Historically, Screen Printing is one of the oldest, yet best ways of printing. Dating back to World War 1 – Americans took advantage of this up and coming industry mainly using Screen Printing in advertising mediums, flags and banners. The photographic stencil let Americans to bring screen printing to its highest level, which mainly stayed the same until the introduction of computer technology in the 80’s which made the process of screen printing much more efficient.

In the process of t-shirt Screen Printing, the screen is created using different grades of mesh or other synthetic fabrics, which is stretched over either a wood, aluminum, or retensionable frames as their main setup. The Screen is then coated with light sensitive liquid called emulsion or some use what is known as capillary film. When completely dry, this allows a stenciled image to be exposed to the area, which is covered by the emulsion or capillary film.

At this point in the t-shirt screen printing process, you are ready to expose your screen to ultra-violet light by either using a professional exposure unit, homemade light table, or as some still use our natural ultra-violet light – The Sun. To do so, most images are created graphically on the computer and outputted to transparency paper or vellum paper. Depending on the mesh count used, and amount of emulsion applied to the screen, this will determine approximately the amount of time needed to expose your screen.

Once proper screen printing exposure is obtained, it is now time to wash out the emulsion, which has been exposed with the stenciled image to the ultra-violet light. This in turn, will leave you with the exposed image you were looking to obtain. Now it is time to dry your screen in either a screen drying cabinet or in a dark dry area with low humidity.

When your screen has fully dried, it can be taken over to the press station and installed into the proper area, tightened down, and taped off. Taping around the outside and uncoated areas will ensure that no unnecessary ink passes through where you do not want it to pass through.
Special T-Shirt Screen Printers Ink is then applied to the surface and forced through the mesh screen where the stencil has been exposed to light with special squeegees. The openings on the screen determine the size and shape of the imprint that will be produced. This is determined on the screen based on the mesh count.

For T-Shirt Screen Printers Ink to adhere through the screen printing process, the ink must be heated to a certain temperature on the garment or the medium you are screen printing on. This process is called "Curing” the ink. Once the ink is heated to the proper temperature, you are good to go. The ink is usually cured by placing the garment or medium you are printing on through a heat dryer.
This should sum up the process of screen printing for in a nutshell.