Digital Garment Printing

[thinkwork]

Hello,

as a new member to this forum, I look forward to learning from the contributions of it's members. hopefully, I will be able to provide some worthwhile input as well.

I am wondering if there is anyone out there with experience running digital garment printers. these are fairly new devices that use inkjet technology to print directly onto a 100% cotton substrate (think: Tshirt.) Most of the models out there use CMYK inks. Some machines are converted Epson 4000 series, some are built for the ground up for this purpose. I believe that eventually, these type of machines will replace a great deal of what is traditionally done with screenprinting, although, the limitations of the current offerings aren't going to make this happen tomorrow.

in any case, I would love to discuss anyone's experience/intrest/problems/issues with these devices. some machines use a dedicated RIP and some simply print out of a graphics app. either way, I believe that mastery of Photoshop will play a very large role in the quality of the output.

thanks in advance for your interest and input!!

Dan

[The Repro Kid]

Sounds to me like it may solve some moiré issues.

If you are familiar with garment screen printing than you know that the screen mesh of the silkscreen can cause moiré patterns when combined with the mesh of the garment weave. Throw in gradient screen patterns in the art, or even worse, 4/c process screen angles, and you have a serious moiré pattern challenge.

I've never seen this "direct-to-shirt" printing but it sounds interesting.

[efid]

Hi Dan,
Actually there is great new machines in the market more then a year now for production of digital garment printing, you can find more details at: www.krnit.co.il. this machine print up to 300 prints an hour and capable for printing on black garments as well.

[one11]

We just purchased a digital garment printer the fast t Jet2. It was quite the investment but it is FANTASTIC.