DTG and G8000

[Printficient]

did you anti-alias your raster?  if so the printers will see the soft edges and think it's white.

part of the issue with DTG is the faster you print the more dots in the image(usually).

I do not recommend printing 50/50's dtg.  The prints just aren't as bright and the fabric messes with it more.  Part of my issue with Kornit printers is the pretreat doesn't mat down the fibers so you do get more fibrillation since there is nothing but liquid that touches the shirt.

Partially true.  They do have a wipe feature after pretreat.  The adjustment capabilities on the Kornit are ridiculous.  This is both a good and bad thing.  The Kornit really emphasizes that it is not a plug and play print.  With practice and art knowledge you can print beautiful vibrant prints on any material on a Kornit.  Practice practice practice.

[CSPGarrett]

I can chime in on this.  I have operated a DTG facility in California for close to 4 years now and am in love with it.  We are actually adding 2-3 more machines to our Maryland facility to keep up with demand.

So with the prints you have shown the first thing is to find out exactly what machine and inks they use. If they don't tell you inks then you should know the machine (Kornit, Brother, Epson modified).  By knowing this we can determine the ink type.  If they are using Dupont Ink on an epson machine you SHOULD NOT be printing on 50/50 blends, let alone a standard Gildan shirt.  It needs to be a ringspun shirt.  The lowest style we print is the FOL or Jerzees HD series.  We don't allow clients to print base Gildan product because we already know the outcome.

Further, if running a Kornit or Brother these due print lower resolution than converted epson's but for spot color artwork it isn't the biggest deal.  Second, artwork doesn't need to be 600 dpi.  It is actually over-kill.  The perfect file we like to say is pretty simple.  300 DPI, sized to print, transparent background, saved as a png.  When these are printed on our machines at 1440x1440 DPI they blow the Kornits and Brothers away (keep in mind you can really see the quality difference when the artwork has detail in it).

The current artwork looks like it could have a few issues, one in particular is a bad choke or moving of the garment on the platen.  Usually it is a bad choke and oversight on the rip software when prepping the run.  But depending on the pallet we do sometimes get garment shifts if trying to fit a small ladies tank or any other tiny garment on properly.  As for the spotty white and red spot print this most likely is due to the fact you ran a 50/50.  DTG inks, especially white (Dupont) don't adhere to syncretic fibers, only cotton.  So when printed you will see the print look awesome prior to heat pressing, once properly cured it looks like the image you have.

Personally I am not a fan of Kornit quality since it prints on wet pre-treat, the issue with this is the hand that the print provides, the fact that you don't have fiber matte down, and match it with 600 DPI you will see quality difference.

I know someone earlier mentioned shirts.io.  We always joke that they are our best form of advertisement.  We are constantly getting people that work with them calling us for printing and fulfillment services.  My main concern with them is that they allow customers to print on items / print ways that any knowledgable DTG printer would never let their customers do.  This I think leads to customers gaining false information on the process and what to expect, thus lowering the bar for all dtg printers out there.

A list of great dtg product would be;

Fruit of the Loom HD Series (your bargain tee but prints 10x better than Gildan).
Ringspun Shirts
G92500 Hoodie - Ringspun and 75% cotton, the best hoodie out there to print. Don't use the 50/50 blend.
G92000 Sweater - same as above.
***Fruit of the Loom Softspun Fleece (we have been testing this and it performs well but still not as good as the above fleece).
Any 100% cotton tank and other items that ARE NOT ribbed.

That is a basic guideline for product to use.  Our newest company coming out actually only has a very strict list of product since we have been around the block a few times and know it makes everybody more money to keep it simple and increase quality.

[Dottonedan]

CSP,  that is a boat load of good content. Thanks very much for taking the time to assist.

[mk162]

I agree, we avoid Gildans and the HD shirts print great for cheapies.

But the Brother GT3 series prints up to 1200 DPI.  Honestly we rarely use it.  It takes longer to print.  Also pretreating light garments makes the detail crazy good...way better than 1200dpi mode.

I can't tell you how many times I have told people that 50/50 and 100% poly won't work...the same people over and over again.  We print them with CMYK all day long and they look awesome, but white ink, that's another story.

I've had issues putting too much ink down before where the print shifts because there is so much ink on the shirt.

[ZooCity]

CSPGarrett, wow!  Thanks for dropping knowledge into this thread.

So yes, this was shirts.i.o, now Scalable Press.  We have only 1 experience with them but it's enough for me to say avoid them like the plague, sounds like you all are aware of that already though.  They still haven't responded regarding the issue. 

To clarify on the art file, I rasterized the vector at 600ppi, sent over at 350ppi, transparent .png.  My point was that it wasn't the file causing the issues. 

I agree that it appears to be bad choke in the rip on the ub.  Another samp they sent exhibits the shifting issue however.  I can see how both would be problematic.

We're going to suck it up and screen print these.  Learning more and more about DTG the hard way but we're starting to gain enough knowledge to make some use of it I think.  I must say I'm surprised at some of it's limitations but as I learn more about the mechanics of the digital print it begins to make more sense.

Oh, one last question for you DTG people- why the .png again?  Just curious as to that choice of file format.

[CSPGarrett]

We picked png to simplify the process (as you can see I am big on simplicity for dtg).  It allows for a transparent background and when we print them with our particular rip software we get extremely accurate color matching.  Also they are extremely common for most graphic design software out there, most people know what they are, and the resulting file sizes aren't too large (compared to psd for example).

In regards to shirts.io the biggest issue they have is that they keep expanding sales, competing against their own clients, and are ignoring production.  Basically the idea of having a large customer on boarding system and playing a numbers game of how many will stick around since they don't know better or thing it's how the industry is.

They used to use dupont ink, now they claim to be using epson surecolor ink.  As for the limitations of dtg printing I think it is the exact opposite.  We can print colors/more colors than I can do on any of my screen printing presses, I can be MUCH more versatile in my sales daily, I can use a different sales approach.  Think about selling to certain clients more often for lower unit runs to get more face time and up-sell other services.  The more they work with you the more they don't want to go elsewhere unless you "screw up".  Also, if you design towards DTG then you set yourself up for great success paired with a good dtg company.  These designs should be so vivid, full colored, and just plain awesome that the customer can't go shopping around unless they are finding a screen printer that "claims" they can do amazing 10-14 color simulated process prints with high minimums cost effectively.  This way, as long as you are fair in pricing and great in quality they should't have a complaint after the first competitor quotes them 150 unit minimum for a 14 color print.

Also with dtg, poly prints will be available at some point soon, we are still doing testing in house.  Before we come to market with it we want to make sure I can back it with my name 100%.  That is why we don't print G5000 or G2000 since I wouldn't want to put my name on it.

I really like DTG and think everyone in our industry will be selling it at some point or utilizing it for customers, screen printing is fun but running a 1000 piece spot color run can get boring (usually gives me plenty of time to dream about expansion or new software).

If you ever have direct dtg questions feel free to ask me directly. I want to make sure everyone is knowledgeable so you can make proper decisions and help the dtg industry get stronger by selling it properly.

[ZooCity]

More awesome knowledge, thanks Garrett. 

I did email you via the forum button, let me know you received or email/pm me.