Discuss the various aspects of direct to garment printing. DTG printers include Brother, T-Jet, Flexi-Jet, DTG Kiosk, Kornit, Mimaki, Tex-Jet and others! Discuss and learn about this up and coming printing technology.
I have been reading the posts beforing posting this to try to find out as much as possible about pretreatment. I have printed on the Kiosk fine and sold white shirts but now I have a black hoodie order... YIKES!!
I read someone's post that they only pretreat when they are using WHITE? Is that accurate and is that even possible? I'm not even going to even attempt such a thing before asking.
As far as pretreatment. I have read the info about it and will try it out on a inexpensive t-shirt first, put it through the wash, etc, before even attempting a hoodie.
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
Nabs,
You will need pre-treatment for Black and Dark shirts because the printer will lay down a white underbase first in order to reproduce the correct colors. The only time you would not need pre-treat for Black / Darks is if you were going to print a solid black image on there (which sounds crazy, but I have had customers ask for it).
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
IMO it looks really bad because you can't see it unless you are about 3 ft away from it. Since the black ink does not entirely match the black cotton, you can still make out the print, but just barely!
Good luck on your print job. Here are some tips.
* Heat press the shirt using medium pressure for about 15 seconds to get the fibers to lay down.
* Use your sprayer to apply an even amount to the shirt. When it looks like a "Fog" has covered the print area, that should be enough.
* Wipe it down with a foam brush to get it even.
* Put it in the heat press and use parchment paper. Do a very light press for about 20 seconds. - Very light so the press hardly even touches the shirt.
* Open heat press and let the steam escape for about 20 seconds.
* Do a second heat press for about 20 seconds, but this time light pressure so that the fibers lay down better.
* Wait for about 2 minutes or so before printing on it. (Sometimes I pre-treat all of them ahead of time, but you may want to practice on 2-3 before you pre-treat all 20 )
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
You have to do what the customer wants, whether you like it or not, doesn't matter.
Thanks so much for all the tips in the pre-treatment process. I really appreciate it. I checked out your site and the t-shirts you printed look wonderful. Some time and I pray to be at that point.
Thanks again. I'll get to work now and let you know how it goes. Nabs
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
HELP, PLEASE! I have tried two black shirts. I have read the instructions in the kiosk manuel and the tips you gave me Adam but with my first shirt the red ink printed but you couldn't see it at all on the red shirt.
So, with the second shirt I thought maybe I had the press pressure too heavy so I made the pressure on the pressure much lighter and tried again. The same thing happened again. I couldn't see anything on the shirt.
My setting are as followings: Print Quality: 720x720 When I change to 1440x720 it errors me out and says there is a problem? Why?
I"m doing one pass.
Media Type: Black Cotton, Right?
Anyting else I'm forgetting to do? Does anyone know why I this isn't working for me.
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
Are you printing a white layer first? I know it sounds like a stupid question but do you see the white on your garment before printing the red? make sure you are setting your rip for color layer and automask when you go to print.
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
Hi Bobbie,
Thanks for the reply. I did check and I did NOT have the layer type color layer auto mask selected. I just did that. What do you mean by printing a white layer first? I'm I supposed to print a white print of the red letters first?
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
When you choose color with auto mask it will print a white layer exactly like your color layer first because with the color you need a white base to make the color show. That might have been why you were seeing an error also because you didnt have the media type set correctly to the print type. you should be able to change the dpi now also once you have selected the color and auto mask. Let me know if you need any more help. If you have to push the load button to print you will now have to do it twice as you are now printing two layers, one white and one color. automask is simply telling the printer to print a layer of white like the color.
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
Hi Bobbie,
I did everything you recommended. I printed out which is a big accomplishment...yeah!! but the red I could hardly see on the shirt...please see the image attached. When I tried to select up to 1440 and not 770 quality it still gave me an error so I kept it at 770 when I printed.
Any ideas why the red is so light? The white is somewhat ghosty but I'm thinking because I was testing it on a stretchy shirt? Maybe?
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
Nabs,
first thing is that it looks like overspray. You should try to get the shirt as close to the print head as you can without it touching it.
Second, do a nozzle check, use some clear plastic so you can see if all the nozzles are firing correctly.
Next, are you using Rip Pro? If so go down towards the bottom and select color layer auto mask like Bobbie suggested, then there is a spot that says "White layer resolution" or something similar, it may be set to "same as color" change that to 1440. I also set the number of white passes to 2 to ensure good coverage.
You also mentioned that you rarely do white ink? If so how long has your machine been sitting with white ink but not being used? I wonder if it has settled.
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
definately looks like you are too far away from the printhead, if you have the gap sensor on your machine go up till the laser warns you then go down just a little to make the gap light go off. Also I agree with Adam that your white may have settled, try doing several head cleans first before printing to get your white mixing in your lines, you may want to also lift the white ink bottle and just swirl it a little to mix it. Wait to print for awhile after swirling the ink so you dont get air bubbles in your white ink lines. On your rip pro software if you go down to white layer and set it to either medium or heavy and see if that makes your white layer heavier. With the color, in your rip pro settings where is says color and white and gives you the choice of 1 or 2 copies put 2 on the color and see if this gives you better coverage on your color. If your white doesnt print heavy enough with medium density you can also select to do 2 copies on white also. hope this helps. Let us know.
Bobbie
Re: Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering?
Hi Bobbie and Adam,
I can't tell you how much of a help you have been. Bless you!!
You were right about being too far from the print head. The day before I was printing on a hoodie for my nephew and never moved it. After moving the printhead the result is as follows without doing anything else. I probably should have followed some of your other suggestions but I got excited about possibly fixing the issue.
It printed well I think, see the result it's attached. Although, after I washed it I noticed that the red turned pink (but then when I looked at the original picture it looked pink from the start) and there was almost a boxed white flaky ghosty think around the image (probably from the pretreatment).
I"m guessing that I put too much pretreatment solution. I just don't know how much is too much and how little is too little?
Also, I think when my red ink blended with my white ink it made very light red...pink? Possible?
This is a discussion about Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering? that was posted in the Direct to Garment (DTG) Inkjet Printing section of the forums.
Pretreatment for Black shirt with red lettering? 
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