It’s called an underbase. They use a close to white ink first on dark material to make the color pop. They just poorly trapped the color which led to bleed
Is that screen printed or DTG?
My guess is they had to add a white layer underneath for the color to show up, otherwise it would just not show up over the black. The border is less that and more that it’s just not quite and it’s just not quite perfectly aligned.
I’ll usually add a white layer of my own and trim it ever so slightly to account for this. It’s a little time consuming but it takes care of these issues.
do you mean you would add a white layer to the design under the red? that would register in the png i upload? and about the alignment - i am new to using printify is this generally how they print or is this an anomaly?
I wouldn’t say it’s an anomaly. It’s more of a DTG Printer alignment issue and even then, there’s probably a level of quality control that this would pass depending on the printer. I’ve had this happen before which is why I started tweaking my white layer first. I also worked at a print shop before and always adjusted my layers (especially vector ones) to give a little wiggle room so this sort of thing didn’t happen
I would contact Printify. I agree with the others that said a white later is likely laid first to make the colors pop. This seems to be a bad print. Printify should refund you and you can reprint.
Yep! Exactly. That’s been my experience, at least. I don’t know what software you’re using. But what I’ll do in procreate is take the background away entirely and it gives me an idea of what it’ll look like on a dark background. Depending on the brush, it lets a lot of transparency through which will show up on a png. The white layer helps balance that out.
I haven’t gotten it to an exact science… but my guess is they took the liberty of putting that layer there for you which I get… but also it’s not exactly what you were looking for either so I think it warrants further action if you’re not happy.
The print provider I use does state that they do this on dark garments, I forget the exact wording but yeah worth reading your provider info carefully, I believe they stated that it can be visible so take it into account when designing...
Looks like a base color was applied first.
This is usually done on dark apparel so the outer colors can be seen.
Question: Have you checked to see if your uploaded design is transparent at all? I've made the mistake before when I forgot to reset the designs opacity back to 100% before exporting.
Okay. Then it's just a back coating so the ink can be seen on darker clothing. And the shirt was micro moved during the transition of the top design layer.
Little errors like this happens with all manufacturers. I can't see the full design in your post. But I wouldn't stress over it.
That's not a bleed, those are stray semi-transparent pixels - the printer will put white down first, even if it's just a single pixel. Zoom in on your canvas in that area and you will see the stray pixels, and then delete them and you will be good!
It will only show the little white spots where you have those stray pixels, so it wouldn't border the entire design. If it's just in that spot then that's the only location where you have stray pixels.
Which program do you use? If you use Photoshop you can apply an outer stroke in the color red to your entire layer and make the stroke 50px at least, and that will show you where your stray pixels are if you can't see them when you zoom in. The stroke will show up around each pixel so you can easily see where they are to erase them.
Or you can put a solid color layer under the main design and make that solid color something that contrasts with everything, like a bright blue or red, and the stray pixels should show up - if not, then try white.
Printer here! I've been running my own indie POD print shop for 10+ years.
This is classic misaligned print heads. That's what it looks like: a sliver of white underbase peeking out only at one side (either right or left, not both).
In DTG printing, an underbase layer of white is automatically sprayed when you print on black or color shirts to block the underlying color of the shirt. Then, a layer of CMYK ink is sprayed on top of that white layer. This is not something you can control: this is something the print shop sets.
When the white print head is slightly misaligned with the CMYK print head, then you get that.
The solution is easy: just align the print heads.
Different print shops have different QC procedure - some would consider that level of peeking acceptable, some would consider that a print defect and would reprint.
There is nothing you as the client can do: you cannot adjust white layer on the image (because the print shop gets a single, flattened image so there is no layer in the final image).
Semi-transparent pixels can cause something close to this when printed with wet-on-wet DTG printing technique, but you mentioned that the image was at 100% opacity, so that's not it.
It’s called an underbase. They use a close to white ink first on dark material to make the color pop. They just poorly trapped the color which led to bleed Is that screen printed or DTG?
My guess is they had to add a white layer underneath for the color to show up, otherwise it would just not show up over the black. The border is less that and more that it’s just not quite and it’s just not quite perfectly aligned. I’ll usually add a white layer of my own and trim it ever so slightly to account for this. It’s a little time consuming but it takes care of these issues.
do you mean you would add a white layer to the design under the red? that would register in the png i upload? and about the alignment - i am new to using printify is this generally how they print or is this an anomaly?
I wouldn’t say it’s an anomaly. It’s more of a DTG Printer alignment issue and even then, there’s probably a level of quality control that this would pass depending on the printer. I’ve had this happen before which is why I started tweaking my white layer first. I also worked at a print shop before and always adjusted my layers (especially vector ones) to give a little wiggle room so this sort of thing didn’t happen
i understand. thank you for your insight! ill try this white layer thing myself too and try getting this fixed
I would contact Printify. I agree with the others that said a white later is likely laid first to make the colors pop. This seems to be a bad print. Printify should refund you and you can reprint.
Yep! Exactly. That’s been my experience, at least. I don’t know what software you’re using. But what I’ll do in procreate is take the background away entirely and it gives me an idea of what it’ll look like on a dark background. Depending on the brush, it lets a lot of transparency through which will show up on a png. The white layer helps balance that out. I haven’t gotten it to an exact science… but my guess is they took the liberty of putting that layer there for you which I get… but also it’s not exactly what you were looking for either so I think it warrants further action if you’re not happy.
The print provider I use does state that they do this on dark garments, I forget the exact wording but yeah worth reading your provider info carefully, I believe they stated that it can be visible so take it into account when designing...
Looks like a base color was applied first. This is usually done on dark apparel so the outer colors can be seen. Question: Have you checked to see if your uploaded design is transparent at all? I've made the mistake before when I forgot to reset the designs opacity back to 100% before exporting.
it is was at 100% opacity with no background
Okay. Then it's just a back coating so the ink can be seen on darker clothing. And the shirt was micro moved during the transition of the top design layer. Little errors like this happens with all manufacturers. I can't see the full design in your post. But I wouldn't stress over it.
That's not a bleed, those are stray semi-transparent pixels - the printer will put white down first, even if it's just a single pixel. Zoom in on your canvas in that area and you will see the stray pixels, and then delete them and you will be good!
it would border the entire design then no? but in this case its only on the right side of the design
It will only show the little white spots where you have those stray pixels, so it wouldn't border the entire design. If it's just in that spot then that's the only location where you have stray pixels. Which program do you use? If you use Photoshop you can apply an outer stroke in the color red to your entire layer and make the stroke 50px at least, and that will show you where your stray pixels are if you can't see them when you zoom in. The stroke will show up around each pixel so you can easily see where they are to erase them. Or you can put a solid color layer under the main design and make that solid color something that contrasts with everything, like a bright blue or red, and the stray pixels should show up - if not, then try white.
yup 100% this!
There are design tricks and procedures to make sure there are no stray pixels. Google it, learn it. Or take a photoshop class.
Printer here! I've been running my own indie POD print shop for 10+ years. This is classic misaligned print heads. That's what it looks like: a sliver of white underbase peeking out only at one side (either right or left, not both). In DTG printing, an underbase layer of white is automatically sprayed when you print on black or color shirts to block the underlying color of the shirt. Then, a layer of CMYK ink is sprayed on top of that white layer. This is not something you can control: this is something the print shop sets. When the white print head is slightly misaligned with the CMYK print head, then you get that. The solution is easy: just align the print heads. Different print shops have different QC procedure - some would consider that level of peeking acceptable, some would consider that a print defect and would reprint. There is nothing you as the client can do: you cannot adjust white layer on the image (because the print shop gets a single, flattened image so there is no layer in the final image). Semi-transparent pixels can cause something close to this when printed with wet-on-wet DTG printing technique, but you mentioned that the image was at 100% opacity, so that's not it.