Direct printing
Direct printing is characterised by the fact that a special product colour is sprayed directly onto the textiles, such as a T-shirt. This means that, unlike transfer printing, you do not need a foil. With this printing process you can use all colours as well as colour gradients. In addition, a variety of colourful and elaborate motifs can be realised. A direct printer works in the same way as an inkjet printer, the only difference being that textiles are printed instead of paper. Print heads in combination with special inks are used for this.
What are the advantages of direct printing?
Direct printing is characterised by the fact that a special product colour is sprayed directly onto the textiles, such as a T-shirt. This means that, unlike transfer printing, you do not need a foil. With this printing process you can use all colours as well as colour gradients. In addition, a variety of colourful and elaborate motifs can be realised. A direct printer works in the same way as an inkjet printer, the only difference being that textiles are printed instead of paper. Print heads in combination with special inks are used for this.
With direct printing, you can effortlessly implement complex pictorial motifs. A big advantage of this process is that it is very cost-effective for small quantities from 1 upwards and at the same time scores with high quality. Other types of printing such as offset or screen printing, on the other hand, are recommended for larger print runs. This gives you an inexpensive way to finish textiles at home. However, the ink coverage is not 100%, which is due to the uneven fibre structure of the various types of fabric.
Your motifs and photo prints will look good on a wide variety of textiles: T-shirts and sweaters with a high cotton content are particularly suitable. You can print on both white and dark fabrics. However, the contours are less sharp than with other printing processes, such as digital transfer printing. Furthermore, the degree of saturation is somewhat lower on dark backgrounds. So with this type of printing you will get less vivid colours, but the special vintage look is very modern and has many enthusiastic fans.
A further advantage of direct printing is the very good feel of the printed textiles: Because of the direct printing, the motifs feel as if woven into the fabric and the garments are comfortable to wear.
Your motifs and photo prints will look good on a wide variety of textiles: T-shirts and sweaters with a high cotton content are particularly suitable. You can print on both white and dark fabrics. However, the contours are less sharp than with other printing processes, such as digital transfer printing. Furthermore, the degree of saturation is somewhat lower on dark backgrounds. So with this type of printing you will get less vivid colours, but the special vintage look is very modern and has many enthusiastic fans.
A further advantage of direct printing is the very good feel of the printed textiles: Because of the direct printing, the motifs feel as if woven into the fabric and the garments are comfortable to wear.
How does direct printing work?
The handling is similar to a simple desktop printer, where the print is transferred to the paper by a command. When operating a digital direct printing system, you also create the data in a standard graphics program. You bring the textile to be printed into position on the so-called flatbed table. Then you start the printing process. The whole process takes about 2 to 5 minutes and you do not need any previous knowledge of printing.
Digital printing produces few waste products, which makes it very environmentally friendly. One reason for this is that the printing data is created on the PC, so that no printing plates are needed as with offset printing. Secondly, the cartridges are refillable, which also reduces waste production.
The four CMYK colours are used, so special colours or bright tones can only be implemented to a limited extent. Therefore you can only approximate other colour ranges such as Pantone, HKS- RAL- colours; they do not match one hundred percent.
