I was asked to make this tutorial specifically to help with the building of a Cafepress.com shop. This tutorial covers how to build a graphic so that it can be printed on a t-shirt by a professional printer such as cafepress. Psp 8 has a great help area on making a single t-shirt on your own home printer so you should check there for that version of t-shirt making.

Graphics that are to be printed should be made at 300 dpi. The file you make will be large so be prepared for that. This size is for a t-shirt. To add a different cafepress item, you will need to go add the product and see what the image dimensions are. Every item has that so you know what size in inches you need to make your graphic and remember that dpi is ALWAYS 300 dpi.

Tip: White is the transparent color so consider that when making your graphic. In this graphic the white background will not be seen.

1 - Click File > New. Set options as follows:

Units: Inches
Width: 10
Height: 12
Resolution: 300
Raster Background: checked
Color Depth: 16 million (24 bit)
Transparent: unchecked
Choose Color White in the Color box

Click OK to accept.

Use the Pan tool (arrow icon) to get your screen view where you can see the entire graphic. I work at about 10% of the actual view so I can see the entire graphic while I work on it. Zoom in or out until you get comfortable.

The saying I've been asked to add to a T-Shirt is:

I can please one person at a time and today is NOT your day!

2 We first need to choose a color for our text. Click on the background box on the materials palette and set the color as #000080.

3 - Now we need to add our text. Click the text tool (the A icon) to make it active. Set the options as follows:

Create as: Vector
Font: Comic Sans MS
Size: 300
Stroke-Width: 0.0
anti-alias: checked
Alignment: center
Font-style: Bold

Tip: If you highlight the text in the entry box you can change the options before you apply. It saves a lot of undo's!

To center everything click Objects > Align > Center in canvas.

4 - Merge all the layers down. Click Layers > Merge > Merge All.

5 - We need to save our graphic. Click File > Export > JPEG Optimizer. Set options as follows: Quality Tab:
Set Compression Value to: 1
Save Exif data: unchecked
Chroma Subsampling: Set to None (there is one that has none at the end in parentheses)

Format Tab:
Standard: checked

Click OK to accept it all. Give it a name and hit Save.

The graphic is ready to be uploaded to cafepress.com and added to a shirt. Here is the finished shirt: