Types of Screen Printing

Standard or Athletic Screen Printing

This is the most common type of screen printing usually requested by schools, organizations or companies. This type of print is done with standard plastisol ink and is popular on t-shirts, sweat shirts, bags, aprons, hoodies and more.  This type of print is thick, opaque and durable. The majority of shirts are printed this way.

Discharge and Water basedScreen Printing

Printing with discharge and water basedinks has become very popular over the last several years.  Discharge is a process in which a bleach like chemical is used instead of ink. This chemical will remove the color from 100% cotton garment on which it is printed, to return the it to the natural color.  This creates a very unique look and has no "hand." Meaning, one cannot feel the print on the shirt.  Discharge can also be mixed with color pigmentsto remove the shirt's color and replace it with any desired color.  Both discharge and water based inks are environmentally friendly products that do not require harmful chemicals to clean, and are biodegradable.

Four Color Process Screen Printing

We call it 4cp or cmyk for short. This print style uses only 4 colors to achieve a color gamut of thousands of different colors.  Cyan, Magenta Yellow and Black all combine to produce brilliant full color images. This style is primarily printed onto white shirts. This is a very precisetype of screen printing and in order to achieve excellent results we must start with very high quality artwork and pre-press and production must be held to the tightest tolerances possible. T-Shirt Charity is very unique in the fact that we specialize in printing 4cp on both white and all colored garments as well as bags and fleece products.  After years of research and trial and error we have developed a system that ensures high quality accurate results.  Samples below are actual photos of printed goods, not graphic mock ups.

Simulated Process Screen Printing

Simulated process screen printing is a process that usually uses 5-8 colors to achieve a very broad range of colors. This process is used on both light and dark colored shirts, but is usually used on dark colored shirt to achieve a full color or photographic style image. Simulated Process screen printing is a precise method of printing that requires the printing of very fine halftone dots that combine to form different colors and images.For example if you need to print orange you can mix the red an yellow to achieve this color.