Screenprinting, silkscreening, or serigraphy is a printmaking technique that creates a sharp-edged image using a stencil. A screenprint or serigraph is an image created using this technique.

Screenprinting began as an industrial technology, and was adopted by American graphic artists in the early 1900s. It is currently popular both in fine arts and in commercial printing, where it is commonly used to print images on T-shirts, hats, CDs, DVDs, ceramics, glass, polyethylene, polypropylene, paper, metals, and wood.

T-Shirt Printing Step-by-Step

STEP 1
CREATE FILM POSITIVE
Clip-Art and sophisticated design programs enable our experts to create professional designs using computers and laser printers. A Film Positive is then created by printing each color of the design onto a piece of translucent film or paper. Computer Software breaks full color images apart automatically.

STEP 2
EXPOSE SCREEN
The film positive transfers your image to the screen. The film must be put in contact with an emulsion-coated screen and exposed to UV light. It is important to have good film-to-screen contact and precise control of exposure time.

STEP 3
DEVELOP OR RECLAIM SCREEN
The exposed screen is developed with water. This removes the emulsion where the positive image was on the film, making a stencil that ink passes through when it is time for printing. We can re-use screens by reclaiming (removing) the stencil after a job is printed.

STEP 4
REGISTER SCREEN AND PRINT GARMENTS
Screens are registered by aligning the image on each screen to the film positive that has been taped to one of the pallets. After the screens are clamped in place, micro-registration adjustment is used for final alignment and print.

STEP 5
FLASH CURE
To get a bright, opaque image on dark colored garments, it is often necessary to flash cure or partially cure the ink and then print another layer on top. This print, flash-cure, print technique is also used for multi-color printing on dark garments.

CURE PRINTED GARMENT
The last step is to fully cure the ink with a conveyor dryer. Getting the proper ink-cure is the key to a long lasting image.