. They can be used in direct to garment digital printing, dye sublimation, heat transfers and large format printing. Our designs are all professionally illustrated by our staff of illustrators in beautiful full color. Since there is no need to print films and burn screens, there is virtually no setup compared to screen printing.
Open your file in Photoshop. If your image looks unusual, it may be because the channels containing the spot color separations are turned on. To turn them off, open your channels palette and click on the eyeballs for all of the spot color channels and the "Do Not Print" channel.
Next, if your background color is not white, open your layers palette, and click on the background layer to highlight it.
Go to FILE MENU > SELECT > ALL.
Make sure that the foreground color that you have selected is white.
Go to FILE MENU > EDIT > FILL.
n the "Fill" dialogue box, the "Contents Use:" pop down menu should be on Foreground Color. The background color should now be white.
You can now re-save your file and open it in the program of your choice for printing.
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Our files are saved in Adobe Photoshop format, and they are already separated for you to print. The separation technique used is simulated process color (spot color). Every image will come with it's own printing spec sheet.
Follow the instructions on the spec sheet , line screen , screen angle and mesh counts etc. and you will have quality results.
The separations are designed to be printed wet-on-wet. If the image you are working with will be printed on a dark shirt and you will need to print a white base, print the white base, flash it and print the rest of the colors wet-on-wet.
You will get the best results if you strike off at least 10 pieces before your production run. One easy way to do this is to print each color, over and over on the same rag shirt or pellon. When printing, lay the screen down, print, raise screen, then repeat the process. This can be used for both manual printing and automatic printing. Do this at least 10 times with each color. This will allow for proper ink build up on the back of the screen and your run will look great.
Great Dane Graphics suggests you save your file as a DCS 2.0 (Desktop Color Separation 2) in order to print out the separations for your design. This is a special EPS file that allows "spot" channels within it. After doing so, you will be able to bring your DCS2 file into the drawing program of your choice. There, you can add type or logos to your file, and output your separations with clean, crisp vector edges
Click "download support files" tab above for further documentation
Separation Technique
All of the designs have been separated in the industry's most familiar form of printing: spot colors. We use high-end simulated process color separations, which allow you to achieve high quality results on black, white and colored garments.
Traditional halftone screens are used to reproduce the original art as close as possible.
Printing
The same set of separations can be used to print on any color shirt.
- BLACK SHIRTS - Print the white base, flash, print the other colors wet on wet, omitting the black printer.
- COLORED SHIRTS - Print the white base, flash, print the rest of the colors wet on wet including the black printer.
- WHITE SHIRTS - Omit the white base printer, print all colors wet on wet including the highlight white printer.
Highlight White Printer
If a highlight white printer is present you must print it, this is not optional. This printer mixes with the previous colors to reproduce the design more accurately and pull the whole job together. You may need to experiment with squeegee pressure and/or base down the highlight white printer only, so that the final white does not overpower or mute the image.
Line Screen Angle
We recommend that novice printers use a 45 line screen at a 61° screen angle with elliptical dots. However for those shops with experience using higher line screens, feel free to use the frequency and screen angle of your choice.
Mesh Recommendations
It's important that all screens are tensioned to the same level and that work-hardened mesh is used. A 156-160 mesh is recommended for the white base underlay. For colors, a mesh count of 230 is recommended. However, mesh counts are flexible and should be based on individual shop capabilities and preferences.
Screen Exposure
Our separations rely on the blending of colors on the press. Therefore it is important not to over or under expose your screens. Screens that are poorly exposed will result in the loss of detail and quality.
Squeegees
For best results, use a high quality sharp squeegee.
Ink
Inks must be high quality, high opacity inks. Match your ink system to the Pantone Matching System numbers on your Printing Spec Sheet. Feel free to adjust the ink colors specified if needed to yield the proper color that you desire.
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The following files are yours to download free to assist you in using our designs:
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Technical Support