Hello. I have a photo I want to print on a t-shirt

The trouble is that My printer is asking for an AI file

I have been working on this as a raster file for a long time (its a pencil drawing I wanna print on t-shirt

I just converted them to AI files via opening on illustrator and re-saving them

WIll this result in the printer printing out the white space, (which is winthin the photo, not the artboard)? I want the white to be purely tee shirt itself.