I have read a lot of posts about plastisol transfers and noticed a lot of people say that the quality is nearly as good as if not the same as screen printing. My question is if you had 2 t-shirts in front of you with the same design on them both, 1 screen printed and 1 a quality plastisol transfer would you be able to tell the difference and if so how??
It is pretty close because they are both plastisol ink. The only difference I can think of is the transfer having a very smooth texture (which is a good thing) because it is heatpressed rather than ink run through a screen.
__________________ www.identityburn.com : t-shirt design for the individual - coming soon
You can't tell the difference between genuine diamonds and man-made diamonds.
Most of the time you can, because the genuine article is far more imperfect
What, if anything, that says about this I don't know I've often wondered myself actually, but haven't (knowingly) had good exposure to plastisol transfers to test. It's one of those "plan on getting around to it one day" projects...
You can screenprint your own transfers. Here's an example of when transfers could be a better idea.
We're doing the official shirts for a local festival. The design is 4 colors. We don't know how many of each size to make and we may offer two shirt colors. We could load up the screen printer and take it onsite, it's pretty compact, but we're going to screenprint transfers instead and just take the heat press. We'll also make cap transfers and take the cap press. We can then create to order and not have any waste.
The festival folks love the idea as they don't have to pay for anything up front. Since we'll have an activity going on around the apparel, we feel we'll get more interest and increase sales.
Someone in the business could tell the difference if they really looked, but the average customer probably can't. Maybe if you held the two together in front of them and told them there was a difference.
So would I be wrong in saying that there is no difference what so ever. Would you be able to tell a difference over a number of washes???? Please anyone else who has experience with both educate us all with your knowledge!!
So would I be wrong in saying that there is no difference what so ever. Would you be able to tell a difference over a number of washes???? Please anyone else who has experience with both educate us all with your knowledge!!
You would be quite right in saying there's no difference. Before entering the wonderful world of t-shirts, I used to pay $35+ for my childrens' tournament shirts. The t-shirt guy was there with a pile of shirts (light colors only) and a pile of transfers. The quality is no different and they only started cracking after a year. In fact, the color quality is better than a screen. Now, I just buy the transfers from him for a buck alhtough he wants to charge $6.
Could You Tell The Difference??? 
I've often wondered myself actually, but haven't (knowingly) had good exposure to plastisol transfers to test. It's one of those "plan on getting around to it one day" projects...
