Design for apparel printing?

Post questions on how to use or achieve an effect in Inkscape.
iamshawnrice
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2008 6:08 am

Design for apparel printing?

Postby iamshawnrice » Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:03 am

Hello.

I am trying to format some designs to be printed on shirts/hats/etc...

I have a black and white design that I would like to prepare to be printed on black cloth.

I would like to alter the design so the black parts of the design are transparent, so only the white parts (the negative space) is printed on the apparel.

Any ideas?
Attachments
tps b&w.png
tps b&w.png (112.48 KiB) Viewed 2050 times

User avatar
prkos
Posts: 1625
Joined: Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:45 am
Location: Croatia

Re: Design for apparel printing?

Postby prkos » Sat Jan 24, 2009 6:23 am

What format is this? Since it's probably raster, not vector, you should use a raster application like GIMP. There you can use Threshold function to select only black parts and then you can probably just cut them out. Don't forget to add alpha channel to the image when you open it in GIMP, but you don't need to do it if you duplicate it and work on the duplicate layer while switching the original one off.

Or maybe you used Inkscape to draw this?
just hand over the chocolate and nobody gets hurt

Inkscape Manual on Floss
Inkscape FAQ
very comprehensive Inkscape guide
Inkscape 0.48 Illustrator's Cookbook - 109 recipes to learn and explore Inkscape - with SVG examples to download

User avatar
heathenx
Posts: 388
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:51 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Design for apparel printing?

Postby heathenx » Sat Jan 24, 2009 11:03 am

Why not just trace the bitmap in Inkscape? Check the remove background option, 2 colors, 8 scans or less, change the color white and put on a black background. ;)

In Gimp you could select according to color and take the selection to the alpha channel.

User avatar
EarlyBlake
Posts: 302
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:42 pm

Re: Design for apparel printing?

Postby EarlyBlake » Sat Jan 24, 2009 10:58 pm

heathenx wrote:Why not just trace the bitmap in Inkscape? Check the remove background option, 2 colors, 8 scans or less, change the color white and put on a black background. ;)

In Gimp you could select according to color and take the selection to the alpha channel.


With all those little fringes and circles, I think tracing would result in so many nodes inkscape would crawl to a stop. Gimp or even photoshop elements probably a better choice. The magic wand in elements is better than the one in gimp.

User avatar
heathenx
Posts: 388
Joined: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:51 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Design for apparel printing?

Postby heathenx » Sat Jan 24, 2009 11:27 pm

Tracing this particular image doesn't slow down Inkscape. See the below file.

faces.svg

User avatar
EarlyBlake
Posts: 302
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 5:42 pm

Re: Design for apparel printing?

Postby EarlyBlake » Sat Jan 24, 2009 11:53 pm

heathenx wrote:Tracing this particular image doesn't slow down Inkscape. See the below file.

faces.svg



Hum 2145 nodes. I figure it would have more. There is some lose of detail. I guess it depends. Is he going to make T-Shirts for fat people with a big print and lost of detail or just skinny people :lol:

iamshawnrice
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2008 6:08 am

Re: Design for apparel printing?

Postby iamshawnrice » Sun Jan 25, 2009 7:37 am

Mostly just skinny people :P

This image was originally drawn with crayons, with multiple colors. I used Gimp to convert it to black and white.

Then I used the threshold to set it to only two colors.

The the color selection tool to select all black.

Then the good old delete key did the trick.

Thanks for the help.

Check out thepolitesociety.net for a glimpse into what this is all about.


Return to “Help with using Inkscape”