[Rodney]

I noticed a lot of dye sublimated t-shirts are printed on t-shirts with a polyester type outside layer (or microfiber layer).

Can dye sublimation be done on regular 100% cotton t-shirts or 50/50 t-shirts, or does it have to be on that special type of tee?

 

[Rodney]

How does Cafe Press do it? They are dye-sub right? but they advertise their some of their shirts as

Yes, CafePress uses a direct to garment machine from Kornit to print their dark shirts.

The coffee mugs, mousepads are printed with dye sublimation (I think).

The white t-shirts are heat transfers or direct to garment printed (shopkeepers choice). They used to be only heat transfers (I think inkjet).

 

[Rodney]

I am very confused, too... Let me ask you guys something: If I want to print on 100% cutton - what would be the best way to go? Sublimation? Heat Transfer?

Heat transfer will be the only one out of the two that will work on 100% cotton.

There are many types of heat transfers you can use though (inkjet or laster printed transfers), vinyl transfers, screen printed (plastisol) transfers, etc.

 

[Rodney]

My son has a Red Hot Chilli Peppers T-Shirt with a two color design on the front... It says it's 100% cotton on the tag. There is NO hand or very very very little... It is a white shirt... ???? any ideas as to what this is? Maybe the ink T-Bot was speaking of?

screen printing regular plastisol inks on a white t-shirt can leave a very light hand since it doesn't require an extra white ink base to cover the shirt color.

It could also be water based ink screen printing.

 

[Rodney]

But, if you can't use plastisol, because you are printing and transfering (on demand at event location), would the IronAll or Chromablast be best for photo images?

Sorry if that is a silly questions, still learning about it all.

NS

Yep, for photo printed shirts on demand, an inkjet heat transfer or a color laser printer heat transfer would be better than plastisol. It's basically your only option in that case except for dye sub.