Digital Printing 101

Digital printing is often used for either a small quantity of prints, or a print which require wide spectrum of colors. Digital printing is able to things that screen printing isn't, like print a design which has a gradient onto a shirt.

Digital printing is fairly modern, as it uses recent technology to print directly onto a garment without any kind of intermediate medium. It may not sound as elaborate as the whole screen printing process, but digital printing certainly has a good number of advantages.

Some digital printing advantages:

• Digital prints result in a very natural feel. The direct printing method is very delicate and uses a thin layer of ink, thus making it difficult to distinguish between the shirt and the print itself. This is very nice, as it allows the shirt to breathe, and keeps its soft touch.
• Digital prints don't have an initial setup fee. This makes them great for smaller quantity orders. If you're thinking about gifting someone something, get him/her a beautiful custom shirt with a digital print.
• The biggest distinguishing factor between digital prints and screen prints are that digital prints allow you to print an unlimited number of colors. You can encapture the full spectrum of color through digital prints, opening up way more possibilities than a limited number of solid-colors have to offer.

Sadly, custom t-shirt digital printing comes with its own set of drawbacks as well.

• Most shirt printers are only able to apply digital prints onto light colored shirts. Since digital printing applies the print directly to the garment, colors often are not strong enough to show up on dark colored shirts. Sadly, this limits your shirt-color options.
• High-quantity shirt orders makes digital printing uneconomical. Although digital printing has no setup cost, the cost of the actual printing is much greater than the cost of doing a screen print. If you need a large order of custom shirts, printing on them digitally will drive up their cost

Also, if you plan to digitally print an image onto your shirt, ensure that it is a high-resolution image.

 

Well, now you know the ins-and-outs about digital printing. To see the other big form of printing, check out the guide on screen printing. It'd also be good to read about the economics of printing so you can be aware about what your custom t-shirt costs would be.