The Pros and Cons of T-Shirt Printing
There are mainly 3 different kinds of t-shirt printing accessible today. It is by far the oldest and nonetheless most widely utilized method of the three. From the simpler hand printed method to big totally automated presses, the principle remains basically the same. It is a easy procedure. However, it is time consuming to set up and clean the screens. Most businesses charge the client a set up fee to make the screens. However, it is a one time only fee and the screens are usually stored in case the consumer ever wishes to reprint the design.
Screen printing offers a very clean solid color print. Fantastic for many logos and text. Ideal for mass production and maintaining the printing price low. Excellent durability for washing and re washing many occasions prior to fading.Nevertheless, it is not truly appropriate for photographic reproduction unless you are prepared to have a lower grade of photo image. (Lots of visible halftone dots). Also, considerably, each color has to be printed separately. Screen-printing can also be a messy business to enter into.
Digital t shirt printing
The second technique of t-shirt printing is Digital printing. Even though a pretty nascent technologies, digital printing machines are an interesting addition to the t-shirt printing industry. It offers a service that screen-printing cannot, namely Print on demand technologies. The shirt is stretched more than a frame and housed below a set of ink jet heads. The garment is then printed in a lot the exact same way as an ink jet printer prints on paper.
These machines usually range from in between $15,000 - $20,000 and so is an appealing buy for many who want to get into the custom t shirt business at an entry level. It is also favored by some of the larger custom t shirt producers like Café Press.
With digital printing, you can print single designs economically. In contrast to screen printing there is extremely small set up. It is excellent for reproducing photographic prints, multi colored styles and logos. Clean function atmosphere.
Unfortunately, expensive per shirt cost and slow printing indicates that the t shirt is usually higher in price to purchase. The wash cycles of a digital print t-shirt are vastly inferior to screen-printing numerous start to fade after just a couple of washes. The technology is still young and so the machines themselves have inherent user issues, such as the print heads constantly getting clogged up with fabric particles and ink sediment. Even though printing on dark t shirts is possible, many customers report problems with the white ink that is required to base coat the design first.
Heat transfer printing
The third method is heat transfer printing. It is as its name suggests. An image is printed upon a transfer paper, which is in turn placed under a heat press and bonded by way of the heating onto the t shirt garment. This is an affordable technique and is often favored by the home user. A variation of this is the iron on selection of paper that can be bought at many office supply shops.
It is only realistic for individual and low expectation usage.
