Digital Textile Print Fully explained
What is a digital print?
What is print media?
Whatever we print using an inkjet printer is called print media.
What is a digital textile print?
When the print media is textile, then printing is called digital textile print.
Difference between traditional (Analogue) and digital textile printing.
What kind of printer is used to print textiles?
The inkjet printer which we use in our office and at home is small. These printers are generally used to print official
documents. But when we print banners, hoarding boards, textiles, etc., we require a wide-format or large-format printer. Since the width of such print media is very large, we need a wide-format printer.
Wide-format Printer
Most commonly used wide format printer by usage:
- Non-textile printer
- Textile
Wide-format Printer Type
Most commonly used wide format printer by type:
- Roll to roll
- Flatbed
Non-Textile printer: The wide-format printer used to print materials other than textiles is the non-textile printer. Advertisement and other banner printers used in the signage industry, a UV printer that is used for rigid materials like wood, ceramic tiles, etc.
Textile printer
- Dry processing
- Wet processing
Dry processing
The given name itself explains that this process does not
require water. The most common example is
·
Pigment
These are water-based inks. In some cases, pigment printing also requires pretreatment. If pigment print is applied to wearable fabric in such cases, we need pretreated RFD fabric. If pigment ink is modified with a binder, the feel of the fabric after printing is enhanced. That
is, the softness of the print increases compared to a normal pigment print. The pigment ink is a water-based ink, and immediately after printing, it is cured by a heat press machine.
·
Solvent
Solvent-based ink also requires little pretreatment
before printing. The most common example of solvent-based ink print is seen on a t-shirt. These prints are also cured by heat press machines. But the place where the print is done can easily be felt by touching the printed area. Those areas
(also known as placement print) are hard. Hence, these prints can only be
used in limited textiles.
·
Sublimation
This method is used
to print polyester fabric. First, the design is printed on paper, and later transferred to fabric using a heat press machine.
·
UV-curable inks
Are used in wide FLATBED printers, which print directly to
hard substrates such as plastic, aluminum, and wood. After printing, the ink is cured by exposing
it to strong UV light.
Basically, there are two types of printers: roll-to-roll and flatbed
Basically, there are two types of printers: roll-to-roll and flatbed
Roll To Roll Printer
DTG stands for Direct-to-Garment printing. It is a modern printing technique using a specialized inkjet printer to print directly onto fabric. It is also a dry process in terms of printing. DTG printing differs from traditional textile printing methods, such as screen printing or heat transfer printing, which involve applying ink or designs onto a separate transfer medium before transferring it onto the fabric.
DTG printing allows highly detailed, colorful designs to be printed directly onto a wide range of fabrics, including cotton, polyester, and blends. The printing process is relatively fast and allows for on-demand printing, which is helpful for small production runs and customized orders.
One advantage of DTG printing over other textile printing methods is that it produces high-quality prints with a soft feel, making it ideal for garments such as t-shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts.
In summary, DTG printing is a textile printing method that uses an inkjet printer to print directly onto fabric. It differs from other textile printing methods, such as screen printing or heat transfer printing.
One advantage of DTG printing over other textile printing methods is that it produces high-quality prints with a soft feel, making it ideal for garments such as t-shirts, hoodies, and sweatshirts.
In summary, DTG printing is a textile printing method that uses an inkjet printer to print directly onto fabric. It differs from other textile printing methods, such as screen printing or heat transfer printing.
Textile ink (wet Processing)
Textile inks are dye-based inks. They are made from textile
dyestuffs. That is, the dyes made for fabric dyeing are also used to make ink. Commonly used textile inks are:
·
Reactive
Reactive inks are made from reactive dyestuffs. They are
specially used to print cellulosic fiber. These fibers are made with esters or ethers
of cellulose. These are obtained from the bark, leaf, and seed of a plant. So, reactive ink is primarily used to print cotton and synthetic cotton fibers.
·
Acid
They are especially used on animal protein fibers such as wool and silk. Synthetic fiber like polyamide (nylon) is also printed using acid ink.
·
Disperse
Disperse ink is made from dispersing dye. This ink is used to
print polyester fiber.
Reactive ink is used in almost all fibers except polyester; nowadays, all wet-processing textile industries use it.
The difference between dye and pigment ink:
Both are water-based inks. The basic difference is that.
Dye-based ink is water-soluble, but pigments are not.
The easiest way to understand this is
dye= salt
pigment= sand
If you add salt to water, it dissolves. After printing and drying, water evaporates, and after steaming, dyes react with the fiber and become part of the fiber.
But sand does not dissolve and needs some chemicals, like binders and temperature, to adhere to the fabric.
Here is another post on Reactive Vs Acid Ink
Textile printing machine manufacturer
- · Mutoh
- · Mimaki
- · Konica Minolta
- · Epson
- · Atexco
There are so many brands in the market.
Please read this post if you want to know more about the Textile printing manufacturers' list.
It entirely depends on
what type of machine you need as per your budget. Prices depend on the machine's speed and other features. Nowadays, single-pass machines are also available. These
machines are very fast and produce many times faster than carriage-moving machines
(multi-pass machines). So, very big garment export companies may require single-pass machines. A single-pass machine can print up to forty meters per minute, whereas
a multi-pass machine cannot print more than a few meters per minute.
Ink: Initially, digital printers used only CMYK ink. To cover more details, other light colors are also added. So nowadays all options are available.
An example Branded Printer:
Selection of ink
Every machine manufacturer makes their own brand
name. Because of their service and warranty, customer cannot refuse their offer.
In fact, there are very few textile ink manufacturers worldwide. They supply the
ink to traders and machine manufacturers. There are a few technical points that make customers loyal to their offer. These technical points include the viscosity of ink and its compatibility with the installed head. For example, if a
printer is running on a DX5 head, the ink should also be configured accordingly. It is better to buy ink directly from the manufacturer if prompt support can handle the situation.
Please read this post if you want to know more about Ink manufacturers.
Textile Ink manufacturer
- · Huntsman
- · DyStar
- · Dupont
- · Kornit
- · Solunaris
- · BASF
- · Hongsam
- · Kornit
.
Viscose is the fastest-growing fiber in the textile ink business.
Reactive is the fastest-growing ink in the textile ink business. Since reactive
ink is very popular these days. It has occupied almost all ink markets among the ink
type. Here, we will mainly discuss reactive ink. First of all, let us look at the flowchart of digital textile printing.
Before Talking about fabric processing, let’s talk about the Technical part of designing artwork for printing
·
Printing Resolution
The print resolution matters only if the print is to be viewed from close range. So If a print is seen from a short
distance, it should be printed with high resolution. For example, a dress,
scarf, bed sheet, etc. If any print is seen from a distance, like
billboards. The high-resolution number is 300 dpi or more. Low resolution 72
PPI or less. Depending upon the print image size, it can also be compromised. If a
file is very large at 300 PPI, it can be reduced to 150 DPI without noticeable loss of print quality. If the details are very small, they may be
missed when printed at low resolution, so we should increase the resolution in such cases.
·
Printing Resolution vs File Resolution (DPI vs
PPI )
The name itself defines the issue. Printer resolution is
generally 540-2440 dpi. This varies from printer to printer. The resolution density
is also directly proportional to the printer pass. Printer resolution is also
defined by x- and y-axis values, such as 540x540 dpi. So, the printer's pass and
horizontal and vertical values together define the resolution.
Color Profile:
The most commonly used profile is ICC
Profile. In 1993, companies like Adobe and Microsoft made an association to define
color profiles for input and output devices.
Color Profile: The most commonly used profile is the ICC
Profile. In 1993, companies like Adobe and Microsoft made an association to define
color profiles for input and output devices.
·
International Color Consortium (ICC)
While creating a file for printing, an ICC profile is used, whereas a printer, especially a large-format printer, uses its own profile to achieve the desired color after printing.
Large-format printing machine: Almost all printers use inkjet technology. Hence, they are called inkjet printers.
Vector Vs Raster
In fact, all printing designs are made in vector format. The vector format can technically be expanded to any size at the time of printing. Vector
format graphics are created using lines, curves, and points based on mathematical equations rather than square
pixels. The common software that is used to create vector graphics are
- · Adobe Illustrator
- · CorelDRAW
Commonly used vector
format file extension.
- · AI
- · SVG
- · EPS
Adobe Illustrator Vs Adobe Photoshop
Illustrator is a vector-based software, and Photoshop is a raster-based software. The design which we make in Illustrator is later rasterized in
Photoshop. And saved as a raster in Photoshop. The difference between the two software is simply that the one in Illustrator cannot be pixelated, even after zooming.
Whereas after rasterizing in Photoshop, the same design made in Illustrator
gets pixelated beyond its print size.
Raster Files.
PNG, GIF, JPEG, and TIFF are commonly used image formats. Most of the files, except TIFFs, are saved in compressed format. Hence, TIFF is the most commonly used file format for digital printing.
Here is another post on the Image requirement of artwork for printing.
Design Studio
To develop a printable design from the given sample following
tools are required.
Computers with the latest processor:
- Pre-installed Genuine 64-bit Windows 10 OS
- Licensed the latest version of Adobe Software: Illustrator, Photoshop
- A Powerful Dedicated Graphics Memory (like Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080)
- 4K monitor (color calibrated for true color)
- Latest Processor (Like Intel, Core i7, 6th generation)
- SSD with an external HDD
- Ram:32/64 GB
Graphic tablet
Graphic tablets are the most widely used tools for designers today. The mouse is only for limited use; replacing it with tablets and pens can reduce effort and time.
 |
| Graphic pen Tablet |
DSLR Camera, scanner
A high-end camera and scanner are required to develop the design
Lighting and other studio arrangements.
Pretreatment
Pretreatment: The first step in digital textile
printing. In this process, the fabric is treated with chemicals using a padding
mangle. Chemicals are applied to the fabric's surface to enhance the
print. All the chemicals applied here are of their own significance during fabric processing. The number of such chemicals is predefined. Thus, the supplier provides the recipe for such chemicals based on the ink chemistry. The
main chemicals used for pretreatment are:
- · Sodium bicarbonate
- · Urea
- · Resist Salt
- · Printing gum (Sodium alginate)
These chemicals are applied uniformly using a padding
machine.
Here is a video which further explains the process.
Post-treatment:
After printing, the
ink on the fabric is just raw, and they need to be fixed in the fibre by steaming. During steaming, the dyes in the fire react with the fiber, becoming part of the fabric. Steaming is done with a steam ager machine, and the fabric is generally kept inside the ager at 104 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. To achieve 104 temperature
depending on the condition 1 per kg-cm per square pressure is required.
Washing
Steamed fabric is first washed in running
water, then in shop-boiling water, and finally washed multiple times
with cold water. Here, all unreacted dyes are washed out, and only the reacted dyes are in the fiber. Thus, they become part of the fiber, and they cannot be extracted from finer. The dyes which are in the fiber can be affected by various
parameters. Exposure to sunlight, washing, rubbing, etc., is defined by
the dye manufacturer. They define the scale, which is called fastness. For
example, the optimum level of lightfastness is 8., If the manufacturer of the dye has given
6 out of 8 for the lightfastness of a particular dye then 6 is good whereas 3 or 4 is
considered poor. A dye with 3 lightfastness levels can fade when exposed to
sunlight.
There are many factors that may cause unwanted final print
results in Digital textile printing. To achieve high-quality print results, we first need to follow the processing flowchart. Once we understand it better, we
can easily pinpoint the weakness or error. Let’s again see the entire processing, including the detailed steps and potential errors, and the steps to be taken after each processing. By using this flow chart, we can calculate the cost and the required manpower and pinpoint any issues that arise during processing.
Cost Evaluation:
The following are the factors to evaluate the cost per square meter
- Padding
- Ink
- Electricity
- water
- Fuel
- Detergent and softener
- Labor
- Factory Rent
- Capital Investment
- Repair and maintenance
- Miscellaneous
- Profit Margin of %
Business model:
Digital textile printing is a very innovative concept. Everything
nowadays is converting into a digital system. So this is the ultimate printing
process for the future. Hence this process needs to be practiced by good management and
team. Only then this process flourishes successfully. Let’s have a look at the hierarchy required
for this business.
Digital Textile printing in developing countries
Digital
textile printing is an innovative concept for countries like Nepal, where
almost all fabric printing is done using traditional processes such as screen printing. The Digital printing process has been increasing every year, replacing screen printing. Nepal earns significant foreign currency by exporting garments and handicrafts, such as silk and pashmina scarves. So, the export market has a strong demand for printed garments and pashminas. Digital printing is the
first choice of buyers. So, placing a digital printing factory here in Nepal is
a good decision.
I have been passionately involved in digital textile
printing for more than a decade. I have seen many ups and downs during this time.
So looking back on the time I spent I can summarize the following point.
As per the flow chart (see above evaluation flow chart) of digital textile printing, we need to automate every process, replacing human hands with automatic machines. This is
the first choice. If this is not our option, we need to hire someone who can handle fabric processing without introducing any human handling errors. More than 50% of rejections are due to handling errors.
⦁ A responsible supervisor
Who looks after all the processes involved in digital printing?
Making an order sheet following the printing operator as per the given print
order. and finally, deliver the fabric as per the sample.
⦁ Manager
Looking after the entire system in accordance with the given instructions and mission.
(planning, organizing, leading, and controlling ). There could be other managers
like Marketing managers, human resource managers, and operations managers.
⦁ Designer
Not all graphic designers are textile designers. Making designs with tracing, scanning, and photographs can be done comfortably, but achieving the desired shade is very challenging. We need tools like a high-end camera and a studio-grade scanner.
⦁ and a dedicated team
A dedicated team will always be inspired by good instructions. So
