Improving DTG Design

[Boldline]

Hey Everybody!
Not sure if this officially belongs in the "Art Help" section or here in "DTG General" but I have no doubt Frog will move it if need be!
So I have a terrific client who commissioned me to design a couple motocross designs including this ATV design.They are vector designs created to be customized with individualized colors and numbers/names and therefore printed DTG. The client has some Illustrator skills and changes out the info and then sends it to his local DTG retails shop to print.
Is this standard output? Anyone have any ideas on how I could improve the result? I am already thinking there might be too much detail in the design that can't translate properly onto fabric...and that the gray needs to be lighter... Any other ideas or thoughts? Thanks so much for any help and suggestions!

[mimosatexas]

I don't have any examples I can photograph and send your way right this second, but that doesn't look like a great DTG print based on the photos and based on what I have seen in person.  I'm sure someone who does this in house will be able to comment with more info, but it looks a lot more dull and less opaque than many I have seen.  Could depend on a lot of things like the shirt chosen, type of DTG printer etc.

[mk162]

do you know what kind of printer?  Not all are made the same...especially the early ones.

now, that being said, and I am not trying to brag, but ours look better, much better.

Zip me that file over and I'll try and run a sample off tomorrow and see if I can get some good pics.  You should never worry about "too much detail" for DTG, that is what it is made for.

We do things differently here.  We pretreat EVERYTHING.  The example I give is printing on copy paper vs. inkjet photo paper.  You get a much much better print on paper that was made for inkjet ink, so why not treat shirts the same?  the prints are brighter, the blacks are blacker and the durability is much better.

[islandtees]

We do lots of DTG prints and that was not done very well. If we did that it would pop right off the shirt.

[Dottonedan]

Like Brad mentioned, shirts that are not pre treated are very washed out/pail in color. For some reason, not all DTG shops will pre treat a white tee, but that alone helps with the brightness, not to mention "the stronger life of the bonding"

The color accuracy is also trial and error, but can be narrowed down to be pretty close.

The thing about DTG is that anyone can buy them with no print or color adjustment background.
With those, what you get it what you get. Their intend is not to provide an accurate color image but to simply provide a Multi color image at low quantity

These guys will tell ya, not all DTG print suppliers/contractors are the same.

[Boldline]

I appreciate everyone's input so far - very helpful. I know the client is using a local big frog retail store to do his printing. Sounds like a case of using the inexperienced retailer instead of turning to a professional printer like one of you. I'm going to call over and see what kind of machine they use at that retail location. I'll also zip over the file so you can test it as you generously offered to do. It would be nice to compare apples to apples. My client is happy with the output I've shown you, but I think that's because he's never seen the bar raised. For me it's a shame to see awesome detailed art (biased of course!) wasted with that kind of low quality output. I know that if I can show him quality, he'll never go back to this current sub par result. He's reselling these on his website so it has to look good. You guys are awesome!


Mat Woodworth
www.boldlinedesign.com

[mk162]

here is the other issue though, it's more that likely not that profitable for anybody, there is only so much profit to go around in a $25 shirt that you outsource the printing on.

[islandtees]

I appreciate everyone's input so far - very helpful. I know the client is using a local big frog retail store to do his printing. Sounds like a case of using the inexperienced retailer instead of turning to a professional printer like one of you. I'm going to call over and see what kind of machine they use at that retail location. I'll also zip over the file so you can test it as you generously offered to do. It would be nice to compare apples to apples. My client is happy with the output I've shown you, but I think that's because he's never seen the bar raised. For me it's a shame to see awesome detailed art (biased of course!) wasted with that kind of low quality output. I know that if I can show him quality, he'll never go back to this current sub par result. He's reselling these on his website so it has to look good. You guys are awesome!


Mat Woodworth
www.boldlinedesign.com

Big Frog by us uses a Brother 541.
We use a Brother GT782, not made anymore but a real workhorse.
We dont pretreat white shirts because if you know how to make color adjustments and set the Brother correctly the prints pop.

[Frog]

As a franchise, I'm sure that quality varies from location to location, owner to owner, although that flies in the face of one of the main tenets behind franchises

[mk162]

island, i disagree on the white shirt PT....

we get killer colors now with virtually no tweaking.  The prints wash better as well.

Check out the http://imagearmorpt.com/ site and ask Brian for a sample...we won't go back to not pretreating.

the big frog over here stays pretty busy.  it's a great idea, but I don't think I could handle those customers.

[islandtees]

island, i disagree on the white shirt PT....

we get killer colors now with virtually no tweaking.  The prints wash better as well.

Check out the http://imagearmorpt.com/ site and ask Brian for a sample...we won't go back to not pretreating.

the big frog over here stays pretty busy.  it's a great idea, but I don't think I could handle those customers.

That works for you, do you own a Brother GT782? We have been doing this for awhile and have it down.
Different machines give different results. I didn't say it works for everyone, it works for us.

[mk162]

we have the 382, it's the 3rd brother printer we've owned.

test the washability of the IA light formula.  We actually use less ink per print, with better results, so it pretty much works itself out cost wise.

this one was the first...didn't even have a model number...we beta tested for brother....so yeah, i've been doing this for a while as well.

[islandtees]

we have the 382, it's the 3rd brother printer we've owned.

test the washability of the IA light formula.  We actually use less ink per print, with better results, so it pretty much works itself out cost wise.

this one was the first...didn't even have a model number...we beta tested for brother....so yeah, i've been doing this for a while as well.

Our biggest problem with pretreat is it takes to long. Our Brothers goes all day long and we cant lose production with the time it takes to pretreat.
We have more than 1 Brother. I guess if you do 5 or 6 dozen a day you can pretreat, but for us it would bottleneck our production.
We used to do contract DTG but no longer do it cause we cant keep up with retail.
We have not had 1 customer complain about brightness or washability of our shirts so no need to pretreat. This is what works for us.

[mk162]

then great!  what we do with lights is PT and run them through the oven.  No need to press them...that is what slows us down.  I can have an employee run them through between other jobs.

I haven't had too many complaints...a couple here and there.  Mainly it's because it's a different process than standard printing and the print has a different look.

[inkman996]

Island Tees is correct tho if you use the correct colors and color mode your prints on white can be quite vibrant. I have been printing on a brother for at least five years now and know what works and what doesn't. I have about a dozen color pallets printed on shirts to help select the best colors to use in designs. The OP picture may have been printed on a brother but chances are the company that printed them do nothing to optimize the results and simply print what was given to them. The art was probably CMYK to start with, when I get CMYK images I convert to RGB and see what will need to be adjusted. Also from the look of the pic it looks like it may have been printed twice or the printed cranked up the Vivid Settings which caused a lot of of saturation in the treys etc.

I would like him to send me the file as well and I will print on an original GT541 and see what comes out.