Discuss the various aspects of heat press technology. Transfer paper, inks, plastisol transfers, vinyl cutters, printers, commercial usage, durability, suppliers, etc.
Hello I am brand new here and can really use some help. I'm trying to take my black and white photography and use it as art on t-shirts. What I need to know is how can I do this and still keep a natural (one with the t-shirt non- gloss) look? Keeping the detail of the original print is also extreamly important. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Being a screenprinter I'm biased towards that, but I think that's what you should be considering first. Using halftones you can print a black and white photo with one colour, so it's very cost effective. Depending on the results you want you could also use a lighter grey for the highlights, and make the halftones less visible. Personally I don't have a problem with halftones and I think it will give you the best quality, but you might not be happy with the aesthetic. So I'd take a look at some halftone prints and see what you think, and then look at other options (like heat transfers) from there if you don't like it.
On white shirts, I think laser heat transfers would do just fine, and I think you'll like it, since you can get almost the same outcome as your b/w photographs. On colored shirts, especially on black, you'll have to use opaque transfer papers. The disadvantage here is that you'll get a "rubbery" heavy feel, and some of the "white" portions of your b/w image gets dark because of the direct heat applied on the image.
help transferring black/white photos to t's 
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Heat Transfer Paper Price List
