How to Efficiently Merge Graphics for T-Shirt Combinations?

[DavidH UwS]

I would start by saying I am very new to the Adobe ecosystem and I'm not sure where to be asking this question.  My 14 year old daughter has a little tshirt business.  We have built a website & have doens of categories that each have 50-100 different graphics.  We have 7 colours of garments & 5 different garments.

We are looking to take the graphic & apply it to the 35 different combinations of colours & garments and then repeat that process across 4,000 graphics. 

 Kind of something like this.  We are trying to figure out if there is a way to automate this & are struggling with it.  Hoping for some advice/direction.

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[Frans v.d. Geest]

You need Photoshop, not InDesign.

[DavidH UwS]

THank you I'll ppost in that group.  We have used Photoshop to change names of files in bulk so this makes sense.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Photoshop is indeed the correct Adobe/general graphics tool for this.

As far as generating vast matrixes of product variations, though, I'd look for a dynamic solution of some sort, something that will combine a graphic of GARMENT A, apply color overlay BLUE and then lay in GRAPHIC A-247. Or such. The idea of creating a 1:1 database and trying to manage that with anything but a commercial website/CRM-like platform seems... overwhelming. I believe, but am not sure, that platforms such as Magento and sales portals for WordPress can manage this. Maybe not.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@DavidH UwS

If you work on Windows - my ID-Tasker tool would do it easily - but it's not free. 

You could start with creating one PSD file with all colors and kinds of garments and then another PSD file with all graphics. 

Or you can split colors and kinds of garments into two PSD files. 

Then it's easy - my ID-Tasker tool can create all possible combinations - or it can make only required combinations - it would be up to you. 

The generated combos - can be automatically uploaded to your FTP server - your website. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You would want to do this in a website builder--otherwise you would need to produce 140,000 different graphics. 

Build your graphics and garments separately. Float the graphics over the choice of garment.

That way, you are only building your 4000 graphics and 35 garments. 

(You will still want to use Photoshop to create the graphics in PNG format.)

Ideally, I would use a prefab shopping site that offers this feature. Otherwise, you will need to learn the code (Google...).

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Still not convinced it's worth even that much effort. Exhaustively showing garment, color and graphic is not going to advance the buyer experience over a much more compressed display of maybe one glamor shot and then just color BG shots with the graphic overlaid.

Not for what appears to be a garage-based effort — at least, it's not LL Bean or Cafe Press.