Here goes. (You might want to grab a cup of coffee or something; I tend to get lengthy in my responses....) When images are being printed for a magazine or other off-set lithographic imagery, the print-shop uses a different set of terminology entirely for resolution: lines. In my experience producing images for that sort of printwork, 300 DPI is often adequate, although some publishers want 600, and others some odd number. Best bet is to ask the publisher what their standards are. As for CMYK, the whole purpose of using Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black is to be able to re-create any color in the spectrum. Of course, this is not always possible, but it's a pretty good approximation. Some print jobs will employ CMYK plus a "spot color," which is a specifically mixed color of ink that would be difficult to duplicate by usual CMYK means. These are often referred to by their "pantone" number. Pantone is a company that makes printing ink (for offset print-shops), and developed standard pigment ratios for printers to use to ensure the exact same color every run. Programs like Photoshop and PageMaker can use the pantone number to identify colors you're using in your layout. Colors not matching from monitor to printout. It's a vexing problem and there's no real easy answer. It's usually easier to adjust your monitor to match the printer's output than the other way around. I read an article in PC Photo a year or two ago that suggested printing out a set of color bars and then spending time adjusting your monitor to match the output. That way, you'll know what colors you're going to get. The darkness issue may be from your monitor's adjustment, the absorption characteristics of the media (iron-on transfer, in this case) you've printed on, the color of the T-shirt you've transferred to, etc. And yes, when you print on paper, it will look different, still. I'd suggest that it's worth every penny to get premium printing papers; they really do make a difference in the quality of output. Yeesh! Did I really just go on that long? Sorry if I'm too long-winded, and I hope this info is helpful. - Chip