Screen Printing or DTF Printing: what is the difference, what are the benefits and which one offers better quality?
Screen Printing
Screen printing is a technique where mesh is used to transfer ink or dye onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. The process starts with a creative design, colour separations are done and then screens are created and exposed. Once a screen is exposed, it is then put onto a machine. A squeegee is then used to pull the ink through the screen onto a garment.
DTF Printing
DTF stands for direct to film. This printing technique involves printing a design directly onto a film, via a digital printer, and then transferring it to a substrate via a heat press. The design or image is sent to a computer. You then do your colour separation on the computer and send the information straight to the printer. The design is then printed onto DTF media. Once through the printer, it enters into a shaker unit. The shaker unit drops the powder onto the wet ink. The freshly powdered design is then heated in the machine and the powder melts onto the ink. Once the print comes through the machine, the print is cut out, placed onto the garment and heat pressed on.
Benefits Of Screen Printing
It is a cheaper process. Ink costs are low when volumetric. If you’re doing thousands, perhaps two thousand prints on screen printing, your print cost works out to about one or two rand per print. Compare that to doing one single print on screen printing in full colour, which is going to be expensive. This is because you need to produce full colour screens at your CMYK if you need to do five screens, which is going to cost about one thousand rand to get one full colour print.
Benefits Of DTF Printing
You can do a single multi colour print, and you can do it in quantity. Print on demand (which is a manufacturing process where prints are made to order, in small batches or individual units, using digital print technology), is what a DTF machine is all about. So a customer can come to you for one image. You can do a full image for them, a full colour print, within 10 minutes and give the customer the garment.
Is There A Difference In Quality Between DTF Printing And Screen Printing?
There’s no difference in quality, and the garments last about the same time.
