From prompt to press
AI art has become the new napkin sketch
By Lon Winters
There are times we realize that technology has evolved, but the job really hasn’t. A client is proud of something they’ve created and can’t wait to get it on a shirt. Maybe 30 or 40 years ago, it might have been a scribble on a bar napkin or pencil sketch. Five or 10 years ago, it may have been something they found online. Today, many times, it’s an image generated with artificial intelligence. Whether we’re AI enthusiasts or skeptics doesn’t matter because customers are using these tools. We still aren’t sure how we feel about it. They don’t see compression artifacts, muddy shadows, impossible lighting or infinite color transitions. It’s today’s digital equivalent of the bar napkin. Our job is not to debate how the art was created. It is, simply, to make it printable.
Rocky Mountain Honors Camp (RMHC) recently brought us this challenge. RMHC is a faith-based camp for middle and high schoolers filled with Bible study, worship, games, competitions, and lifelong friendships. Every summer they order shirts for campers and staff. Previous designs had been simple and basic. This year, however, someone was playing with AI. They proudly provided a file of an illustration featuring a galloping horse, a flowing American flag, a soaring eagle, and an illuminated cross. Regardless of where the artwork originated, they loved it.
Images courtesy of Lon Winters
As is often the case with AI artwork, the image looked wonderful but wasn’t production ready. It arrived as a simple rectangular composition that looked like a post card. A big rectangle printed on a shirt looks glued, and that’s not a great look. After an upscale to size at 300 DPI in Adobe Photoshop, the image underwent a makeover before we went to separations. To add an edge treatment to break up the shape we used textured brushes for an irregular distressed border to lift the art off the background.
AI illustrations often contain lighting, shadows, highlights, and color transitions that look beautiful on a monitor, tablet, or phone but become problematic for printing. Using Levels, Curves, and Selective Color adjustments, we tried to maintain depth throughout while preserving the warm brown tones of the horse. The reds in the flag were strengthened while trying not to oversaturate the entire image, while the blue field behind the eagle was adjusted to delineate it from the darker shadows. We opened up the area around the cross while keeping the brightest highlights. We knew that relying on ink to create light and shadow rather than a backlit monitor would have its limitations. The goal wasn’t to make the image better, but rather to make it at least printable.
The line of copy beneath, “One Flag, One Country, One Savior – 2026,” was built in Adobe Illustrator. Rasterized type, particularly from AI, doesn’t have crisp edges, but recreating the type as vector remedied that. Rather than attempting to reduce the full-color illustration to left chest size, we created a simple vector type solution that was clean and readable.
Once Photoshop optimization was completed, we moved separation. Simulated process was the choice because of the continuous tone imagery. Normally, we automatically think black shirts because that’s where our sim process printing shines. Super contrast, no black screen needed, predictable transitions, neutral grayscale, and color influence, shadows fade into the black fabric and highlights jump. This project turned our usual assumptions upside down. Out of 300 shirts, only seven were black. Purple, green, cardinal, navy, and gold. The black shirt wasn’t the resource it normally is. Colored garments have influence on the final print. Transitions behave differently. Color balance shifts. The garment color participates in the image. While separating using channels on black would still be standard operating procedure, we would need to create a black screen — not only for the black areas, but also for the shadows. Almost the reverse of the white printer or base plate. Essentially, we built a gray scale under the colors.
Halftone frequencies and screen angles were selected at 55 LPI and 22.5 degrees. The screens were imaged using computer to screen (CTS) and were all tensioned to 45 N/cm2. The sequence began with a smoothing screen followed by black through an N-228 threads per inch (TPI) mesh, then the white printer on an N-166 before the first flash. Another smoothing station knocked down the fibers on the surface before brown, royal, red, and gold were printed on N-272s. A second flash was followed by the highlight white on an N-228. The most difficult piece on press was the highlight white. We call it a blending white. Too much and the image became pasty. Too little and the stars ’n’ stripes and the burst surrounding the cross didn’t pop. The ink was reduced 50%, and to get it right, squeegee pressure, speed, angle, and durometer were all adjusted.
AI didn’t eliminate any of the technical challenges. In fact, it created a few new ones. Artificial intelligence generated an interesting concept, but it didn’t determine how it would work on six different garment colors. Technology continues to change the tools we use, but craftsmanship remains constant. Customers will create AI generated images, but they’ll still depend on experienced decorators to transform them into decorated apparel.
When production was complete, 300 shirts were boxed and ready for camp. It may not have been our very best work, but most importantly, the customer loved them. Campers won’t care about the highlight white adjustments. They’ll remember wearing those shirts during worship, competitions, campfire conversations, and friendships that will last long after the ink has cured. Whether the artwork began as a sketch on a napkin or an AI prompt doesn’t matter. The process remains what it’s always been.
Lon Winters is founder and president of Colorado-based Graphic Elephants, an apparel decorating studio and international consulting firm. He was inducted into the Academy of Screen and Digital Printing Technologies in 2013 and is widely recognized for his contribution to the graphic printing industry. Learn more at graphicelephants.com.
