VISUAL RESOLUTION LOSS ON COTTON DTG PRINTS CAUSED BY DOT-GAIN
A common issues that is not widely discussed in Direct To Garment printing is dot-gain. The reason for this is because when you are printing on a white or light colored garment with your DTG printer you have been told that you do NOT need to pretreat the shirt. You’re not printing white ink, right? So, why would you need to pretreat?
This is partially true. You do NOT need to pretreat the garment. However, pretreating with a dedicated CMYK pretreatment allows for a greatly improved DTG print on a wide variety of fabrics as well as increasing wash durability.
A dedicated Direct To Garment pretreatment lik the Image ArmorLIGHT SHIRT Formula helps control dot-gain. But what is dot-gain?
WHAT IS DOT GAIN IN DTG PRINTING?
Dot gain is an incredibly misunderstood issue in Direct TO Garment printing where the inkjet droplets deposited onto a garment increase in size as they hit the fibers of the shirt. Typically whether it be 100% cotton or 100% polyester the fibers of the shirt will naturally want to start “wicking” the ink that was just printed onto the fibers of the shirt. Instead of holding a perfect little round dot, the dot grows in diameter due to the wicking nature of the garment fibers. This causes poor image quality like “Mudding” which is where the different colored dots wick into each other. This dot diameter growth makes the image less crisp and resultsg in secondary and even tertiary colors due to the different colored dots mixing with each other instead of holding a tight diameter. Instead we get a mushy set of colors and an image that isn’t as sharp as it could be.
HOW DOES DTG PRETREATMENT FOR CMYK ONLY PRINTS HELP WITH DOT GAIN?
Image Armor LIGHT Shirt Formula helps control these issues as independently verified by AM4U. The result? When the surface of the garment is able to help the printed inkjet droplets maintain their shape and not spread out you achieve incredibly sharp, crisp, detailed and vibrant prints on everything from 100% cotton to 100% polyester fabrics. In addition, when applied correctly it also will help with wash durability.
HOW DO I APPLY THE DTG PRETREATMENT?
Typically the BEST way to apply DTG pretreatment is with an automatic pretreatment machine like the VIPER line of DTG pretreatments machines. This allows for more repeatable and precise application of the DTG pretreatment being used to help control the dot gain. In this case with Image Armor LIGHT you would want to apply anywhere from 12-24 grams of pretreatment for a typical 14″x16″ area, then heat press it dry with two 15-20 seconds presses on the heat press (or by running through a conveyor dryer so it emerges slightly damp and then heat press to finish curing the pretreatment and trapping the fibers flat on the surface of the shirt).
This is our passion to help you create the perfect DTG print. Visit our store at shop.imagearmorpt.com for your selection of DOT CONTROL Pretreatments for DTG printing.
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