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This is a basic illustration tutorial combined with a practical overview of file preparation for Digital Textile Printing. After a long process of trial and error Ive developed a streamlined process for creating files for digital textile printing. This is the perfect tutorial for people wanting to learn basic file preparation and color management. Youll learn the details of prepping your vector file for digital textile printing and these skills transfer well to larger projects. Lets get started!
Introduction
Digital printing is by far one of the most exciting developments in the textile industry. Not only does it open up endless opportunities for customization, small run printing, prototyping and experimentation but it also puts textile printing within the budget of your average illustrator. Digital textile printing can reproduce unlimited colors and shades but as with most forms of printing what you see on screen is not necessarily what you get back. After a long process of trial and error Ive developed a streamlined process for creating files for digital textile printing. This is the perfect tutorial for people wanting to learn basic file preparation and color management. The skills learned from this tutorial are easily transferable to more complex designs and are simple enough for absolute beginners to start producing patterns quickly with little (to no) Illustrator experience.
Tutorial Details
Programs: Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop Version: CS4 (preferable) Difficulty: Easy Estimated Completion Time: 1-2 hours (10mins with pre-prepared artwork) Advanced users may want to use their own illustration style.
Another way to keep track of your colors is to make a color Group. To make a color Group select the colors in your swatch pallet (Command-click) then click the New color Group button at the bottom of the Swatches pane, this will open a dialogue where you can name your color Group. You can also save these swatches for later use by going to the Panel Menu in the Swatches pane and select Save Swatch Library ASE Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE swatches can be used with other adobe programs such as Photoshop). Advanced: If youre working from a pre-existing vector file you can create a swatch pallet by selecting your image and clicking the New Color Group button at the bottom of the Swatches pane, this will open the New Color Group dialogue. Name your color group and check Convert Process to Global, then click OK. To change a color Swatch to make it suitable to print, simply double-click the swatch and change the CMYK values accordingly. If your color is out of gamut (Printable color range) a warning should appear in the Swatch Options dialogue either manually change the color values yourself or click the yellow alert triangle to change it to the nearest color value thats within gamut. If youre still unsure of how your document will print or want greater accuracy of color I would suggest replacing each swatch with swatches suggested by your printing service. You can do this by loading the printers color library and choosing the colors you want to use. Replace the old swatches by holding down Alt and dragging the new color swatch on top of the color you wish to
change. This is where its important to have the swatches set to Global, as each of the colors in you image will then change to be the colors youve chosen from the library. Easy!
Step 2e Re-Color
We will now re-color the copied objects. Since each object is grouped, this should be fairly easy. Double-click the object you wish to re-color, this will take you to the objects isolation mode from there you can re-color your object without accidentally changing the other objects. To change every instance of a color to another color you can use the Magic Wand Tool (Y). First, double-click the Magic Wand icon in the Tools Pane to bring up its settings, change the Tolerance to 0 this way you will only select exact color matches. Once the color you wish to change is selected using the Magic Wand, click the color you wish to change it to in your color Library. To exit isolation mode double-click outside of the isolated objects. Repeat this process with each mirrored object.
Step 3 Arrange
Now that we have our objects, its time to arrange them on the artboard as you can see Ive added a few hearts, stars and signatures to fill the blank spaces. This layout is looking pretty good to me, but before I export it for print, I want to test my pattern. To do this first draw a square the size of the artboard with the line and fill set to None, then select the square and send it to the back (Object > Arrange > Send to Back).
With the transparent square at the back of your image, use the Selection tool (V) to click and drag a selection box around your artboard. Take the selection and drag it into the Swatches Pane. You should notice a new swatch is created, this is your pattern.
To test your pattern, draw a rectangle anywhere outside of the artboard and fill it with the pattern swatch. Remember to make the rectangle large enough to repeat the pattern a few times, this is better for detecting anything that needs to be changed.
Conclusion:
You should now have a print ready file with (almost) foolproof colors, all you need to do now is go to spoonflower.com, or your preferred printer, and upload the artwork to print