Discuss the various aspects of heat press technology. Transfer paper, inks, plastisol transfers, vinyl cutters, printers, commercial usage, durability, suppliers, etc.
Okay, so I've been reading these forums like crazy and it's all very helpful. However I'm stuck on this and was hoping some of you could be of help to me. So the kind of T-Shirts I plan on desiging will have a large graphic on the front, but I'm not sure what method is generally used to print this style. I've posted some links to some shirts similar to the style I'm designing. I don't believe these shirts are screen printed because there is a touch (trying to speak the lingo) to the graphic. I also don't see how this could be a heat transfer because of the size and quality of the graphic. I'm thinking perhaps DTG?? Is that the standard method of this kind of shirt? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
It could be DTG, Screen Print or Plastisol transfer. DTG has slight hand to it on dark shirts because of the pretreatment that is used to print the white underbase. Even DTG on lights has a slight hand to it. Lately the DTG uses pretreatment on lights also. I was in a trade show and talked to the rep from Flexejet. He told me that they started using pretreament on lights to improve vibrancy and durability. The white sample shirt I got from him had slight hand to it.
What ever process is used the equipment has to be oversized from the norm to print an image that large.
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Luis MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2 Digital Artist. My canvas is t-shirt and my paintbrush is heat press.
Yeah, I would say screen print, although it is possible to heat transfer around this size with the larger format inkjets. This is ok if you have the call for the large format, but otherwise it is a lot of expense for the odd one offs. You could check-out sublimation as this has a good "hand" to it, but still has its' limitations regarding the garment material.
Sceen print when done with plastsol does have a hand, when it is done with water bases ink it has a much softer feel. Every method has its' issues, you just have to take what is best for your product.
I'd guess it is screen printing because DTG doesn't really have a hand ... not the samples I've seen anyway.
Thank you for the replies... Maaan, I ALMOST had the lingo down.
So...correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that screen printing doesn't have a hand because the ink is actually died into the shirt as opposed to being (for lack of better term) melted on top of the fabric...
Yeah, I would say screen print, although it is possible to heat transfer around this size with the larger format inkjets. This is ok if you have the call for the large format, but otherwise it is a lot of expense for the odd one offs. You could check-out sublimation as this has a good "hand" to it, but still has its' limitations regarding the garment material.
Sceen print when done with plastsol does have a hand, when it is done with water bases ink it has a much softer feel. Every method has its' issues, you just have to take what is best for your product.
I have yet to see a good sublimation process for dark shirts with white ink as shown in the photo.
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Luis MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2 Digital Artist. My canvas is t-shirt and my paintbrush is heat press.
Thank you for the replies... Maaan, I ALMOST had the lingo down.
So...correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that screen printing doesn't have a hand because the ink is actually died into the shirt as opposed to being (for lack of better term) melted on top of the fabric...
Still new to all of this...bear with me..
Some screen print will have more hand because printing on a dark shirt requires a lot of ink plus white underbase to block the color of the shirt.
There is a screen print process using discharge ink. The discharge under base supposedly kills the dye of the shirt then it is printed over with opaque pigmented screen print ink so the hand is much softer than regular screen print.
DTG has much lesser hand than screen print when it comes to dark shirt. Sublimation has the best hand but to my knowledge it does not work with dark shirt unless used with opaque transfer. The opaque transfer will defeat the soft hand quality of sublimation.
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Luis MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2 Digital Artist. My canvas is t-shirt and my paintbrush is heat press.
Last edited by Lnfortun; August 21st, 2008 at 10:54 AM.
What method is used here? 
MAD Scientist JR. AKA MS2
