DTG printing for photographic detail on cotton.
Water-based pigment ink printed straight into the fabric, in house on our Tirupur floor. Unlimited colours, no screen setup, and the softest hand of any printed method.
Direct-to-garment printing works the way a desktop printer works, except the sheet of paper is a finished garment. The fabric is pre-treated so the ink will hold, the artwork is printed directly onto the surface in water-based pigment ink, and the print is heat cured. There are no screens, no separations and no registration.
That has one enormous consequence: colour count is free. A hundred-colour photograph costs no more to print than a two-colour logo of the same size, because the machine simply lays down a different ink mix. Everything that makes screen printing expensive at low volume disappears.
The trade is fabric. The pigment has to bond to a natural fibre, so DTG is brilliant on a ring-spun cotton tee, acceptable on a cotton-rich blend and poor on polyester. For a polyester or mixed-fabric programme, DTF does the same job on any base.
Compare all methods →// At a glance
How a DTG print is built
Pre-treatment
A liquid primer is applied and dried before printing. It stops the ink wicking along the fibre and gives the white underbase something to sit on. Bad pre-treatment causes almost every dull or blotchy DTG print, so it is a controlled step.
White underbase on darks
Pigment ink is translucent, so on any colour other than white the machine lays a white layer first, then the colour on top. That is why dark garments take longer, use more ink and carry a slightly firmer hand than the same print on white.
Cure
The printed garment is heat cured so the pigment binds permanently. Cure time and temperature are checked parameters. An undercured DTG print fades noticeably after a handful of washes.
No colour separation
Gradients, drop shadows, soft edges, photographs and textures all print as drawn. Nothing is faked with halftone dots, which is why DTG looks different from a screen print of the same file.
Soft hand
Because the ink sits in the fibre rather than in a film on top of it, a light-ground print can be almost undetectable to the hand. On a premium Supima cotton tee that is exactly the effect you want.
Per-piece variation is free
Nothing is tooled to a single design, so a run can carry different graphics without a cost penalty. Useful for numbered pieces or a capsule of several designs inside one colourway.
// Fabrics it suits
When to choose it
Choose DTG when the artwork is too detailed to separate and the run is too short to justify screens. That describes most first drops. A 50 to 100 piece colourway of cotton tees carrying a photographic or heavily illustrated graphic is the case DTG was built for.
Choose it when you want the print to disappear into the garment. Founders building a premium tee often over-specify the print and end up with a stiff panel across the chest. A light-ground DTG print avoids that entirely.
Do not choose it for a two-colour logo across a thousand pieces, where screen printing is cheaper per unit, and do not choose it for polyester, performance fabric or stretch panels. Be realistic about dark grounds too: the underbase works, but a white-ground print is always softer and brighter.
- Best on t-shirts and oversized tees in cotton.
- Good on cotton-rich sweatshirts and hoodies where you want detail rather than puff.
- Strong for testing a graphic before committing to screens for a bigger reorder.
- Not for leggings, performance shorts or anything with high polyester content.
What to expect, and what to send
Durability
A properly pre-treated and cured DTG print holds up well through normal domestic washing. It does not crack, because there is no thick film to crack, and it does not peel, because there is no film edge to lift. What it does is soften and fade gradually, a little faster than a heavy screen print on the same garment. Cold wash, inside out, no bleach and no hot tumble drying goes onto your care labelling as standard.
Artwork requirements
Send high resolution raster artwork at the intended print size, with a genuinely transparent background. PNG or layered TIFF. Do not send a low resolution web image scaled up, because DTG reproduces exactly what it is given, including the blur. Vector artwork is welcome and rasterises cleanly at full size.
One thing to watch: very fine white lines on a dark ground can close up when the underbase spreads.
Minimums
From 50 pieces per style per colour, sizes splitting freely inside a colourway. There is no setup block to spread, so 50 pieces is an efficient quantity rather than a tolerated one. Sample lead time runs 10 to 22 days, bulk 25 to 55 days depending on the product.
How cost behaves
DTG cost is close to flat per garment. With no screen preparation, a run of 50 and a run of 500 carry a similar cost per piece. What moves the number is ink volume: printed area, density of coverage, and whether a white underbase is needed.
So a print on a dark garment costs more than the same print on white, a large back graphic costs more than a small chest graphic, and adding colours costs nothing at all. To reduce DTG cost, shrink the artwork or lighten the garment, not the palette.
Decoration is quoted inside your unit cost once the artwork, placements and quantity are fixed. Nothing on this page is a price.
DTG printing: common questions
For 50 to a few hundred cotton pieces with a detailed graphic, DTG. For several hundred upwards with one or two flat colours, screen printing will be cheaper per unit. Send us the artwork and the quantity and we will run both ways.
Not well. Pigment ink needs a natural fibre to bond to, so polyester gives weak colour and poor wash durability. A cotton-rich blend prints acceptably with muted colour. For polyester, use DTF, or sublimation if the graphic runs all over.
On a light ground, no. The ink sits inside the fibre and the print is barely detectable. On a dark ground the white underbase adds a little body, so it is firmer than a white-ground print but still softer than plastisol screen.
Through a normal garment life with cool washing and no hot tumble drying. It fades rather than fails, so it ages gradually instead of cracking.
Yes. There is no tooling tied to a design, so variation is free. That makes DTG useful for capsules and numbered pieces inside a single 50 piece colourway.
Always, on your actual bulk fabric. Colour reads differently on jersey, terry and fleece, and on a garment-dyed base more again. Request a sample or book a call to talk it through.
Detailed artwork, short run, cotton base.
That is the DTG case. Send the file and the quantity, and we will confirm it before you commit.