We take a short look into why we believe that every shirt should be pretreated and have printed examples to show exactly why that backs this notion. Utilizing the Image Armor LIGHT Shirt Formula we can make every DTG printed shirt look better, crisper, and improve washability.
Tag Archives: DTG
New Image Armor Inks for DTG Printing Coming in 2015
Image Armor, LLC is excited to announce that we will be releasing a new line of DTG inks for the direct to garment printing industry in 2015. What we did for the industry with our line of pretreatments we plan on doing again with our new CMYK and white ink sets.
Initially we will be releasing our CMYK inks for the modified Epson series of DTG printers. Both bulk and bag forms will be available for purchase however no pricing structures have been set at this point in time. Image Armor’s goal is to bring more affordable, better performing inks to the masses to help the DTG industry grow. We see the future of our industry and it is much bigger than anyone can really imagine. The future of DTG starts right here in 2015.
As the new year progresses, we will be releasing the white ink for the modified Epson DTG printers as well as releasing ink sets for other brands of printers such as the Brother legacy printers (GT-541) as well as their new GT3 Series of printers.
The image above was printed on a 100% polyester shirt utilizing the Image Armor LIGHT Shirt Formula in conjunction with our new CMYK Image Armor Inks. The results really are that bright and bold and look as though it has been screen printed.
We are proud to be a part of the DTG printing experience and helping our customers find better solutions to help them be more successful in the direct to garment business. Image Armor is committed to finding Solutions for the DTG Industry.
We would love to hear what brand of printers and type of ink systems you would like to see brought to market first. So, let us know by using our Contact Us page.
2015 is going to be an awesome year for DTG! Happy New Year and thank you to everyone for making Image Armor the success that it is!
Wishing You and Your Families a Very Merry Christmas from Image Armor
Everyone at Image Armor would like to thank you for a great 2014 and wish you a very Merry Christmas. And we hope that 2015 is very profitable for you, your family, and your company. Here at Image Armor, we hope to be able to help you be more profitable in 2015 with several new products that are sure to help change the way you work.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year DTG Industry!
Stahls is the Newest Image Armor Pretreatment Dealer
Image Armor is proud to announce that Stahl’s is our newest Image Armor pretreatment dealer. Stahl’s is well known in the industry for providing solutions in apparel decorating and carries a wide selection of print/cut materials, supplies, transfers, equipment and the new Epson SureColor direct to garment printer with which the Image Armor ULTRA and LIGHT formulas work great.
Image Armor LIGHT and ULTRA solutions are available on Stalh’s website at www.stahls.com and is carried at all of their facilities in the United States and Canada. Purchases can be made online or by calling 800.478.2457.
Image Armor Compliant with CPSIA of 2008
Image Armor, LLC is proud to announce that the complete line of Image Armor Pretreatment products are in compliance with the 2008 Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. What this means is that there are absolutely no heavy metals used in the manufacturing of the Image Armor products making its use safe for use on products to be used by children under the age of 12.
- No Lead (Pb)
- No Antimoney (Sb)
- No Arsenic (As)
- No Barium (Ba)
- No Cadmium (Cd)
- No Chromium (Cr)
- No Mercury (Hg)
- No Selenium (Se)
This means that by being in compliance with the CPSIA Image Armor is safe to use on any products designed or intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger, such as t-shirts, bags, blankets, towels, etc.
With Christmas season soon arriving, this is good news for anyone who does printing for infant and youth with their direct to garment printers.
If you have any further questions, you can contact Image Armor via our Contact Page.
MESA Distributors Now Carrying Image Armor
Image Armor is proud to announce that MESA Distributors is now selling Image Armor Pretreatment Solutions.
Based out of Ft. Worth, MESA will help fill in some of the gaps we have for Texas and eastward for our customer base looking for a closer shipping point in the Lone Star State.
MESA carries the Summit DTG direct to garment printer as well as supplies, inks, and now Image Armor pretreatment. They can be reached at by visiting their website at www.mesadist.com or by calling (800) 456-3727.
Come See Image Armor at the Ft. Worth ISS 2014
We are inviting everyone to stop by our booth at the 2014 ISS in Ft. Worth this week (Sept. 18th-20th) and see what Image Armor is doing with direct to garment DTG printing and 100% polyester fabrics! We think we’ll change the way you are looking at DTG and white ink.
This will be the first public showing of the results of our new process for printing with Dupont ink sets on 100% polyester fabrics – utilizing our popular Image Armor LIGHT Shirt formula. The results are truly amazing and though it doesn’t solve all the problems of dark shirt polyester printing, it is opening up new doors and avenues for DTG printers into areas never before achievable. The washability is excellent and has an incredibly soft hand feel.
So, stop by, visit, and get your free samples of Image Armor LIGHT, DARK, and ULTRA Formulas. However make sure to stop by as these samples will definitely go quickly!
(The image on the left is printed 100% polyester carolina blue with white ink).
See us in booth #502
100% Polyester DTG Printing Without Different Inks
Image Armor Has Done it Again
100% Polyester Printing with Regular Dupont Inks
Doing the IMPOSSIBLE is what we’ve always strived to bring to our customers. Products that improve the DTG printing experience is what drives us to constantly improve the direct to garment printing process. Up until today, polyester printing with DTG has been limited to CMYK only on light or white colored polyester shirts.
However, in our constant pursuit of perfection, we’ve taken another step closer to the holy grail of DTG printing – white inks on black polyester fabrics. WE’RE NOT THERE YET, but the results of our process speaks volumes about the direction of the DTG market.
Utilizing our existing Image Armor LIGHT Shirt formula, we have been able to achieve commercially acceptable white ink prints on mid-colored polyester fabrics. The process is relatively straight forward, but we are expecting the RIP manufacturers to follow suit to give end users this ability from within the RIP itself to make it much easier to accomplish. Currently we have to do a little “workaround” to make the magic happen.
STEP 1: Pretreat the Shirt
Pretreat the shirt using Image Armor LIGHT Shirt Formula. We utilized the Sport-Tek ST350 series 100% poly performance shirt (more on this in a minute) and applied 24 grams of pretreatment on the polyester shirt. The PT was then cured at 330F for two 20 second presses utilizing brown KRAFT type paper. I would not recommend using teflon as it will definitely shine up the shirt too much. The platen was raised to allow steam to escape and create a much more thorough and dry cure in between presses. We utilized a Stahl’s Hotronix Air Fusion heat press with 70 psi. A little experimentation might find that slightly more PT may help.
A NOTE ABOUT POLYESTER SHIRTS: We must note here at this point that some polyester shirts are better than others for printing. We did not some discoloration of the polyester fabric on the yellows and greys with the Sport-Tek ST350’s (it was not massive but some might find it unacceptable). However, we’ve seen some others that do not discolor. Sometimes this discoloration comes out in the wash, other times it does not. You’ll need to do some research on what polyester brand and shirts work best for your shop.
STEP 2: The UNDERBASE is Key
Printing the under base is key to getting these polyester shirts with white ink to print correctly. Normally some RIPs will print a solid under base of white under the entire design on a gold shirt like in our example above. However, for technical reasons you will get poor results if you do that with this process.
What you need to do is act as though you are printing the design (specifically the under base) on a black shirt. If your RIP allows you to utilize the black of the shirt color for the black in the printed design, then the RIP will not print any white ink where black is in the design (the shirt would be the black ink of the design). This process generally creates awesome fades on the DTG prints. This is also exactly what we want for our mid and light colored polyester shirts as far as the under base.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but black ink does not technically need an under base beneath it to look good on any shirt. You can see on our grey shirt to the right, what this white under base looks like when printed. Notice where black would be in the image there is NO white under base – this is extremely important. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE BLACK DOES NOT HAVE ANY WHITE UNDERBASE UNDER IT WILL RESULT IN A LESS THAN DESIRABLE FINAL PRINT ON POLYESTER FABRICS.
Note, your RIP must allow you to ONLY PRINT this under base. You DO NOT want to print the CMYK associated with this RIP’d design. Why? Again, we are not printing on a BLACK shirt. That’s why. So, you must be able to separately print the under base from the CMYK.
It might be noted at this time that the more white ink your printer can put down at this stage is crucial. Set it to a maximum amount of white ink. If you try to go back and print the under base again (as in a 2x under base) there will be massive bleeding of moisture around the edges of where the white ink and polyester meet. Try to bump up the white under base so it is dropping as much white ink as possible without over saturation to achieve a solid white layer of ink film.
STEP 3: Print the CMYK and HIGHLIGHT White
Now, we need to take the same exact image and print it in exactly the same place but with a CMYK + White Highlight option. In our RIP we utilized the CMYK + White highlight as though we were printing on a dark colored shirt (such as GOLD). This would normally print a solid white under base (which we do not use) and then the CMYK as normal with the highlight white.
What this achieves is allowing the BLACK ink to print directly onto the garment since there should be no white under base in those areas. And, we also get a highlight white to help augment the optical brightness of the white ink.
Please note, you may need to reduce the white highlight percent lower to keep the CMYK (especially black ink) from mixing with the wet white highlight being printed. In our case, we utilized a 50% highlight and 100% white under base (higher values may work – some experimentation will be required). The CMYK was printed at a standard 65% setting. Your printer and ink set and polyester shirts might require some testing on settings, but it is worth it.
Once the shirt is printed, we have to heat set the ink.
STEP 4: Cure the Ink
Here is where it can get sticky. We strictly adhered to Duponts technical sheet of the cure time for their Artistri inks. 120 seconds in the heat press at 338F. I would not recommend higher temps due to the shirt dyes sublimating through the white ink. This seems to give an incredible great balance to wash ability and optical brightness, even on gold 100% polyester fabrics.
Our curing parameters we used a Hotronix Fusion heat press (non-pneumatic) at a pressure of 3-4 on the digital display. Do not use too much pressure and “kill” the inks by pushing them into the shirt.
NOW WHAT?
The shirt is printed, cured, and ready to roll. We’ve found excellent washability with the white ink and CMYK prints utilizing this technique without having to purchase any additional or different ink sets while at the same time utilizing our popular IMAGE ARMOR LIGHT Shirt Formula. This reduces the number of pretreatments needed to achieve great results with all of your current equipment.
Now, since you understand our process, a little experimentation on your end and happy customers will make the hard work on this end all pay off.
UPDATE: 5x WASH TESTING
Below is a picture of wash testing. The picture is a 5x wash in hot/cold and drying hot. Note the closeup inset of the picture. The ink is wrapped around the fibers of the polyester and interweaved – so it is not going anywhere. The drop in initial color vibrancy is maybe 5% like expected even on cotton but there is ABSOLUTELY NO HAND OR FEEL TO THE PRINT AT ALL AT THIS POINT.
UPDATE: 10x WASH TESTING
Below is a picture and closeup of the same shirt as above, washed and dried 10 times. There is still no noticeable difference between this and the 5x washing. The closeup reveals a better revelation of the white ink still wrapped around the individual fibers of the polyester shirt. The image is still extremely commercially acceptable after 10x washes.
Image Armor Now Available in the United Kingdom and Ireland
Image Armor is proud to announce that our pretreatment solutions for DTG printing are now available in the United Kingdom and Ireland through our newest distributor – J&B Sewing.
Established in 1961, J & B are a leading distributor of Direct to Garment Printers, marketing both the AnaJet and Brother brand models throughout the UK and Ireland. With over eight years experience in the DTG sector J & B have a wealth of knowledge on all aspects of garment decoration. J & B were the first overseas distributor for
AnaJet and have been a Brother distributor (starting with sewing machines) since 1968. J&B carrie
s large stocks of ink and are delighted to be appointed as the distributor for the Image Armor Pretreatment Products throughout the United Kingdom.
For help and full information or to order your Image Armor pretreatments you can visit their website at www.jbsewing.com or contact them by calling +44 (0)1633 281555.
Image Armor Testimonials
CUSTOMER TESTIMONIALS

ARTICULATE CREATION / WICKED SICK TEES
“The implementation of Image Armor pretreatments into our DTG printing process has been a much needed upgrade from the former pretreats we had been using. Image Armor Dark formula has helped increase wash-fastness and white ink opacity on dark shirts while decreasing “shiny box” outlines and frustration associated with trying to dial in the amount of pretreat needed for every brand and style of garment. Image Armor Light formula has taken our light shirt prints from a washed-out look to appearing as vibrant as a water-based screen print with similar durability. IA Light has also enabled us to expand our product line beyond cotton, as we are now able to print on light 100% polyester garments with great detail and vibrancy. Thank you to Image Armor for helping Articulate Creation and the rest of the DTG industry with these revolutionary new products!”
Jeffrey McGurren Founder | Designer of Articulate Creation | Wicked Sick Tees
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