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The newest and hottest trend in decorated apparel is direct to film (DTF) printing, a transfer technology that allows users to print designs onto a film using water-based pigment inks. Since it is a transfer technology, the design is printed in reverse order compared to traditional digital printing. The CMYK colors are printed first, followed by the white ink; the image is reversed so that its orientation is mirrored. The wet ink is powdered with a hot-melt adhesive and then cured. Once cured, the image can be transferred to an apparel item using a heat press.
So why has DTF boomed? As with other digital print technologies, DTF is great for full-color, photo-realistic images. Fine lines, small text, and high detail images are no problem for DTF. The stretchability of the ink, post-print, is second to none. As far as washability, the prints are being reported to last more than 50 laundry cycles. In addition, DTF has quickly emerged as the most versatile apparel printing process by far, with regards to which fabrics can be printed.
When compared to direct-to-garment (DTG) printing, DTF offers the ability to avoid fabric pre-treatment, which is often required when printing with DTG. DTF will also work on fabrics like polyester and nylon, which are impossible with the DTG process.
When compared with dye-sublimation, DTF offers the user an ability to decorate a wider range of fabrics and fabric colors. Dye-sublimation is only possible on special sublimation-ready polyester fabrics, which also need to be a light color.
DTF is more cost efficient compared to other transfer technologies like heat-transfer vinyl and white toner transfer, as there is no cutting and weeding with DTF, saving time and material cost.
When comparing DTF with screen printing, the grandfather of all apparel printing methods, it's clear that there will always be a need for both. Screen printing is still the most economical way to print bulk quantities of few spot colors. However, the pre-press process required for each order tends to become cumbersome and non efficient when dealing with lesser quantities and/or more colors. This process includes color separation, screen making (with all that entails), aligning screens on press, mixing inks etc. Whereas the DTF pre-press process is just a digital print. In addition, printing full color is limited to the very skilled screen printers out there while with DTF it's standard. Oh and one more thing- screen printing is limited when it comes to the types of apparel that can be printed. Double ply items such as mesh shorts and jackets won't align properly on multi-color prints. Caps are also very difficult to screen print. These aren't issues when it comes to DTF printing.
In just over two years, DTF has emerged as an all-for-one technology. It provides the ability to decorate a wide range of fabrics, does not require fabric pre-treatment, is durable with great elasticity and stretchability, and is a cheaper and faster alternative in many cases to the other printing options out there.