100% cotton is the best for DTG printing because cotton is a natural fiber that absorbs the water based ink used in DTG printers, but not all cotton performs the same. With DTG, it’s important you choose garments with as smooth a surface as possible so you don’t get stray fibers affecting the print. It is possible to print on fabrics like our triblends, heathers and flowy, but it takes a lot of testing for a print shop to get the settings right. If you want to do DTG printing on fabrics other than 100% just make sure that you work with a print shop that is experienced with the type of blend you want to print.

Your artwork has a lot of colors. This can be expensive to achieve with screen printing unless you are doing really large quantities. If you want to do a small run of a graphic with a lot of colors (like a photograph for instance), you’ll definitely save money by printing the job with DTG. With screen printing, every color in your artwork needs to be burned into a screen, taking time and money. You don’t have to worry about the number of colors with DTG. You have a small quantity rush job. When you are printing small quantities, DTG is usually faster than screen printing because there is no production set up. With DTG, the printer will not have to burn screens or mix ink. They just load a shirt and print. You need a sample. DTG is great for sampling styles before doing a full production run. If you decide to do a big run of a certain piece, you can then switch to screen printing.

The main thing to keep in mind is that your colors might not come out exactly as expected. Different fabrics and colors take ink differently and there are a lot of variables with the settings that can affect the output color. If matching the exact Pantone of your artwork is super important to you, this can be achieved with DTG. You just need work with your printer to test and figure out the right settings to achieve an exact shade, so it might take more time on the front end. Files needed for DTG printing are transparent PNGs.

When you first receive a shirt with a DTG print, it may have a bit of shine or stickiness from the pre-treat. After the first wash, when the pre-treat comes off, the print will look more natural and the “waxy” appearance will disappear, which may give it a slightly washed look.