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By: Anthony Palmieri
February 05, 2006

Abstract:

In these days of digital cameras, and on-line photograph development companies, individuals can be even more creative and create custom T-shirts or other cool items. Adding a personal touch into family pictures as well as other loves such as cars, and pets makes your T-shirt even more unique. If you walk around at many automotive events such as World of Wheels, New England Dragway, or NASCAR, auto enthusiast proudly wear a T-shirt that shows their interest, supporting Ford, Mopar, or Richard Petty. These shirts you see are usually mass produced. Now whether you have a Mustang, Camaro, street rod, or other custom vehicle you can proudly wear it. This article will give you some basic ideas that will help you transform your pictures into T-shirts that are different, unique and personal.

Creating Unique Automotive T-shirt Pictures

A low cost digital camera coupled with some imagination can open the door for you to create unique picture clothing with images of your family and pets all the way to your special autos and motorcycles. For a few years now the home user could use special iron-on transfer paper to print a picture on a home printer then iron it on to clothing. It looks great initially, however, it tends to be stiff, and after a few washes fades. High end T-shirt printing was expensive, and restricted to large companies that were making many many of the same T-shirt. As with most technologies, as they evolve they improve and become less expensive.

The most common technique for printing onto fabrics was silk screening, which is an expensive processes that is not cost effective for an individual looking to create only one or two shirts. A process called sublimation has gained more popularity and is available through many of the on-line development houses. Sublimation uses special inks called sublimation ink. This ink is used to print your photograph on a special transfer paper, and that along with heat, and pressure transfers the image to a variety of materials such as cotton and polyester (T-shirts ), metals, plastics, ceramics, and special high temperature plastics such as Plexiglas, Mylar or melamine. Sublimation ink is unique where it has the ability to convert from a solid to a gas without going through a liquid form moving into the fibers of the fabric. This conversion and ink transfer process creates a crisp color with a highly defined image that is very durable.

Now that you the individual, have all this capability available, what can you do with it? The basic starting point is to take a digital picture and send it as is to one of these houses to create a standard photo shirt. Lets go beyond the standard picture and create custom pieces of art for yourself that you can proudly wear.

Software packages like Adobe Photoshop have many capabilities that allow you to customize your pictures. The question often asked is well what should I do? The intent of this article is to give you a few ideas to spark your creativity and see what fits your personality. Our focus at www.PalmieriConcepts.com has been on automotive art, so we will use automobiles for examples, although these ideas can be applied to family portraits, pictures of your loving pets, and even landscapes. You can exchange the word "car" for dog, cat, boat, girlfriend, etc.

When you are taking a picture of your car, do not just think about what you see in the viewfinder, but think about the final composition. Also think about other T-shirts that you have seen and what you liked and disliked. A few questions to consider are:

1. Will the car be a stand alone in the picture?
2. Will there be multiple images of the car merged together?
3. Will there be multiple cars?
4. Will there be different elements of the car used such as emblems?
5. Can the car be used as both a background element as well as a foreground element (Car overlaid over the engine as a background.)?
6. What unique features stand out?
7. What angles will look best? (Stand on a ladder to get that down view.)
…. and the list goes on.

Taking a digital picture does not cost you anything until you print it out, so I recommend that you take many pictures at different angles, and of all key elements. Looking through the viewfinder gives you only one perspective of the final picture, however, once the image is on your computer screen your mind will open the door to an unlimited world.

Things to consider when looking and photographing a car:
1. Is there a large surface such as a sloping trunk with a minimal amount of details? If so, this may make a great background where you could overlay a side view of the car on the trunk. To add to the personalized component, keep the license place in the picture so it ties the picture to the owner.
2. Are there any distinctive features such as a massive open grill as on many pre 1965 cars? This may also make a great background to overlay a side view of the car in the grill. Keeping any logos or license plate adds to the personalized impact.
3. Many of the older cars have trim pieces that are art in themselves. Take for example a 1958 Bel Air. The front fenders and sides have bullet like trim that would make a great border.
4. Do not just focus on the exterior of the car, think about the interior. How about those detailed and distinctive dash boards and large buss like steering wheels. These also make a great backgrounds. Imagine the car centered in the steering wheel where you get a glimpse of the gages. Or for that fantasy effect for a performance car, edit the speedometer to show a high speed, and slightly blur the car to represent the speed.

The points above are general picture guidelines, but when composing a picture for print on a fabric you must remember that fabric does not have the depth and color representation of photo paper to show the details. Fabric also has a matt finish so these additional points must be kept in mind.

1. Keep the T-shirt image less busy, meaning, focus on the car image, and less of background.
2. To minimize a hard edge around a square picture, have the picture blurred or faded around the edges so it fades into the fabric, This can be done by taking a straight edge and adding 10 pixels (on a 200 DPI) of fade, or even creating an irregular outline like a irregular cloud fading into a fabric.
3. Try to make the foreground bold colors "BOLD" so the car stands out.
4. Complement the picture with some descriptive text to further personalize it, even if it is just the year of the car, or if you are lucky to have 2 of more cars, even a saying such as "Just cant have one!"
5. Lastly, remember to add that small text at the bottom with your name for the added personal touch.

This is a brief list of things to consider, and in time your mind will run with the endless possibilities. Your biggest challenge will be to weed through those ideas, do some experimenting and pick the best ones.

For some examples of what is described here, refer to www.PalmieriConcepts.com in the "Examples" and "T-shirt" sections. Look at these examples think about how you can apply these to your own work. Have fun!