White Smudgy Areas Printed On Design... Why?
Look at this example of what was thought to be print machine error. Notice the 'smudgy' areas.
Here is the design exactly as it looked before print.
To the naked eye everyone would think what in the world happened to the 'glow' areas. Why the bad looking 'smudges'? Did not print at all like you would think it should.
Problem is with digital printed art computers only understand what information is reads. Information (Data) In = Information (Data) Out.
So what happened to this design?
On all colored garmets (other than white) the print machine will initially lay down what's called a white base print and then print the colors (CMYK) and a 2nd white (highlight white). So anything that is white is basically printed twice so it will be a bright white and pop off the shirt.
This design printed the 'smudge looking' areas because there actually is white in those places of the artwork. Albeit very light...it is there. The print machine will read and print anything it knows to be there...even down to 1 x 1 pixel at 10% opacity.
A good prcatice is to check the artwork by placing a 1 pixel stroke on your layer. This will show you if there is any color in the art that cannot be visually seen on the screen. This way you can delete or erase the areas you do not want printed.
Here is an example of what the design above looks like with a red stroke added. Pretty crazy...huh?
So...use the stroke trick and your designs should always print exactly like you want it to print.
