Scalability, income and high quality are all without delay related to choosing the suitable garment printing approach. Unfortunately, apparel manufacturing has no such thing as” the friendly printing approach.” It all relies upon the desired output. Over the years, technology has advanced such that each printing technique has benefits. This guide breaks down the diverse garment printing techniques available in the market nowadays, alongside their execs and cons. This on-hand manual makes it easy for you. Click here
Items to Contemplate Before Selecting a Garment Printing Method
- MOQ/Units
- Material
- Colour of fabric
- The complexity of the layout
- Size of the print
- Quality & sturdiness
- Turnaround Time
Printing Methods – How to Select the Correct Method
How it works: Screen printing entails using a mesh through which ink is pushed onto the material. The product is then moved to a flash unit for drying. This approach produces durable, colourful prints, thanks to thick inks.
Ideal for:
Mass manufacturing easy designs with few shades, e.g., geometric/text motifs on a T-blouse.
Pros:
- Screen printing inks may match Pantone sunglasses, making sure genuine-to-lifestyles prints.
- The technique is well matched with most fabric due to the provision of many mesh sorts and inks. However, it’s maximum generally used with cotton or polyester garments.
- With unique inks, the approach may be used to supply glow-in-the-dark, UV, glitter and textured-finish prints.
Cons:
- Each colour inside the design calls for a one-of-a-kind mesh and, consequently, a new skip. This means that the complexity of the design impacts the price and turnaround time.
- The technique is beside the point for designs with minute details, shading, and tonal transitions.
- Sample production isn’t viable as each mesh is custom-made to the design.
Direct To Garment (DTG) Printing
How it works:
In a tremendously new era, DTG uses inkjet printers to supply photographic prints on clothes. The ink is embedded into the fibres, developing a gentle finish.
Ideal for:
Complex designs and small order portions requiring short turnaround times, e., G. Custom-made T-shirts for company activities or special occasions.
Pros:
- The technique is exceptional for printing photos or designs with tonal transitions, specifically on white or mild-coloured T-Shirts.
- The setup isn’t complicated, so it’s easy to reap brief manufacturing instances for small units.
- Sample production is possible.
Cons:
- With DTG prints, selecting a trusted supplier with an excellent printer is crucial. Else, the outcomes will be dull or subpar. Note that it’s impossible to colour-match the print to Pantone sunglasses.
- When printing over a darkish-coloured garment, a white bypass is necessary. It can notably affect the output if not done by a trusted manufacturer.
- The technique is simplest appropriate for products with high cotton percentages. The generation for printing on synthetic fabrics is new.
Vinyl Printing
How it works:
Also referred to as CAD-reduce printing, this approach uses a CAD software program to transfer your layout onto vinyl. The vinyl is then laser-reduced to the preferred form and warmth-transferred onto the garment.
Ideal for:
We are printing small, easy, custom-designed designs in small batches, e.g., jersey numbers on sports uniforms.
Pros:
- Vinyl printing is good for custom designs, including printing names and process designations.
- The method produces long-lasting prints without a cracking
- Sample manufacturing is feasible.
Cons:
- Heat transfer reduces the material’s ability so that it can be better for large prints.
- This process is typically greater time-consuming than DTG printing
- It’s not feasible to have healthy Pantone (PMS) shades.
Digital Transfer Printing
How it works:
Similar to vinyl printing, this method additionally makes use of the heat transfer method. Here though, the bottom on which the layout is printed is a special sort of paper instead of vinyl.
Ideal for:
Printing complete-colour, complex motifs in small or medium-length batches, e.G., slogans or logos on a T-shirt
Pros:
- Digital switch printing can be used on a diffusion of substances consisting of cotton, blended fabric, polyester and nylon.
- The method produces durable, exceptional prints.
- Although Pantone colour matching isn’t possible, you’ll get desirable results even with complicated designs—using this method.
- This approach can check samples or a small batch before a popular design can be moved to display printing for large productions.
- A good-sized benefit of virtual switch print is logistics. For offshore shipments, manufacturers usually supply simply the published sheets. The warmness transfer can then be finished regionally. It reduces the burden of bearing transport expenses.
Cons:
- The emblem/motif sits on top of the material and has a plastic-y feel.
- This technique is not appropriate for fabrics which are touchy to warmth
- Digital Transfer printed clothing is not as long-lasting as screen-published garb.
Dye Sublimation Printing
How it works:
This printing technique also uses the warmth transfer technique—however, the ink fuses to the fabric right here, giving a smooth experience.
Ideal for:
All-over prints or complex designs on polyester fabric, e.g., emblem products
Pros:
- Dye sublimation is particularly famous as you can reproduce all-over prints at the back and front of your garment once it’s sewn and equipped for print.
- The method produces durable prints and offers unlimited layout complexity and hues options.
- Prints will no longer crack or become worse.
- This method might also run samples or small batches of all-over print designs earlier than scaling production using different strategies.
Cons:
- This method works nicely best with a hundred% polyester fabric
- Dye sublimation printing won’t produce the most useful effects on darkish fabric
- Folded regions, including side seams or armpits, will stay unprinted in all-over designs
Other Garment Printing Techniques
Discharge printing
Unlike all the strategies noted above, discharge printing eliminates the garment’s herbal colour. Instead, a water-based solvent ink dissolves the clothing’s herbal colour within the layout’s shape and soaks into the cloth within the preferred vicinity. This approach is super for printing on black, grey or dark blue garb.
Tie-dye and batik printing
Both those techniques use special techniques to produce particular designs. In the case of tie-dye printing, threads are used to cowl regions that don’t require printing. With batik prints, wax covers the areas that do not require inking.
Foil printing
Foil printing uses heat transfer to apply laser-reduced foil onto the garment. This technique creates glimmering designs that stand out. However, notice that foil printing is only sometimes durable.
Cut & Sew
Unlike different printing techniques cited above, cut and stitch production refers to creating garments out of cloth rolls which can be already revealed. This approach offers the maximum manipulation over creativity, high quality, and consistency. It is most commonly used for mass production of all-over print designs.
Conclusion
With garb manufacturing, the variations and combinations of selecting the right strategies, fabric, and carriers can appear daunting. Especially when it’s time to scale from small units to mass production techniques, achieving the favoured consequences calls for complete knowledge of the enterprise’s functioning at huge. It makes it smooth to scale your T-shirt printing company or clothing manufacturing business conveniently by connecting you to established providers. Moreover, you could additionally track all your production batches in real time. Choose a tech-enabled production management platform and readily run your garb manufacturing commercial enterprise.
