Print placement and common print faults

Naming a print fault correctly decides whether a printed piece is reworked, rejected or passed

This page is for anyone who looks at a printed garment and has to decide what is wrong with it. At work, a quality technician at a print house, or a merchandiser checking an inspection report, sees a flagged piece and must say exactly which fault it shows before anyone can decide what happens next. A print fault is not one generic problem called "bad printing." It has a shape: colours out of line, a cracked ink film, ink spreading past its edge, or a print sitting in the wrong spot. Each shape has its own name and its own likely cause.

Without this skill, a flagged piece gets an unclear label like "print looks off," and nobody can decide confidently between reworking it, rejecting it, or passing it after all. Worse, the wrong diagnosis can send a fixable piece to the bin, or let a genuine fault pass because nobody named it. This lesson teaches you to read a print fault's exact shape, match it to its correct name, and use that name to make a clear rework-or-reject decision.

You need: the two main print methods, screen print and digital print, from lessons 4.1 and 4.2. You do not need the cost calculator from lesson 4.3 for this lesson.

By the end of this lesson you can:

• name four common print faults: misregistration, ink cracking, bleeding and incorrect placement;
• describe what each fault looks like and state its most likely cause;
• check a printed piece's position against a placement specification and its colours against a reference sample;
• tell bleeding and ink cracking apart, even though both can look like a printed line has gone wrong;
• use a fault's exact symptom, not a guess, to decide whether a piece is reworked, rejected or passed.

Not covered here: how the print cost calculator works (lesson 4.3), and how to combine cost, break-even quantity and fault risk into one method recommendation (lesson 4.5).

Print placement is checked against a specification, and each print fault has its own name and likely cause

Print placement is measured from fixed reference points on the garment, for example a set distance down from the shoulder seam, or centred on the chest panel, and it is always checked against the customer's placement specification. Four faults come up again and again in printed garments. Misregistration is colours not aligning, common in multi-screen screen print when screens shift. Ink cracking is the ink film breaking under stretch, often from under-curing or the wrong ink type for a stretch fabric. Bleeding is ink spreading beyond its intended edge, often from too much ink or the wrong mesh count. Incorrect placement is the print landing in the wrong position relative to the garment's reference points. Any one of these four can cause a printed piece to be rejected at inspection, so naming the correct one matters.

Four faults, and which print method each one is most tied to

The same four faults, and the same reference-point checking method, apply on any printed apparel product, whatever the garment category, since placement measurement and ink behaviour do not depend on the specific style being printed.

NilePrint checks a flagged batch of an illustrative export print order against its placement specification and reference sample

NilePrint is Rowad Knits' printing partner: Rowad Knits supplies fabric, and NilePrint prints it, with quality feedback flowing both ways between the two companies, a hybrid arrangement rather than a single company doing both jobs. NilePrint receives a batch of an illustrative export print order back from inspection, with several pieces flagged for print faults. Before deciding on rework or rejection, NilePrint's quality technician must identify which specific fault each flagged piece shows.

Matching each flagged piece's symptom to its one correct fault name is this lesson's worked output

This lesson has no order-level cost calculation; no cast figure applies to an illustrative print order. Its worked output is a correct match between each flagged piece's exact symptom and the one fault name that symptom describes, the diagnostic step NilePrint runs on every flagged piece before deciding rework or rejection.

Four steps to identify a print fault and decide rework or rejection

1. Compare the print's position against the placement specification. Measure from the same reference points the specification uses; a mismatch here points to incorrect placement.
2. Compare colours against a reference sample. Check whether each colour lines up correctly; a mismatch here points to misregistration, mainly on multi-screen screen print work.
3. Check the ink film for cracking or bleeding. Stretch the fabric slightly and look for the ink breaking into lines (ink cracking), and check whether ink extends past its printed edge (bleeding).
4. Name the one fault the mismatch describes, then decide. A placement or colour mismatch, or a damaged ink film, each has its own correct name; use that name to decide rework, rejection, or passing the piece.

A common mistake is confusing bleeding with ink cracking

A common mistake is confusing bleeding, ink spreading beyond its edge during printing, with ink cracking, the ink film breaking under stretch, often only visible once the garment is worn or stretched, not at initial inspection. The two look different once identified correctly, and they have different causes: bleeding traces to ink viscosity or the wrong mesh count during printing, while ink cracking traces to under-curing or the wrong ink type for a stretch fabric. Misdiagnosing one as the other sends the wrong process step for correction. A print house told to fix "bleeding" when the real fault was ink cracking will adjust ink viscosity or mesh count, changes that do nothing for a curing problem, and the real fault recurs on the next batch.

• Print placement is always measured from fixed reference points and checked against the customer's placement specification.
• Misregistration is colours out of line, mainly a multi-screen screen print fault; digital print prints all colours in one pass, so it does not show this fault.
• Ink cracking is the ink film breaking under stretch, often only visible after the garment is stretched or worn, not always at first inspection.
• Bleeding is ink spreading past its edge, tied to ink viscosity and mesh count, mostly on screen print.
• Incorrect placement is a positioning fault, not an ink fault, and applies equally to screen print and digital print.
• Bleeding and ink cracking look and are caused differently; fixing the wrong one leaves the real fault unresolved.

NilePrint's quality technician reviews an inspection report flagging two pieces from an illustrative export print batch

NilePrint receives an inspection report on an illustrative export print batch. Two pieces are flagged.

• Piece 1 was measured against the placement specification during inspection.
• Piece 2 was put through a stretch test as part of the same inspection.
• No colour-alignment problem was noted on either piece.
• No mention of ink spreading past its edge appears on either piece's note.

The document the technician reads, exactly as quoted:

You are the quality technician at NilePrint. What fault does each flagged piece show. Decide before opening the answer.

Print cost calculator: the fault-diagnosis columns

Lessons 4.1 to 4.3 use this workbook for print method mechanics and cost. This lesson adds a diagnosis section for any flagged piece: record the exact symptom, the fault it names, and the decision that follows.

Download the Print cost calculator (Excel)

Lesson 4.5: Choosing a print method for a given design and order size

You now know how to name a print fault correctly from what it looks like. The next lesson brings this course together: it combines print method mechanics, cost, break-even quantity and fault awareness into one recommendation for a new design and order size. Back to the course map