It is a very little talked about issue with direct to garment printing. UV discoloration of pretreatment. If a white ink pretreatment (typical of most pretreatments on the market) will discolor, and quickly, when exposed to the sun. However, if the shirt is washed prior to UV exposure there typically will be no UV discoloration. It is usually only BEFORE washing if the pretreated area is exposed to the sun's UV light, that you will see a discolored area where the pretreatment was applied.
Up until now, this has always been an issue. However, at Image Armor we are always pushing and innovating. Our newest, yet to be released pretreatment (which has already been and still is being testing in the field) resolves this issue. It allows for shirts to be directly printed and worn outside in broad daylight with no worries about the pretreated area discoloring. More information will be coming soon, with more videos. In this video we pretreated a white shirt to really show the discoloration – and WE KNOW that we will hear people say “but you don't pretreat white shirts with a dark pretreatment”. Well, you do if you want to print a white underbase. And, anytime you print white ink – even on an ASH colored shirt, you have to pretreat it.
We are pushing the boundries of DTG pretreatment and believe we have an incredible solution to one of the least talked about issues with DTG printing. And it is universal and will work with virtually most DTG printers and ink sets on the market. Image Armor. Changing the way you DTG. Striving for 1% improvement each day.
