Dtg T Shirt Printing Vs Screen Printing for Full Art

As direct-to-garment digital printing has gained popularity and affordability, the question that arises more than and more ofttimes: How does DTG printing stack up against traditional screen press? In other words, what'southward the best T-shirt impress method?

I'g here to answer that question – in the form of a 10-round fight for impress method supremacy. Each round will cover a unlike facet of custom clothes printing, including vibrancy, color matching and durability. Whichever print method wins the most rounds takes home the championship belt. And recall kids, nobody is getting punched in the caput. It's only a metaphor.

Straight to Garment: The Scrappy Newcomer

DTG has been around barely xv years, but in that fourth dimension technological advancements have come at a rapid-fire footstep. Each year, this print method gets faster, more than affordable and produces college-quality prints.

The bar to entry for most press companies is still fairly high. A decent professional machine tin cost anywhere from $15,000 up to $800,000. But as concern investments go, it's a good one: A company can start taking low-quantity, on-need orders without the typical setup cost and effort of screen printing. In fact, virtually online on-demand printing companies are using DTG printing machines.

Screen Printing: The Defending Champion

Screen press has been around forever (at to the lowest degree since the Song Dynasty in People's republic of china circa m Advertising), only exploded into modern culture during the 1960s with the popularity of Andy Warhol's artwork, the printed T-shirt trend and the invention of the rotating multi-color screen-printing machine.

A steady stream of technological advancements has improved quality and efficiency, only the key concept remains the same: Push button ink through a mesh stencil onto cloth (or "the substrate" if yous want to sound like an expert).

Screen press remains the most widely known and widely used form of decorating custom apparel, only DTG is fast becoming a contender. And so, does screen printing still concur the championship belt, or is it fourth dimension for the newcomer to take the title? Let'southward find out.

Round One: Vibrancy

Screen printing comes out ambitious with the one-two punch of saturation and brightness. When you desire your design to stand out and really pop off the shirt, yous go with screen printing. DTG printing has come a long way, merely nonetheless has a slightly duller advent when you compare the two.

What accounts for the difference? Traditional screen printing uses plastisol ink (typically equanimous of PVC particles suspended in a plasticizing emulsion), which are extremely opaque and come up in a wide range of exact colors, whether right out of the bucket or with a custom Pantone mix.

A dramatic deviation in color vibrancy: screen printing (left) vs DTG (right)

Digital press, on the other hand, uses h2o-based inks, which lack the opacity and vibrancy of plastisols, especially on darker garments.Fifty-fifty though DTG machines tin can provide a vivid underbase (plastic particle pre-treatment and titanium dioxide white ink) which improves the vibrancy, the final results are still lacking, compared to screen printing.

DTG relies on procedure printing, or the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellowish and black) colour model to make various shades. While the colors themselves are brilliant, they're also semi-transparent so they tin can be blended more easily. Fluorescents and other vibrant colors outside of the CMYK color gamut are possible using plastisol screen-printing inks.

The winner of this round is clear. Or should I say opaque?

Round Two: Color Blending

DTG comes out swinging in the 2d circular with excellent color blending. What do I mean by color blending? It's the ability to create smooth gradients and a range of colors by blending a lesser amount of colors. And that's exactly what DTG printers were made to do.

A DTG machine is essentially a behemothic inkjet printer, similar to what you might have at your home or office, just information technology'south designed to print on T-shirts and other garments. When printing DTG, we telephone call it "full colour" but nosotros're actually using four colors (or six like on the more avant-garde models). It works using process printing; the four colors of CMYK blending to create a spectrum of colors.

When it comes to gradients or precise blends like those needed for skin tones, digital printing is more reliable than screen printing. And with little to no setup.

Screen printers can accept spot colors and create a spectrum using a technique known every bit "imitation process." But the setup involved makes it less efficient, specially for smaller orders. And the results can be mixed.

With DTG, the inks are water-based and more transparent than plastisol. This allows the ink to overlap and blend, making cute, smoothen gradients, and giving DTG the winning edge in this round.

Round Three: Color Matching

Screen press comes back potent with its precision color-matching capability.

Using the beloved Pantone color-matching organisation, we can indistinguishable whatsoever color a client needs. That includes those outside the range of CMYK, super-saturated colors and specialty inks.

Matching colors accurately is especially important when it comes to corporate branding.Many companies take brand guidelines that specify Pantone colors. If yous try to friction match those colors with DTG, they're well-nigh always going to be off. The primary reason is that the underbase isn't opaque enough, so the shirt color bleeds through. Darker shirts and color shirts tin can easily get a trouble when trying to color match.

Pantone matching can be done with process inks and specifically with inkjet printing on other printing media. And several DTG manufacturers claim they can Pantone lucifer – but only within the CMYK gamut. More avant-garde DTG machines take added slots for two extra colors: bright dark-green and brilliant ruby. Still, it doesn't make up for screen printing's ability to impress a range that includes every colour on the planet.

Certain, in that location are colors that are out-of-gamut for screen printing likewise, but overall, its gamut is much bigger than DTG's. This round is no contest. When you absolutely demand to match exact colors for your brand, yous go with screen printing.

Circular Four: Details

In the printing business, detail is the smallest parts of the design, which could include fine lines, small type, textures or tiny elements. When it comes to screen printing, it's e'er about "holding" particular. If you're not holding information technology, you're losing it.

In that location are several factors that bear upon screen printing detail:

• Screen tension
• Squeegee sharpness
• Force per unit area and speed of ink awarding
• The surface backdrop of the material beingness printed
• The viscosity of the ink
• And the biggest one of all: ink gain or ink spread.

Yep. It'due south a lot to deal with.

Screen printing has visible dots. DTG's dots are so pocket-sized you tin't see them. If an image is photographic or has gradients, screen press requires halftone dots. You might remember seeing them if y'all e'er looked at a comic volume with a magnifying glass. Developed in the 1800s and first used in newspapers to reproduce the tonal range of photographs, halftones soon became ubiquitous in screen press. The look is such a well-known part of the artful that artists (retrieve American popular artist Roy Lichtenstein) often use oversized halftones for a stylistic issue.

Almost halftones for screen printing are output from a raster image processor (RIP) plan at anywhere from 30 to 65 lines per inch (LPI) before existence burned to screens. The lower the LPI, the bigger the dot. Even at the higher LPI, these dots are visible if you look shut enough. And if ink gain becomes a problem, each dot is going to spread out a little bit. Making it bigger and more than visible.

DTG uses halftones besides, but these digital machines can print upward to one,200 dots per inch (DPI), and use diffusion dither. To get extra technical, this is a frequency-modulated halftone instead of an aamplitude-modulated halftone. It tin sometimes result in a grainy look, but a much improve reproduction of modest details.

Round 5: Durability

Immovability is something DTG has ever struggled with. In the early days of DTG, you would be lucky to become 10 washes out of a T-shirt earlier the colors would start fading. Nowadays, you can get many more. How many? Like most things in this business concern, it depends. The quality of the machine, the inks used to print, the pretreatment, the underbase and the curing all factor into it.

Information technology also depends on how you lot wash it (stay away from hot water, harsh detergents and long dryer times). A quality DTG print can potentially get dozens of washes earlier it starts fading.

Done correctly, screen printing doesn't have this immovability trouble. Sure, if the ink isn't applied or cured properly, even plastisol tin can fade or deteriorate. But we all accept that shirt in our drawer from the family reunion twenty years ago that's still holding on.

Round Six: Comfort and Feel

Past comfort and experience, I mean a few things:

1. If the ink clogs up the fibers. This can severely reduce the breathability of the textile, causing what'south affectionately known every bit a "sweat patch." You tin can imagine what that is. Call up about someone running a 5K in the summertime with a thick, solid layer of plastic covering their breast.
2. How heavy the impress the feels on the shirt. If the ink is too thick, it can weigh downwardly the front of the shirt, or wherever the impress sits. This is specially important for all the lightweight blends and so pop today.
3. If the texture is rough on the pare. Yous don't desire a print to feel like sandpaper. You don't want to give someone road rash from hugging them.

This experience is also known as "hand" in the screen printing business. If the request is for a soft hand, it usually ways to employ belch or water-based ink. If using plastisol, information technology means to thin the ink downwards with an additive to arrive smoother and more lightweight on the shirt.

Distressed-await screen printing can also create a softer mitt by reducing the amount of surface area the ink occupies and breaking it upwardly so it's more flexible. But adding this style is up to the customer, and it won't wait right on all designs, and so this saving grace only applies to particular orders.

Most regular screen-printing jobs will be printed with a normal layer of ink, and on nighttime garments it will be ii layers of ink, counting the required underbase. Plastisol tends to exist heavy on the shirt, one of the reasons information technology's so durable.

So when it comes to comfort and feel, DTG comes out on superlative.

Round Vii: Versatility

Versatility in this context is the ability to impress on a variety of textiles, as well as a multifariousness of garment styles, print locations and placements. DTG is somewhat express in this category.

Textiles: Although DTG works with a wider diverseness of fabrics than e'er before, the number-one pick recommended is 100% cotton. Newer systems advertise press on all kinds of fabric, but these systems aren't notwithstanding widely used in the industry.

Typically, DTG has trouble with 50/50 blends, and performs poorly on polyester. It doesn't piece of work on wet-wicking fabrics at all without special treatment, and even then it'south non recommended.

Too, the color of the textile tin be a trouble, generally due to dye migration. This happens when the garment dye bleeds into the ink and discolors the print. And digital printing on fluorescent colors is a no-go.

Screen printing, on the other hand, works on cotton, blends, polyester, canvass, denim, functioning and wet-wicking fabrics like rayon. And, of course, any colour garment your eye desires. It'southward easier to tell yous what fabrics y'alltin can'tscreen print on.

Garment styles: If yous're only printing on the basics like T-shirts and hoodies, you can DTG all day long, but if you want to print on hats, for instance, your best bet is switching to screen printing (or embroidery).

With DTG, it actually depends if the printer has a specialized platen (or if there'south even one available) that fits the garment location you're trying to go printed. This is besides true for screen printing, but there are many more platens available.

Print locations: Screen printing is too less express when information technology comes to locations. As long every bit the printer tin can somehow position the garment on a platen, it tin can exist screen printed. This goes for pant legs, the hoods of sweatshirts, on-the-pocket prints, side prints, etc.

DTG, in certain cases, may not exist able to accomplish a particular placement within the location to be printed. For example, if yous wanted your logo to be placed i inch from the collar of an upper back location, DTG may non be able to go that shut to the seam.

Much of it depends on the capabilities of the impress store you're using, but the bottom line is that screen printing has fewer restrictions.

Round Viii: Consistency

Screen printing tin can exist consistent, but only if the job is set upwardly perfectly and each item is printed in exactly the same way. A alpine social club. The screen-printing procedure has many variables. Screen tension, chock-full mesh, ink viscosity, dot gain, flash dryer temperature, duster sharpness, duster pressure, squeegee angle, registration, placement. On their own, each of these can make a difference; combine them, and chances are, there'southward going to exist some variation, peculiarly when printing halftones. The last impress of the run is going to look a scrap different than the first print. It's just how it goes with screen printing.

DTG, on the other hand, crushes information technology in the consistency department. Because a motorcar processes a digital file and prints directly onto the shirt, there are nearly no variables to worry nigh, except maybe the placement of the garment onto the platen. Consistency is DTG's eye name.

Round Ix: Special Effects

Special effects press is all about adding extra dimensions to a print. From raised print to textures to shines and sparkles and glows, at that place'southward a specialty ink or additive that can practice it. The best role is you tin can combine many of these for creations that are limited simply by your imagination (and upkeep).

For example, using puff with high-density and suede, you can create a false tackle-twill, mesh or even embroidered look, complete with faux stitching. Or, you tin stack loftier-density until y'all get a print so raised it looks like an appliqué. This tin exist really cool for a small sleeve logo.

Examples of specialty inks and additives:

• Water-based: Absorbs into textile for a very lightweight and soft print.
• Discharge: Chemically removes the dye from the pigment of the fabric.
• Puff: This additive expands while being cured, for a soft, raised experience.
• Fluorescent: Very bright neon colors, too known equally "day glow."
• Metallic: Popular ink for a shiny look. Typically in aureate, silver or copper.
• Glitter: Contains glitter for a sparkly look, frequently combined with clear gel.
• Glow in the dark: Almost clear, calorie-free-activated ink that glows in the dark.
• Suede: Similar to puff, merely creates a soft and fuzzy texture to the surface.
• High-density: Creates raised layers of rubber-like ink for a 3-D print.
• Soft hand: Additive for reducing the thickness of ink for a softer feel.
• Clear gel: A thick glossy blanket that tin be used in combination with others.
• Shimmer: Creates a reflective, iridescent shine.
• Crackle: Splits and cracks during curing for a naturally distressed wait.
• Cork: Like to puff and suede, but the final product has a cork-like texture.
• Plasticharge: Combines the best of plastisol and discharge.

This isn't a comprehensive list, only the most common. There's definitely some fifty-fifty crazier stuff out there. Printing a specialty job tin be a trial and error at first, but once you get it, successful results are super impressive and satisfying. Screen printing specialty inks tin can elevate a T-shirt design like nothing else, and significantly increment the value for resale.

DTG has been making a few in-roads on the specialty ink front, but nothing that is widely available or as easy to attain.

Circular 10: Popularity

Yous might be asking: Why is popularity a factor? People typically want what everyone else wants. So sticking with the popular option is a good idea when you're creating shirts for an employee plan, a promotional giveaway or especially to exist sold at retail.

When people think T-shirts they retrieve screen printing. In one case DTG engineering becomes more than advanced, and more ubiquitous, to the point where most people can't tell the deviation, then popularity might no longer be a factor. Until then, screen printing remains the fan favorite.

And the overall champion is ...

***

Imri Merritt works in art, pattern and marketing for Rush Order Tees, a division of Printfly Corp. See the original version of this story on the Rush Order Tees weblog.

montesrefrowle.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.asicentral.com/news/how-to/february-2019/screen-printing-vs-dtg-a-10-round-battle/

Share this post