Digital Printing 101 vs Screen Printing 101
Digital printing is the process of using a printer head to apply ink directly to a piece of apparel or fabric. Digital printing is fairly new but advanced technology that affords the ability to print small run orders on both white and colored garments. If you think about your paper printer at home, a digital printer used for DTG printing is the same thing but for garments! With digital shirt printing the color palette is unlimited, which allows you recreate virtually anything from single color logos to high-color photographs. You could have a photo printed on a customized t shirt and give it to grandma. Creating customized single pieces with digital printing has never been easier. Digital shirt printers use water base ink, which comes with a few limitations. Digital Printing needs to be done on mostly cotton substrates and cannot often achieve the fluorescent colors that some people desire. If you need help picking the best option for your order, contact our digital screen printing experts now.
Screen printing shirts is one of the most commonly used methods in custom t-shirt printing and apparel decorating. It is the process of pushing ink through a mesh screen one color at a time. Although the method uses a system of spot coloring, halftones and blends, it can be used to create an image that appears to have a countless number of colors. Screen printing as a production method quickly overtakes Digital Printing in cost per print. The higher the volume, the lower the cost per print becomes. Screen printing also has the advantage of a large selection of different types of inks that are all considerably less expensive per garment than Digital Printing inks. If your goal is cheap screen printing, check out our amazing guide.
Direct To Garment Printing
Pros
1. Good for One-offs and Short Runs
It is very easy to customize each and every print with If you need one t-shirt for your mate for his birthday or something it’s very difficult to screen print there and make it cost-effective. While that’s perfect for digital print where you have five or ten shirts and they’ve got high color amounts which are the next point.
2. Good for The Photographic and High Colors
Direct to garment ink is good for the photographic colors and high colors. Since it is high resolution (typically 600-1200 dpi) printing, it’s very easy to print photographic colors. That’s perfect for digital printing that sort of situation because you’d only have known five, ten shirts and they have a full-color photographic image on them.
Cons
1. Productivity
DTG printers tend to have a higher upfront investment against the desired productivity. Vis a vis screen printing is more productive.
2. Print Performance
Earlier DTG inks were really wanting on performance parameters like wash fastness & rub resistance. But the continued advancements in technology, new DTG inks offer comparable performance.
The difference in screen and DTG print performance is quite minimized nowadays. Direct to garment printing inks suit a really good area of work like the short runs, high color counts.
Screen Printing
Pros
1. Best Quality Print for Longevity and Vibrancy of Color
It lasts a long time. Your screen print should last as long as you’re a t-shirt. You may get a little bit of cracking over time but when it comes down to it, it should last forever.
2. Only Retail Quality Option
Your only retail quality option, you go into any store and most of the t-shirts there will be screen-printed. So instead of screen printing sometimes they’re done with digital technology like a transfer or something and applied to the shirts. But the major majority of t-shirts are screen printed that you’d buy from a shop.
3. Low Cost for Larger Runs
You get a lower cost for the larger run so as the volume increases the costs come down which is standard business practice. With most things, the larger runs people do in the shop and charge less and less for them.
4. Ability to Print Specialty Finishes
You also have the ability to print specialty finishes things like metallic inks, foils, tough inks, flocking, suede inks things like that you have a lot of flexibility with the different effects you can achieve with the screen printing inks.
Cons
1. Usually Higher Entry Cost
You have to pay set up the cost. Screens need to be set up for the job. Jobs with higher color amounts have a higher screen set-up cost. It’s there’s that barrier;
2. Not Suitable for Short Runs
It’s not suitable for short runs. If you came to me and said Hey I’ve got five shirts, I need them printed tomorrow. It’s not something that would be practical to do. It’s just not practical to print small numbers of shirts with screen printing process because of the setups and everything involved.
3. Photographic and Multicolor Images are Also Difficult to Replicate.
The effective resolution of screen printing is very low, so there are only so many little dots you can put in that in a certain area of print. You have to fit millions of little dots in your design to fit hundreds of the most. So the reproduction of very precise photographic colors is a little bit difficult with screen printing.
You’re also putting on a very coarse surface at the microscopic level. It’s not a smooth flat surface like paper or something, so high color images are expensive. Photographic images are difficult to replicate color accurately.
Detail of Screen Print versus DTG Print Typically, the quality of a DTG print is better when you have a graphic with a lot of color or a lot of fine detail. Since with a screen print, the design can only include 12 colors or less, you might lose some detail and get a more pixelated print.
Type of Garment Screen printing is more forgiving than DTG, meaning it’s easier to screen print on a variety of fabrications. DTG is typically only recommended on 100% cotton. However, as we’ve discussed before, a lot of DTG printers have been able to get an amazing print on our BELLA+CANVAS Triblends, Heather CVCS and Flowy tees. But that takes a lot of expertise and mastery to get it just right!
Price With screen printing, the cost per garment decreases as you increase volume. Therefore, a high unit order will be much cheaper to screen print than a DTG print. DTG, on the other hand, has more of a set cost (basically, you’re accounting for the cost of the ink used for the print). A one-off or small unit order is more cost-effective on a DTG printer.
Print Time for Screen Print versus DTG Print DTG is a much slower process compared to screen printing. Depending on the machine, you can average about 30 – 60 blank tees per hour on a DTG printer. While, with screen printing, you will churn out an average of 1,000 prints per hour. Again, the timing really depends on the machine, but if you’re these guys, you’re printing 2,139 shirts an hour. That’s what we call efficient!
As you can see, there are a lot of reasons to use both methods. Ultimately your decision should come down to the product you are trying to produce.
D.T.G. (Left) VS Screen Printing (Right)
The Take-Away
The question of direct to garment printing vs screen printing naturally pops up when you are first starting out. Basically, you need to determine what you need? Whether you need a short run of t-shirts? Do you need a long run of t-shirts? What you need the finished result to be?
You also need to know, what you’re getting. You need to know what results you’re going to get with screen printing. How much will it cost you? If you only get a short run and would it is worthwhile doing digital?
In general, if you offer custom or personalized designs to customers, its good idea to invest in DTG printer. If you plan to cater to businesses that get their designs printed in bulk from you, screen printing is the way to go. Of late a lot of screen printers offer hybrid options of DTG printer integrated with the screen printing set up. It is combining the benefits of both technologies. All in all, a promising future for those who embrace DTG digital printing now!
Sublimation
When one prints onto a special sheet of paper and then transfers that image onto fabric, it is called sublimation printing. The ink is heated until it blends into the corresponding fabric, which makes it virtually impossible to peel. Sublimation printing makes it easy for printers to print seam-to-seam, which will cover the entire garment. It works with endless color options, and really shows detail – whether you’re printing in large or small batches. The cons? Sublimation printing is not large-order friendly, and does not work on all garments.
*We do not currently offer Sublimation