Is DTF printing permanent?

DTF printing is a new type of printing process that has become popular all over the world as of 2019 and holds a very important position in the printing industry. So is DTF really that good compared to the traditional printing process? What is the colorfastness of DTF prints? What factors affect the quality of DTF prints?

From our experience, we know that in order to get high-quality DTF prints, you need to master very well some basic factors that have a significant impact on the end result.
We will list the three most important ones:

High quality ink

DTF ink quality is extremely important.The inks available on the market for digital printing are very different.A lot of printers here, unfortunately, are mainly guided by price and most often work on the lowest-end ones. And we already know that the quality of the inks has a huge impact on the color of the print, the color fastness and the strength of the print during repeated washing.

Type of adhesive and fixation time in the heating tunnelAn important point is the type of adhesive. Unfortunately, there is no other way to check its quality than testing, testing and testing again. You need to try the adhesives that are available on the market, preferably from different sources of supply, and choose the one that will be most compatible with the film, the printer and your settings on the press and tunnel. Fusing time in the tunnel oven is equally important for settings. Because the adhesive must bond well with the inks on the film.

Fusing temperature

In order to get saturated colors you need repeated tests with indentation temperatures on the press. We will not count how many such tests we have done ourselves:)

Different fabrics, different inks and different printing processes have different fusing temperatures.If the temperature is too low, the print will crack and come away from the fabric after the first wash. Too high can damage the fabric. So adjusting the ideal fusing temperature is crucial to the quality of the print.

Summary

When these factors are well mastered then all DTF prints will be of very good quality. So much so that they can safely stand next to screen printing in terms of quality. Washing won’t scare them, the colors will still be saturated, and the print won’t crack or come away from the material.

Of course, to these mentioned factors you can add a few more, such as the printer that the printer has, but this is already a topic for a new article.

If you want to check our printing capabilities, you are more than welcome to do so. Just send us an email at: info@printexpress.pl with the attached file. We will give you a quick quote and give you an approximate turnaround time.