Digital printing, also known as Direct-to-Garment (DTG) printing, has revolutionized the custom apparel industry. This modern printing method allows for high-quality, full-color designs to be printed directly onto garments with precision and speed. In this blog, we’ll explore what digital printing is, its history, and everything you need to know about this innovative technique for custom apparel! Let’s get started…
What is Digital Printing? 
Digital printing is a method where digital images are printed directly onto apparel using specialized inkjet technology. Unlike screen printing or embroidery, digital printing translates digital files into printed designs without additional set up and prints much like a normal paper printer you may have at home! This makes it an ideal choice for detailed, multicolored designs and small to medium-sized orders. While screen printing is preferred for bulk orders and logos or designs with up to 10 colors, DTG has little to no limitations allowing you to print full-colored pictures and complex art!
Also Read: Screen Printing vs. Digital Printing - Everything You Need to Know
Key Components of Digital Printing 
The key components of screen printing are the printer, inks, pre-treatment, and curing. As mentioned above, the printer is a specialized inkjet printer, much like what you may have at home or work, that is specifically designed for printing on fabric. The inks are water-based inks specifically formulated for textiles to ensure vibrant colors and durability. While DTG inks are vibrant and durable, they are no match for the inks used in screen printing. If your primary focus is bright and durable prints, we suggest choosing screen printing over digital printing. The next component of digital printing is pre-treatment. The pre-treatment is a liquid solution applied to the fabric before printing to enhance ink adhesion and color vibrancy. Lastly, the curing process sets the ink into the fabric using heat, ensuring durability and wash-fastness.
The Digital Printing Process
Underground Printing’s digital printing process is broken into 5 parts: design creation and order placement, pre-treatment, printing, curing, and shipping.
1. Design Creation & Order Placement: You create or upload your design or logo and place your order. Your design is then uploaded into our direct-to-garment software to print.
2. Pre-Treatment: The garment is pre-treated to prepare the fabric for printing, adding the liquid solution to enhance adhesion and print vibrancy.
3. Printing: The garment is loaded into one of our state-of-the-art DTG printers and the design is printed directly onto the fabric. This stage of the process looks almost identical to a typical paper printer but instead of paper coming out, it’s apparel!
4. Curing: Once the design has been printed, the garment is heated to cure the ink and set the design, making it permanent.
5. Shipping: After curing, the custom apparel is checked by our quality team to ensure everything is perfect then it’s shipped off to you, your group, business, or just wherever you need it to be!
A Brief History of Digital Printing
Digital Printing’s origins are much more recent than both Screen Printing and Embroidery. Dating all the way back to the 1990s, coinciding with advancements in inkjet printing technology, early digital printers were limited in capability. Rapid technological improvements and advancements quickly made it possible to print high-quality, full-color images directly onto fabric.
In the early 1990s, the first digital textile printers were introduced. Digital printing was primarily used for sampling and short-run production. By the 2000s, technological advancements improved print quality, speed, and ink formulations. These advancements resulted in making custom direct-to-garment printing more viable for commercial use!
Today, it’s now a mainstream method for custom apparel, the latest DTG printers offer exceptional color accuracy, detail, and durability. Now a rival to traditional screen printing, digital printing increases the ability to print on-demand and customize each item uniquely, making it a popular choice for single-order shirts, artists, and beyond. For Underground Printing, direct-to-garment printing has become our go-to printing method for small orders, typically under 6, and has become a game changer for those looking to add a photo of their pet or anything else to their custom gear!
The Future of Digital Printing 
While digital printing continues to evolve through advancements in technology, it has truly become a fan-favorite method for custom apparel printing. Continued technology advancements improving print quality, speed, and efficiency guarantee direct-to-garment printing will continue to rise in popularity. Emerging innovations such as eco-friendly inks, automated pre-treatment processes, and enhanced color management systems are poised to make digital printing even more accessible and sustainable as time goes on!
Digital Printing Techniques and Trends
While digital printing has changed and evolved over the years, we’re seeing great new techniques and trends! Some of these techniques and trends include photorealistic prints, gradient and full-color designs, on-demand printing, and hybrid printing.
Direct-to-garment printing can reproduce high-resolution images and photorealistic designs with remarkable accuracy, making it popular for custom t-shirts, posters, and promotional items. This capability is essential if you’re looking to get someone’s face, your pet, or a photo of your art printed on your custom apparel. DTG also offers the ability to print smooth gradients and a full spectrum of colors, expanding creative possibilities. Gradients and full-color designs also allow designers to experiment with complex patterns and vibrant artwork. On-demand printing, a service that has surged in popularity in recent years, allows you to order custom apparel with your design fast, reducing the need for inventory if you’re running a store and minimizing waste! Lastly, hybrid printing combines digital printing with other techniques. The combination of DTG with other methods, such as screen printing and embroidery, creates unique and textured designs, offering a blend of durability and detail. Combining methods for hybrid printing would likely be your most-expensive option for custom printing, but it can really bring your artwork to life!
Why Choose Digital Printing?
At Underground Printing, we offer a wide range of services and printing methods. Our most popular printing methods are screen printing, digital printing, and embroidery. What sets digital printing apart is its print quality, versatility, fast turnaround, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability.
For print quality, digital printing produces detailed and vibrant prints, capturing intricate designs and subtle gradients that are difficult to achieve with other methods. The inks penetrate the fabric, resulting in a soft and lightweight feel combined with a durable finish.
When talking about versatility, DTG printing is suitable for various fabrics, including cotton, blends, and certain synthetics. It excels at printing complex, multicolored designs without the need for separate screens or color separations.
Since digital printing doesn’t require extensive setup, it offers quick turnaround times! This printing speed makes DTG ideal for small to medium-sized orders, one-off prints, test prints, and orders that are needed very fast. Additionally, due to the minimal set up, digital printing tends to be the most cost-effective method! That said, screen printing is still the best method for large-scale bulk printing since ordering more screen printed items decreases the per-unit cost.
Lastly, digital printing is considered to be very eco-friendly! Considered to be more environmentally friendly than traditional methods such as screen printing and embroidery, digital printing’s water-based inks generate less waste. Additionally, there is no need for screens or plates making the overall waste close to nothing. At UGP, we try to be as environmentally friendly as possible from our state-of-the-art production facility all the way to our individual store locations. Because of this, we love having the ability to decrease waste even more through our DTG orders!
Also Read: Embroidery 101 and Screen Printing 101
Compare Methods
Digital printing is a revolutionary method for custom apparel decoration. Its ability to produce high-quality, detailed prints quickly and efficiently make it a preferred choice for many. Whether you’re a small business seeking to offer personalized products or an individual looking to add your unique art to your wardrobe, digital printing offers endless possibilities for creativity and innovation. As technology advances, the future of digital printing promises even greater potential in transforming the world of custom apparel.
Looking to see how digital printing can bring your design to life? We’re here to help! At Underground Printing, we’re not happy until you’re happy and our team of experts are ready to help you find the best printing method to create the perfect custom gear. Feel free to reach out in person at one of our locations or via email to help@undergroundshirts.com. We can’t wait to print the great designs you come up with!