How does direct to garment printing work? Simply printing straight into garments is all that it is? What distinguishes it from other printing methods then?

Direct to garment printing, commonly referred to as DTG or inkjet-to-garment printing, is a printing technique in which digital pictures from a computer are transferred directly onto a garment, such as a shirt, using an inkjet printer. Despite the term appearing general, DTG has specific benefits, limitations, and best uses. Discover the details of this procedure in the next paragraphs to see whether it is appropriate for your project.

Benefits of DTG:

• No setup costs
• Allows for small orders to be printed at a reasonable price
• Can print extremely detailed images
• Does not charge by the color, making full-color printing affordable
• Ink binds directly to fibers so it feels more like it’s part of the fabric

Printing Jobs DTG Is Used For:

• Low quantities
• Detailed designs with gradients, shading, or many colors

How it Works

Because it can print elaborate graphics on delicate textiles like shirts or sweaters, direct to garment printing, also known as DTG or inkjet-to-garment printing, may appear complicated. However, it is actually very simple. DTG uses an inkjet printer to print digital pictures directly onto a garment without the need for setup for different projects, much like printing from a home computer. Similar to conventional inkjet printers, DTG printers can create millions of colors, and some of them are made by businesses that also produce such printers, like Ana jet, Brother, and Epson. Ink for normal printers, which may cost more than $1,000 per gallon, is replaced with textile inks in the printers that have been adjusted to accommodate the mass of clothing. Because a white under base of ink must be printed first to guarantee that the colors of the pattern seem accurate, printing on colorful clothes can be expensive. The amount of ink used throughout the procedure might build up rapidly.

The CMYK color model is initially applied to the colors before they are printed onto a garment using ink. Cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, commonly referred to as the key color, are the four ink colors that make up the CMYK model. The reason it’s called four-color processing is because these four colors are combined in various ways to create all the colors in the digital design, generally in the order of the acronym.

Cotton textiles work best for DTG printing since the ink sticks right to the fabric’s fibers. The smoother polyester material is not a good choice for DTG printing. Heat is frequently used to dry the ink after all the colors have been applied. The entire procedure may be finished in about a minute.

How DTG Compares To:

• Screen printing
  
  While DTG setup is inexpensive and labor-intensive, screen printing setup is much more involved. Because the setup cost is not spread out across a large number of garments, DTG is more cost-effective for small orders (often less than 10 units). However, after the setup is finished, screen printing is far more affordable per unit than DTG, especially when you consider the price of ink, which may be over $1000 per gallon. Screen printing is therefore more economical for larger quantities. While DTG can capture more colors and finer details, screen printing can only provide more bright hues. Additionally, screen printing allows for the use of many inks, including metallic and glow-in-the-dark inks, and is appropriate for printing on polyester textiles, which DTG inks cannot adhere to.

• Heat Transfer
  
  While DTG involves directly attaching ink to the material’s fibers and does not include heat, heat transfers rely on pressure and heat to embed ink into the surface of the garment’s material. Due to its higher quality outcomes, DTG is typically regarded as being a better printing technique than heat transfers.

• Dye Sublimation
  
  Digital printing techniques like DTG and Dye Sublimation transmit digital pictures from a computer onto a garment. Although there are several differences between them, the main one is that dye sublimation uses heat to change ink from a solid to a gas state instead of the liquid state used in DTG printing. The gas created by the heat reaches the fibers of the material, enabling printing on polyester, which is not consistently feasible with DTG.

With the information provided here, you should be able to decide whether DTG printing is appropriate for your specific project.