Discuss the various aspects of heat press technology. Transfer paper, inks, plastisol transfers, vinyl cutters, printers, commercial usage, durability, suppliers, etc.
Hi everyone i'm new to heat transfers since i've been doing all screen printing on my shirts. The question is if i was to print on the heat transfer paper using a laser printer and transfer it to a shirt would it just transfer the ink parts or would it also transfer the white background of the paper onto the shirt. For examples if i print the letter "A" on the paper would it transer the middle white triangle part of the "A" that i don't want on a black shirt?
Heat Transfer papers are transferred with the ink unless you cut it out. So yes the inside middle white transfer paper on the A would show up as white on the black shirt.
Transfers to dark garments require special transfer papers. The standard papers that are used on light garments don't work for darks. Look at IronAll for darks, WOW, or similar products.
As far as the "void" areas, such as the A. There is no white ink (or white toner) laid down in the transfer process. Areas with no coloration, such as your example in the A, will be clear, meaning that the garment color will show in that area. However, transfer papers are notorious for leaving rectangular areas on the garment where the paper was pressed. This can be eliminated in large part by using the newer papers that give much better results - IronAll, ImageClip, etc.
Yes, you need a heat press. The papers are sensitive to certain ranges of time, temp, and pressure. Doing it w/o a press is a recipe for failure. Each paper has its own settings for time, temp, pressure.
quick question 
