Direct to garment printers, or “DTG” printers, are Tshirts which are made specifically for printing directly onto Tshirts, as the name would suggest. 

I first looked at DTG printers many years ago at an international printing equipment exhibition, and at the time they were BIG machines, VERY expensive, and, to be honest, not all that impressive in terms of results. 

But I did realise that it would only be a matter of time before the technology improved.

Over the years, the results from DTG have become far better, the prices have become lower (although there are still some very expensive direct to garment printers), and there are many Tshirt printers using DTG.

The Pros of Direct to Garment Printers

• Potentially great print results, including photographic prints.
• Little or no setup time.
• Fast turn around for smaller volumes.

Great print results. 

You can get some decent results from DTG printers, including very impressive looking photographic prints. Actually, when it comes to full colour prints and photographic prints, the better DTG printers are hard to beat on the print quality with any other method for cotton garments. 

Little setup time

In terms of the actual design, as with other digital Tshirt printing methods, it’s just a case of pressing print, really. There’s no need for any kind of colour separation, or other time consuming setup steps. Once you have your pre-treated garment, you just lay it on the print bed, and press print. 

Fast lead times

For small volumes, due to the lack of setup steps, you can turn around orders very quickly with DTG. A few minutes per Tshirt is probably about right.

The Cons of Direct to Garment Printers

• Much more expensive than other digital options
• Garments may need to be pre-treated prior to printing
• For cotton only (or blends with at least 80% cotton)
• High maintenance 

Pricing

Realistically speaking, for a brand new DTG printer, you’re probably going to be looking at $10,000 – $20,000, and up.

You can get them cheaper than this, but I’ve seen some cheaper options which appear to have real drawbacks, so just be very careful if you’re considering buying a cheap DTG machine.

If it were me, personally, I’d be looking at a used DTG machine from a reputable brand (preferably with warranty) to save money, rather than going for an unknown brand.

Pre-Treatment

You’ll have to pre-treat dark garments, and you’ll probably want to pre-treat light garments, for the best results.

Although, there’s often debate on forums regarding whether or not pre-treating is actually needed for DTG, the general consensus is that with most DTG machines, you won’t get anywhere near as good a result as you could, on white, without pre-treatment, and that it’s not possible to get a good result on dark with any machine without pre-treating.

This involves spraying on a treatment and then heat pressing.

Don’t forget, though, that with DTG you don’t need to contour cut, or weed out, so yes it may involve a step that other digital methods don’t require, but it also doesn’t require some of the tedious steps that other methods do.

For cotton only

DTG is generally used for cottons only, or for blends at least 80% cotton. Actually, there are ways that you can print via DTG onto polyester, but it’s quite technical, it may take you some effort to perfect. See printing dark polyesters with DTG. If you are wanting to print on polyester, I’d recommend looking at dye sublimation. 

High Maintenance

This will depend on the DTG machine you go for, but my general opinion of DTG printing, from discussions with many clients who have printed this way, is that it’s a higher maintenance process than other digital Tshirt printing methods.

These machines print via pigment inks, so the heads need looking after, including very careful cleaning at the end of each day, and usually at the start of the working day, too. 

While many people involved in other production processes would probably rate the maintenance required for DTG printing as fairly insignificant, anyone who is accustomed to printing via other processes such as injket transfer, laser transfer or Dye sublimation, are likely to find that they’re spending a lot more time maintaining their direct to garment printer than with their other Tshirt printers.

Tshirt screen printing is one of the most commonly used Tshirt printing methods used for larger volume Tshirt printing.

Screen printing works with the production of a print screen for each colour in the design. Ink past is poured into the screen and squeegeed in order to print the garment.

Pros of Tshirt Screen Printing 

• Very cost effective, in larger volumes.
• Fast Tshirt printing speeds
• Multiple ink types available
• Print onto all fabrics and garment colors

Cost Effective

In larger quantities, it’s very difficult for anyone not printing via screen, to compete with a screen printers. 

Fast Tshirt Printing Speeds

One of the reasons that Tshirt screen printing is so cost effective in larger volumes, is that it’s such a fast process, particular when it comes to single colour designs.

Multiple Ink Types

There isn’t only one ink type available to screen printers. Screen printers can choose the most suitable ink to use based on the Tshirts they’re printing, and the results desired. This can allow the Tshirt screen printer to achieve the exact result desired by the client.

Print onto all colors and fabric types

Linked to the above point, as there are various types of screen printing ink available, it also means that you’re not restricted to a particular type of Tshirt fabric, or colour. 

Cons of Tshirt Screen Printing

• Wet process, messy.
• Larger space required
• Multi step process
• More expensive process in small volumes

Wet and Messy Process.

Digital Tshirt printing methods are very clean, and can be operated in office environments, whereas Tshirt screen printing is a more messy, industrial process. If you don’t like getting your hands dirty, screen printing probably isn’t the process for you.

Larger space required. 

Tshirt screen printing requires various processes, which require equipment, all which require some space.

You’ll need an area for screen developing, a wash off bay with a high pressure water hose, a screen dryer, a space to store inks, and of course you’ll need space for your screen printing table or multi head carousel. 

But it’s fair to say that although you’ll need more space for screen printing than you would for digital Tshirt printing, the kind of space you will need should be more affordable, in most areas, in terms of $ per square feet for rental.

You wouldn’t really be looking for office space for screen printing, you would be looking for a commercial or light industrial unit, which tend to be less expensive to rent. 

Multi Step Process

Tshirt screen printing involves more steps than most of the digital Tshirt printing methods. 

First you need to create a plain screen, which usually means washing off a screen from a previous job. Then you need to develop this screen, to get it ready to print. The Tshirts are then printed, which is actually the fastest part of the whole process. Then the screen prints need to be cured on the Tshirts. 

More expensive process in small volumes

The majority of the labor with this printing method is with the setup, so the larger the volume, the more the setup cost is diluted. 

Lets estimate the setup cost of a two colour Tshirt screen printing job as being $80, for example, and your Tshirt screen printing price excluding garment, for a volume of up to 12 as being $5.25 each.

If the customer only wanted 6 Tshirts, this would make the total cost to the client $18.58 each ($13,33 of which is set up costs), plus the garment cost, which wouldn’t be a competitive price for Tshirt printing.

Look at the same job at a higher volume, though, and it’s a very different matter.

At 500 of, for example, the setup cost is diluted to only $0,16, and your print price at this volume is likely to be as as low as around $1.50, depending on the competition in your area, so the total print price to the customer is going to be more like $1.66 per Tshirt, plus the garment cost.

What kind of Tshirt printing businesses use Tshirt Screen Printing?

Bulk Tshirt printers are the main type of garment printer who would use Screen printing. 

If you’re starting your own brand, and your outsourcing your Tshirt printing, then it’s highly likely that you’d outsource to a screen printer, but it’s not very common that a new startup brand would decide to startup and print their own Tshirts in-house with  screen printing.

Screen printing wouldn’t be the best method to use for personalization/custom Tshirt printing, either, due to the high costs associated with producing just one or two Tshirts per print run.

This isn’t to say that screen printing is the only print method used by bulk Tshirt printers, but most trade bulk Tshirt printers will print via screen.

This isn’t a Tshirt printing process, stricly speaking, as there’s no printing involved, but it’s a very commonly used garment decoration process. 

Very frequently used for lettering and numbers for sports tops, heat transfer vinyl is great for single colour designs, names and/or numbers on the backs of shirts, and other simple single colour designs.

All you need in order to decorate Tshirts and other garments with vinyl, is sheets or rolls of different colored heat transfer vinyl, a heat transfer press, and and a contour cutter.

Pros of Heat Transfer Vinyl

• Inexpensive setup.
• Cost effective process for single colour designs in small volumes.
• Simple process.

Inexpensive setup.

All you need for heat transfer vinyl, is a flat heat press (and you don’t need anything in particular, just go for the best, most reliable brand your budget allows for), a contour cutter, and, of course, heat transfer vinyl either on the roll or in sheets.

Cost Effective Process for Small Volumes

Tshirt vinyl is relatively inexpensive, so when it comes to single colour names, numbers and simple designs, this is a fairly cost effective process when compared to laser transfer printing and inkjet transfer printing. 

This is only the case, though, when we’re discussing small volumes. For larger volume, other processes, particularly screen printing, would produce similar results at a lower cost.

Simple Process.

There’s really not a great deal to garment decoration with heat transfer vinyl. You contour cut your design, weed it out, and then heat press it on to the Tshirt, hoody, or whatever garment you’re decorating.

Note that I said it’s simple, not easy… How easy it is, depends on the complexity of the design, and how many colours. If you’re trying to create a multi coloured design with lots of detail, then this is going to be fiddly and time consuming to weed out, fiddly to lay up and press, and the whole thing will be a lot more time consuming compared to achieving the same result with another process. 

However, when working with single colour simple designs, text, and numbers – heat transfer vinyl is a really simple, straight forward and easy process.

What kind of Tshirt printing businesses use Heat Transfer Vinyl?

This method is really best suited to personalization printing. It’s not a process that lends itself particularly well to printing in larger volumes, due to the labor involved in this process, which becomes considerably more with larger volumes, than with other processes including screen printing and DTG.

I have many conversations with people who’re thinking of getting started with a Tshirt printing business, and it’s very common that at the stage that folk are considering putting their hands in their pockets to buy Tshirt printing machinery, they’ve not actually given much thought at all to which process they are going to be using. 

If this is you, if you know you want to create Tshirts, and perhaps other items, but you don’t actually know which process you’re going to be using, then just leave your credit card in your pocket for now, and find out exactly which decoration process is right for you, first. If you don’t do this, you could easily end up with completely the wrong Tshirt printing setup.

Inkjet Transfer, Laser Transfer,  Dye Sublimation, Vinyl, Direct to Garment, Screen printing, Outsourced Transfers…

This isn’t even all of the possible printing methods for Garments and giftware, but it covers the majority of Tshirt and gift printing processes.

If you’re starting a small Tshirt and Gift printing business, more than likely one of the above processes will be what you’ll use, or more than one. 

Inkjet Heat Transfer Printing 

This is one of the oldest digital Tshirt printing methods. It’s one of the easiest and one of the cheapest, so it’s a very popular process for new Tshirt printers, especially for personalization printing. Click here for more information about inkjet heat transfer printing.

CMYK Laser Heat Transfer Printing

CMYK Laser heat transfer printing is another popular process for personalization printing. It requires a bit more upfront investment than inkjet transfer printing, but not a huge amount more – and it gives you a really wide scope, including being able to print onto hard substrates including wood, glass, ceramics and candles.

White Toner Laser Heat Transfer Printing

This is still laser transfer printing, but via special laser printers that have been modified to have a white toner, to allow for self weeding full color transfers to be printed on both light and dark garments. Self weeding means no need for a contour cutter, and no need for weeding out the background, but there are some cons to this process, mainly in that it’s a mcuh more expensive process to get setup with, and it’s quite a fiddly multiple step process too, so it’s not for everyone.

Dye Sublimation Printing

This is a fantastic process for a very wide range of giftware products, however there are some cons when it comes to Tshirts, which means dye sub isn’t the best choice for everyone when it comes to Tshirt printing. Even if you don’t choose dye sublimation printing as your main Tshirt printing method, though, there’s a very good chance you’ll decided to ass dye sub as a string to your bow, at some point, regardless of which kind of Tshirt printing business you decide on.

Heat Transfer Vinyl 

Another very tried and tested process, heat transfer vinyl is used to print Tshirts by contour cutting text, designs and nunbers out of Tshirt Vinyl, and then heat pressing the vinyl onto the Tshirt. This process doesn’t require a huge amount of investment, you don’t need a printer for it – you need an optical contour cutter, different coloured Tshirt vinyl, and a heat transfer press.

Tshirt Screen Printing

One of the most well known Tshirt printing methods, particularly suitable for larger volumes. Although digital tshirt printing has become increasingly popular and accessible over the years, screen printing is still the leading method for printing Tshirts, other garments and other items, in larger volumes.

Direct to Garment Printing, DTG

Another great Tshirt printing process, DTG is one of the most expensive digital Tshirt processes in terms of initial outlay, so it’s not the right process for most small startups. If you have the budget, though, and you want great print results including stunning full colour and photographic prints on light and dark 100% cotton Tshirts, then DTG is worth considering. 

Outsourced Transfers

This involves outsourcing your transfer printing, and just doing your transfer pressing in-house. It’s not a bad option for own brand printing, and bulk Tshirt printing. 

Dye sublimation printing, also known as “dye sub” or simply “sublimation printing”, is an almost magical process to watch in action. It’s not magic though, it’s science.

The process of sublimation is to go from a solid state, to a gaseous state without going through the liquid stage, with the help of heat and pressure.

It’s the same process that is used to freeze dry instant, soluble coffee, and to make the fake theatrical smoke from dry ice.

With dye sublimation printing, you print using an inkjet printer running dye sublimation ink, which is made up of special water based dyes. 

You then print onto “sublimation paper” which is purely a holding paper, meant to hold the dye in the form of the digital image.

Then, you put this printed paper, printed side down, onto the garment, or gift item or substrate, and heat press it. 

While being pressed, the dye molecules that were held in the paper, turn into a gas, and then turn back into a solid, but in doing so, they bond with the long chain polymer molecules present in the substrate, meaning that the digital image leaves the paper and dyes into the fibres of the garment.

Dyed into – not printed onto.

It’s important to note that dye sublimation isn’t a surface print process, like pigment printing. Nor is it actually a transfer process like laser or inkjet transfer.

Yes, there’s paper involved, but it’s just a holding paper.

This is a dying process, you’re dying the image into the fibres of the garment, or into the polymer surface of the gift item when it comes to items such as mugs, plates, wooden items, metal items, glass products and so on.

The reason it’s important to realise this, is that this fact is responsible for both the biggest pros and the biggest cons of sublimation printing.

Pros of sublimation printing:

• You can achieve incredible vibrancy, deep vivid colors, for graphics and photographic images.
• There is no difference in feel or handle, between the printed area, and the non-printed area of the garment. 
• Fantastic colour fastness.
• Huge range of blank giftware items

Vibrancy of image.

Dye sublimation can produce some stunning, vibrant colors. This is especially the case if you’re using a Sawgrass Virtuoso sublimation printer using the brilliant VPM (Virtuoso Print Manager) print rip, which comes free with the Virtuoso printers.

Using good print management software like this, and with a great, professionally produced color profile (which also comes free with the virtuoso setups) allows for stunning prints, but also very realistic prints.

Feel, Handle or Hand.

Usually when a Tshirt is printed, the feel or handle of the printed area is stiffer than the rest of the garment. With dye sublimation, though, the printed are feels exactly the same to the touch as it did prior to printing, so the printing doesn’t affect the feel or handle of the garment at all. 

Color Fastness

Tshirts that have been printed via dye sublimation perform incredibly well when it comes to color fastness, in fact, it’s arguably the best garment decoration process for color fastness. 

There is virtually no fading over time regardless of the number of washing cycles (wash fastness). Very little fading from contact abrasion (rub fastness) and very good performance in terms of not fading in natural light (light fastness).

You’ll certainly never get peeling or cracking – the image will last the lifetime of the garment!

Huge range of giftware products

With dye sublimation, you can print onto a really wide range of gift items, including wood, glass, metal, ceramics and more. With a standard flat heat press, all you need is to buy in specially prepared sublimation blanks. These blanks are either made from polyester/polymer material, or they have a special polymer coating.

We’re talking a LOT of potential products, including Aluminium photo panels, glass photo frames, wooden plaques and signs, mousemats, placemats/table mats, wooden drinks coasters, ceramic drinks coasters, glass drinks coasters, metal keyrings, metal bottle openers, ceramic mugs, china mugs, travel mugs, tea towels, bath towels, napkins, cushions, pillow cases, jigsaw puzzles, tins, keepsake boxes… and on, and on, and on.

Cons of Dye Sublimation Printing

• For polyester only, or poly cotton heavy in polyester (65% or higher in polyester).
• For white or light garments only.

These cons mainly relate to Tshirt printing.

Dye sublimation printing is very well suited to giftware printing, and the only con as far as this is concerned is that you need specially treated sublimation blanks as opposed to being able to print onto standard items as you would be able to with laser transfer paper for hard substrates.

But there are a huge amount of blank products made for dye sublimation, so this isn’t a particular issue unless there’s a very specific product you wanted to print, which you can’t find available with the dye sub coating.

Polyester only?

Remember I said the dye particles bond with the long chain polymers present? This means that when it comes to garments, you need polyester. You can’t print onto 100% cotton, with dye sublimation printing. 

There are solutions, such as powders and sprays, but honestly, if you need to print onto cotton garments, just stick to one of the other methods, there’s really no alternative to polyester garments when it comes to dye sublimation printing. 

There is a great fabric available if you can find it, which is a cotton which is treated at the stage that the fabric is being taken from loom state to being print-ready, with some form of a special patented treatment (so special, that while I’ve been able to get small samples of this fabric, it’s almost impossible to find out where it is produced and how to buy it, so good luck with that one… although I do suspect that it will become more readily available in the not too distant future.

But this fabric is mainly for home furnishings, I’ve not seen anyone producing this kind of fabric yet for jersey cottons, which is what is used for Tshirts.

There are plenty of good Tshirts available these days that are made from 100% polyester, thanks to the popularity of sublimation printing, so it’s not a huge problem. But, it’s a huge problem for some, when combined with the next major con of dye sublimation printing.

Only for whites and light colored Tshirts?

Remember, dye sublimation is a dying process, you can’t dye something lighter than it is, that would be bleaching. So in order to put a print onto a garment, the base colour of the garment needs to be lighter in colour than the print. 

For most images, this would require a white Tshirt or sweatshirt, hoody, or whatever garment you’re printing.

Depending on the colors in the design, you may be able to get away with a light pastel colour such as light yellow, light Khaki

White toner laser heat transfer printing is done using special self weeding transfer papers, which allows you to print in full colour, onto Tshirts and other garments, without the need for contour cutting and weeding out. 

While there are also self weeding transfer papers for CMYK laser heat transfer printing, these are only for solid colors. For full color self weeding transfers you would need a white toner laser printer.

Pros of White Toner Laser Transfer Printing

• No need for contour cutting.
• No need for fiddly, time consuming weeding out.
• Great looking, full color and even photographic prints.

Cons of White Toner Laser Transfer Printing

• White toner laser printers cost a LOT more than CMYK laser printers
• High quality, high performance heat press required – most cheap imported Tshirt heat presses just won’t work for this process.
• Multi step transfer creation and transfer pressing process, which many class as too fiddly.

What kind of Tshirt printing businesses use White Toner laser heat transfer printing?

This is a process probably best suited to personalization printing, although the equipment cost tends to be prohibitive for most small start up printers, who often opt for CMYK laser transfer printing and/or vinyl, inkjet transfer or sublimation printing.

There are some circumstances in which white toner laser transfer printing might be the best option for the job for bulk Tshirt printers or own brand garment printers, but in many cases screen printing, DTG or other processes would be better options.

As the name suggests, this kind of printing requires a laser printer, and special transfer media which is made for laser transfer printing.

It’s a similar process to inkjet transfer printing, except you’ll be using a laser printer, not an inkjet printer. 

CMYK laser heat transfer printing refers to the more traditional process of using a standard laser printer with Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black toners.  As opposed to white toner laser transfer printing where specially modified laser printers are used, specifically for Tshirt printing.

This kind of transfer printing can be very simply explained as being the same as inkjet laser transfer printing, but via a laser printer. 

So, as with inkjet heat transfer printing, there is transfer paper or light coloured garments, which has an opaque base, so you don’t need to contour cut and weed out the background.

You can do, if you wish – and weeding out any un-printed transfer media is a good way to improve the handle or feel of the transfer, but it’s not a necessity with laser transfer paper specifically for light colored garments.

There is also laser transfer paper for dark garments, which has a white base, so for this you’ll need a contour cutter, to be able to cut and then weed out the background. 

Other types of transfer paper for CMYK laser printers.

As well as standard CMYK laser heat transfer paper, for light and dark garments there are other transfer papers which can allow you to achieve some really great looking Tshirts, and other transfer papers for various other substrates. 

There are transfer papers known as self weeding flex, which allow you to print text and single colored designs by just printing onto the media on black via the laser printer, a great way to print single colour onto garments. 

There are also laser transfer papers you can use for printing onto hard substrates, such as wood, glass, and candles, ceramics and card.

What kind of Tshirt printing businesses use CMYK laser heat transfer printing?

CMYK laser transfer printing can be a useful process for most Tshirt printing businesses, but particularly popular for personalization printing.

The relatively high cost of laser transfer paper does mean that it’s not the most popular  method for bulk Tshirt printing, trade Tshirt printing or own brand printing, especially when it comes to large sized prints.

But, as there are a wide range of different kinds of laser transfer papers available for a wide range of different items including, but not limited to garments, it makes sense for most types of printing businesses to have the ability to print this way, given that all they would need in order to do so, is a relatively inexpensive CMYK laser printer.

This is one of the most accessible Tshirt printing processes for new Tshirt printing businesses. It’s one of the most established processes, people have been doing this for decades – and it’s one of the cheapest Tshirt printing methods available in terms of equipment/machinery setup costs.

Basically, you use a standard inkjet printer, and you inkjet heat transfer paper. You print on the transfer paper, and then heat press it onto the garment. 

If you remember the old iron on transfers that you may have seen many years ago, it’s similar to this, only there is better transfer media available these days (better vibrancy, better colour fastness) and you’ll be using proper heat press machinery, not a hand iron. 

You can print onto most Tshirts and other garments with injket transfer, so you’re not restricted in garment choice, and you can print a full range of base colours including black.

The difference between inkjet transfer printing on light coloured garments vs on dark coloured garments.

There are two types of injket heat transfer papers, paper for light Tshirts, and paper for dark Tshirts.

For light colored Tshirts & other garments, the injket transfer paper has an opaque base, and for dark garments, the paper has a white base, so you can see the image when it’s transferred onto a black Tshirt, hoodie or sweatshirt.

So when printing onto light Tshirts and other garments, there’s no necessity to cut out any blank areas of background, you can literally just manually cut around the image and then heat press it on to the garment, simple.

But when printing onto dark Tshirts and other garments, as you will be using inkjet heat transfer paper for dark garments, which has a white base, you will have to use a contour cutter to cut out the unwanted bits of white in the background, and then use a weeding knife to remove these bits.

If you don’t do this,  it will look like you’ve printed the image onto white paper and then stuck that white paper onto the Tshirt, not a great look.

So this means you’ll need a digital cutter plotter/contour cutter such as the Silhouette Cameo.

You can get a letter sized contour cutter for a couple of hundred dollars and upwards, so they’re not massively expensive, but I’d recommend going for the best that your budget will stretch to. The Silhouette Cameo are a well tried and tested letter sized cutter plotter. 

The great thing about this is you’ll also be able to use your optical cutter for vinyl, too, so having a contour cutter also enables you to add another string to your bow, as both vinyl and injet transfer will be pressed with the same heat press.

So for light coloured Tshirts and other garments, you’ll just press the whole letter sized transfer sheet onto the Tshirt, or cut it out of the sheet manually if it’s 2 transfers to a sheet or 4 to a sheet etc.

For dark colored garments, you’ll print the transfer sheet, and then put this through your Silhouette Cameo, or whatever cutter you decide to go with, to cut the white background away, and then you’ll simply weed this out with a weeding tool.

What kind of Tshirt printing businesses use inkjet heat transfer printing?

Inkjet transfer lends itself best to personalized T-shirt printing, and also short run, low volume Tshirt printing in multiples.

If you were focusing on bulk Tshirt printing for trade, you can get much lower production costs with other methods. If you were doing own designs/own brand Tshirt production, again, there are more suitable options. 

But for individually printing Tshirts with different designs, or for smaller production runs for clubs and organizations (for instance, printing 10 of the same Tshirt for a bachelor party), inkjet heat transfer printing is a great choice. 

Inkjet heat transfer printing also pairs well with Tshirt vinyl, dye sublimation and diamonte, and with all these strings to your bow, this can lead to a fantastic range of products for small garment and giftware printing businesses.

In other words, you’ll need a heat press for inkjet transfer printing, you can use this same heat press for dye sublimation printing, for contour cut vinyl, and for heat pressing diamontes. 

You’ll need a contour cutter, for cutting out the white background when using inkjet transfer for dark garments, and you can use the same contour cutter for contour cutting vinyls.

Since all you’ll need then to be able to use vinyl, is the Tshirt vinyl itself (no other equipment required, as you’ll already have the heat transfer press) it makes perfect sense to also use garment vinyls when it would be the best option for the job. 

When it comes to adding dye sublimation as a string to your bow, the only additional piece of kit you’ll need is the dye sublimation printer itself – and this process will hugely increase the range of products you can produce, especially if you also get yourself a mug press, as dye sublimation is one of the most popular methods for mug printing for small businesses.