DTG printing

What is Direct to Garment Printing?

Direct to Garment Printing (DTG) is one of the most environmentally friendly ways to print onto textiles. High detailed images up to 1200dpi print very well and as it is a digital print process, it can print thousands of colour tones all at once using a combination of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key(black) inks. Unlike a lot of traditional garment printing processes, our DTG printer only uses the exact amount of ink needed per print and produces zero water waste. This also means minimal ink wastage as there is only a small amount flushed through for cleaning and maintenance.

We printed these amazing t-shirts for our client @girlyswotclub
You can buy them at girlyswotclub.bigcartel.com

What can I print onto?

When choosing DTG we can print onto most white and light garments using CMYK transparent, water based, eco friendly inks. We do not use white or opaque inks with DTG, so we can’t print onto dark or black fabric. If this is what you’re looking for then see our Screen Printing service. We only print onto 100% organic or recycled fabrics. Organic garments are just the bees knees, but they can on occasion contain very small flaws or specs of colour within the weave. That’s part of the beauty of going organic and as we’re committed to a low waste, slow fashion approach to printing we don’t send garments to landfill, ever. You can order and design Continental Clothing stock online right now, just follow the links at the bottom of the page. If you would like to customise Stanley/Stella garments just get in touch and we’ll handle those orders through email info@wildandkind.com. We’re working on getting their full catalogue live on the website really soon.

How should I prepare my files?

For the best quality print, good file preparation is key. Our printer will print every tiny spec of detail, more so that you’ll be able to achieve with screen printing. But this also means that if your design is pixelated it will print pixelated and if there are any flaws in your design, they’ll print out on your garment. Get into the habit of working in high res from the start of the design process. Although we print in CMYK you should design in RBG for a better colour palette. You want your designs to be 300dpi minimum and always work at the ‘real life size’ (for example, if you want your design to print out a 20x20cm, set your canvas to this size). If you create a beautiful design in low res or at a small size, and the try to make it bigger later on, it’s going to look blurry and pixelated. Once images have been sent through messengers or uploaded and re-downloaded from the internet the file quality drastically reduces, so always send us the original design file. The ideal format for upload is .PNG with a transparent background. We will not accept files that are lower than 300dpi, and we reserve the right to refuse to print designs that are pixelated or blurry due to resizing. This is because at the end of the day, a poor print looks badly on us, wether or not you don’t mind if it’s a low quality image. If you need help, just get in touch. We can offer a design and file preparation service at an additional cost.

How will my design print out using this process?

This style of printing is great for multicolour prints on white and light garments. If printing onto a white garment, your design will print out exactly as it shows in your original design. Because our inks are transparent, if you print onto a coloured garment, the colour of the garment will have an impact on the colours of the design. To test how your design will DTG print onto a coloured garment using photoshop, follow these steps: – Set up your design as a layer in photoshop and remove all white to leave these areas transparent – Next, create a layer behind your design layer and fill with the colour of the garment, or use an image of the garment, – Click on your design layer, and change the layer style from ‘normal’ to ‘multiply’, – It’s not exact, but this gives you a rough idea of how your design will look on any colour.

You can see below that this design looks great on white and light garments, but not so good on red. That’s because darker tones will only suit black ink. We show a colour wheel example on every product page to give you an idea of how colours will translate onto specific garment colours.

Eco Friendly Inks

What Inks do we use with DTG printing?

We use plastic-free, water based OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 certified inks. These inks are eco friendly, and are approved for use on GOTS certified garments. They contain no animal products and are not tested on animals. We use the CMYK colour model, which means you can print full colour designs and are not restricted to a limited number of colours like with screen printing.

Our water based inks soak into the garment and dye the fabric leaving them completely soft to the touch. We choose not to use white inks with our DTG printer because it requires pre-treatment of the fabric, and because the white ink is thick and sticky to adhere to darker colours of fabric it doesn’t produce the same lovely soft design as when only using transparent CMYK inks.

Print Durability

How long will a DTG print last?

Transparent inks are lighter than opaque inks. They dye the fabric and then will naturally age with the garment. They will not peel or crack because the ink is fully absorbed into the garment. No print will look brand new forever, but we love this style of printing particularly because of the way that they develop a nice retro feel over time rather than the cracking and peeling that comes with plastic inks.

To get the longest life out of your garments, washing them properly is key. Wash & iron inside out on a low heat, don’t tumble dry and never use ‘lightening’ detergents.

Misprints

What do we do with our misprinted garments?

Nothing in life is perfect, including printing. Occasionally misprints occur, but we never send our misprints to landfill. We reuse these garments whenever possible for test prints, and when they’ve been used as much as possible we shred the fabric into macrame yarn for our crafts workshops. We have saved a few boxes of misprinted t-shirts over the years, and we’re looking into having these dyed black (in an environmentally friendly process) to reuse as garments.

Pricing

How much does DTG printing cost?

Our print price varies depending on the size of the design. Starting prices for print costs (on top of the base price of the garment) are:
A small print will cost £4.50
A medium print will cost £5
A large print will cost £6

The more you order, the cheaper these prices get. You’ll see a discount chart within the product designer which tells you the discounts that will be added once your items are in the cart.

Our new online software allows you to design your products easily and is a great tool, but it can’t automatically calculate the price of the designs you upload, so we need you to tell us what size each image is. We’re hoping we can automate this process soon but we’re a very small company and fancy software requited fancy bucks.

If you set up your order as small designs when the designs are much bigger we’ll send a secondary invoice which will need to be paid before we start producing your items, so if you’re confused, or struggle with measuring dimensions just email us and we’ll be happy to help you know what to input. There is more information in the help section within the product designer.

Turnaround Time

How long will it take to get my order?

We are a really small team and are currently working to a 7-13 working day turn around. On rare occasions we can rush an order, but there will be additional fees incurred depending on the size of the order as we have to take overtime pay into account for staff.

Delivery

How much will delivery cost?

This depends on the size of the order and where it’s going. We’re based in Scotland, UK, so anything travelling outwith mainland UK will be more expensive.

We calculate shipping based on weight, and we only charge what it costs us to ship. You can find a full breakdown of costs in the ‘shipping & delivery’ sections of the website.

Minimum Order

Is there a minimum order quantity?

The great thing about digital printing is that we can print one garment at a time, meaning there is no minimum order quantity.

This also makes this process great for drop-shipping. This is a type of ‘print-on-demand’ service that saves you time and money especially when you are just getting started up.

Ready to print?

You can design your products online and place your order within minutes.

START DESIGNING