The age of being able to print directly from computer to garment is here today! It has been many years since the first attempts to digitally print directly to a garment.

 At the time, the results were slow productivity, poor to average quality and the inks were turning expensive print heads into bricks of solid ink. A lot has changed, quite a lot. Since that time, the ink chemistry has matured; the inkjets have been perfected and the computer capabilities have been improved to handle all of the complex applications required to fire the inkjets and reproduce a full range of artwork. All of this
allows for high quality prints from a few dozen per hour up to 300 garments per hour.
Before we go on any further, let’s keep in mind that, as of today, direct digital
printing is a compliment to screen printing and does not mean that the elimination of
screen printing is close at hand. As long as there is a market for specialty inks and the need to print large volume orders, there will be a need for screen printing (at least
for now). There are many reasons to consider direct digital printing. One of the most important
is the ability to manufacture a quality garment at an affordable price and remain a profitable organization. Direct digital printing offers the ability to reduce your overhead by reducing labor and seriously reducing the cost of consumables and, at the same time, producing beautiful high quality garments that may have not been achievable or even considered in many shops.

Digital printing is not screen printing and it will need to be marketed differently. The appearance of the print and the hand of the printed garment are going to be very obvious and this is not a bad thing. Digital offers a soft hand that rivals sublimation in feel and appearance. The print is breathable and comfortable for the wearer. For the
first time you can scale your images to match the garment size without adding cost. Almost all printers use a single size imprint to cover a large range of garment sizes. This has saved the cost of screens, artwork and setups but the image was not in
the proper proportion to the size of the garment. Now you can scale every imprint to match the garment size for the most esthetically pleasing appearance, from a child’s small to a full size triple-X garment, effortlessly and affordably. Also consider that the printed image will be made up of digitally constructed colors and not solid areas of plastisol. The appearance will be different, and initially, will need to be marketed differently before the digital process becomes accepted throughout the industry. With several manufacturers entering their equipment into the marketplace, buyers
have a choice of which machine best fits their business plan. From desktop units to industrial applications, the throughput of these machines is widespread and so is the investment required. Prices range from $11,000 for the desktop units up to
$190,000 for an industrial model. The determining factor to the size of your investment will be the total volume of garments that your shop  can convert to the digital process and your company’s mix of run lengths. In many ways digital printing may prove to be the most dramatic event to hit the imprinted garment industry in history. It can level the playing field between the small, up-and-coming shops and the major manufacturers in terms of quality, versatility and design capabilities. With a large percentage of today’s production run lengths in the range of 48 to 72 pieces and lead times becoming ridiculously short, digital has truly found its niche.
Digital printing is very effective for short runs from a single garment up to 2,000 pieces and sometimes even more. These numbers in many cases represent the make up of nearly 80 percent of most shops’ true production. The savings in labor can be substantial no matter what size operation you have and the savings start immediately. In many cases trying to find quality, dependable labor that is affordable, can make or break any operation. This is an area where digital direct printing really makes it mark. No matter if your shop has several manual presses or if you are a fully automated operation with high volume presses. Optimizing the maximum benefit from every labor dollar through manufacturing efficiency is a major benefit of digital printing. That being said, the focus of labor and the skill level now shifts from the production floor to the art department. Digital printing is definitely the answer to artists’ and designers’ dreams. Since all digital presses process data in much the same way, the old adage of garbage in, garbage out is still true. If you received the dreaded 72 dpi thumbnail image from your customer and they want to enlarge it up to a full 10 x 12 image you will still get a very poor image, regardless of the type of equipment you purchase. Even the finest digital print head cannot compensate for that. Your quality is a direct result of very few important factors; the effort and skill of the artists’ manipulation of the file, the guidelines you establish for your customers artwork as it is supplied to you and understanding the limitations of the print heads your equipment is using. This is why you can have the same equipment in two different shops and yet one may look significantly better than the others. Of all the differences between digital and screen printing, the ability to print beautiful vignettes using the complete range
of densities, can be the most dramatic. What will need to be changed in the art department to get the full benefit from the digital process is altering your artwork to meet the new capabilities offered by digital printing. The changes in the detail in a
conventional screen-printed image start out quite fast, from the 0 - 30 percent density range. The changes are so fast that what you may see is an abrupt drop off between highlights in your printed image. The curve then flattens out showing little or no difference the closer you get toward 100 percent density (Figure 1). Figure 2 shows the function of the ink in a standard screen print application. Most artists have been forced to adjust the art so you would only print in the 20 – 70 percent range of densities, to match the capabilities of the screen-printing process. This can result in harsh graduations or a complete loss of detail on both extremes of the density range. This has caused many companies to avoid this type of work because the risk in producing process work that is acceptable to the customer is much too high and so is the cost. Through linearization, you can adjust this curve digitally to reproduce almost a perfect straight line through the transitions of density from 0 to 100 percent. You can now design with confidence, using the full spectrum of densities, knowing that what you designed will be printable, effortlessly! The work invested in the art department will result in perfect facial tones and delicate, intricately detailed prints. These changes can be an incredible tool in the marketing of your products to your client base (Figure 3). You will also need to create media profiles for each type of material you wish to
digitally print. Digital inks are acceptable to a very wide variety of materials but each material will accept the digital inks slightly differently than the next. As you change materials, a new media calibration will be needed for each different material such as;
cotton, Lycra, 100% polyester, performance mesh, etc., and for each color of material. Also, always keep in mind that the color of the fabric will definitely impact the appearance of the printed image. This may be a bit time consuming at first but
once a profile is created it will become as easy as selecting the correct profile from a drop-down box for the next time you print that type of material. From this point, after all the alterations to the art have been completed, the artwork is then ripped and sent to the printer. This can be delivered either on a disc or directly from your network, bypassing any film output. The press operator then opens the  file, selects the order to be printed and begins printing. This is the entire labor process from the art department to the press. You can see the impact digital will have on your labor force on the production side. The operation of a digital press is simple and easy to understand. You can print beautifully decorated garments with just an hour of training. In some respects it is regrettable to see what is happening to the industry’s skilled artisans, but the digital process is slowly replacing some of the skills that many fine craftsmen have spent years developing. What this does mean, is reproducible quality in any quantity, at the push a button, with a much broader labor pool. The savings continue with the elimination of all of the labor associated with each phase of screen making and reclaiming for every order that can be converted to digital printing. Add in the savings of the cost of films, chemistry and the countless supplies that are used everyday for every single order from spray tack adhesives right down to the reduction in the cost of utilities in electrical power and the cost of your water and sewage bills. Continue to compound your savings by reducing your current setup times. A typical setup on your manual or automatic presses can take easily 30 to 45 minutes. Replace this with the setup time of two to three minutes that it takes to set up a digital press and the savings become truly exponential. Between the cost of operation and floor space consumed, it may be more cost effective to add a digital press rather than add another full size automatic press. Do your research before deciding on a digital press for your company. Be sure to get the appropriate samples. Each of these units uses a different type of ink; waterbased, solvent-based and dye-based inks are all being offered. Each will perform slightly differently on various materials, so be sure your product line is adaptable to the ink system you select.
Examine the ripping software. Some offer a great deal of versatility and altering capabilities but these programs will be more complex to learn and operate. Others are very basic programs that are extremely easy to use and can be learned in a very short time. Examine the expandability of each press you are considering. Some will be able to be upgraded as new developments come into the market and as technology advances. Others are not going to be upgradeable or only minimally so. But they
may serve you very well as an initial investment into the digital market. Finally, go see the equipment in operation. Knowing exactly what you want to accomplish with the equipment before you make your purchase will guarantee that you get the maximum benefit from your investment. With all of the current advantages, capabilities and savings potential of direct digital printing to garments today, knowing where it is headed can be just as important. And where it is going be in the very near future is just as astounding. The ability to print white ink on dark garments is just on the horizon. Some manufacturers, like Kornit Digital, have shown that the ability to print on darks is very close at hand and are planning to release this to market later this year. Adding this capability will send tremors through the textile imprinting market. This introduction will be watched very closely by the industry as it will open up the full range of products that can be converted to digital printing. The next enhancements will be increased image size. The current presses produce an image from the typical small logo prints up to 18” x 20.” The ability to print up to 20” x 28”, and maybe larger, is also being introduced later this year. As the ability to print larger images will impact the production rates in terms of units per hour, look for an increase in speed to be introduced as well. By now half of you are excited and the other half are shaking their heads that this will never work, but time marches on. And remember, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got!”