# 8 Specialty Printing Techniques to Make Your T-Shirts The Talk Of The Town



## psi

If you want your t-shirt designs to be unique, to stand out from the crowd, try using some of the specialty printing effects outlined in this article. Specialty printing offers some genuine advantages. Besides simply looking awesome, special effects give your designs a point of difference from others and while they do cost more than standard screen printing, distinctive products often command higher sale prices.

*Discharge ink*

Discharge ink removes the existing dye from a t-shirt, leaving behind the natural colour of the fibre (generally some shade of beige). Colours can then be replaced in the fibres by adding inks to the discharge base. 

_Advantages: _Using discharge ink on a dark coloured t-shirt results in a solid, coloured print and a very soft hand (i.e. a soft ‘feel’ to the printed t-shirt). Discharge ink is especially valuable if you’re printing colours on black t-shirts. The alternative technique for printing colours on a dark dye base requires a “base” layer of white ink to ensure sufficient opacity of colour, resulting in a thick, heavy finish.
_Disadvantages: _Because it’s impossible to know in advance how each shirt will react to discharge ink, colour matching can’t be guaranteed and there may be some colour variation between prints throughout a run.

*Photochromic ink*

Photochromic, or UV-reactive inks, are almost transparent when viewed indoors but change to vivid colours in sunlight. 

_Advantages: _Cool effects can be created with a print that effectively displays two different designs – one indoors, and another outdoors.
_Disadvantages: _Only a limited range of colours is available. 

*Glow in the dark ink*

Glow in the dark inks do exactly what their name suggests – they distinguish themselves by glowing in the dark! In the light, these inks will appear semi-transparent. 

_Advantages: _People can find you in the dark. (Just kidding. It’s pretty cool, though.)
_Disadvantages: _The inks work best if they’re printed on a white or pale coloured background, so a light coloured base layer is required on darker shirts. 

*Foil printing*

Foil printing is a two-stage process which leaves a shiny metallic ‘print’ on the shirt. First, the garment is screenprinted, using a special adhesive rather than ink, and cured (dried) in the normal way. A sheet of foil is then heat-pressed onto the image created by the adhesive. When the press is lifted away, the foil sticks to the adhesive-printed areas and the excess is removed.

_Advantages: _ Foil printing gives the best shiny metallic printing effect. Bling!
_Disadvantages: _ Because it’s a two stage process, foil printing may not work quite as well for fine, detailed designs, and it’s more vulnerable to energetic washing than most other decoration styles.

*Metallic inks*

Metallic inks result in a shimmery, sparkly effect, rather like metallic car paint. Metallic screenprinting is cheaper than foil printing, but doesn’t have the same shiny effect.

*Glitter printing*

Like foil printing and metallic inks, glitter inks can make your design sparkly and eye-catching. They’re available in a variety of colours. 

*Puff inks*

Puff inks are created by mixing a specially formulated base in with the ink. The base-ink mix expands (“puffs”) as the print is cured through the heat tunnel, leaving a 3D texture. Puff inks are also available in a wide range of colours.

*Flock*

Flock printing is achieved by adding a special base to the ink, which gives the ink a furry, velvety texture as it cures through the heat tunnel. 

All of these specialty printing techniques can be used to give your designs a little “extra” something, make them special, unique. 


_“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.” — Albert Einstein_


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## muneca

ummm...nice post! WOW, thanks for the info!


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## Virtualburn

Yes great post, some really clear descriptions and comparisons. I have a T-Shirt (pale orange) that is over 10 years old. The T-Shirt itself is frayed around the collar and has lost most of it's original shape but it had 2 styles of print using 2 colours.

Blue / Red Flock and what I presumed to be Standard ink but think it may be Discharge. The whole back of the shirt is text each paragraph a different language and colour, the flock Red / Blue and the other being Black. Most of the Red / Blue is cracked and missing in some cases you can barely see it, but the black for 90% apart from contact areas (shoulders) is almost perfect. It's as clear and defined as the day I bought it. 

Please could you verify which technique would have been used for the Black.



















Thanks.


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## red514

looks like basic black ink, if it has a slight hand feel i'd guess plastisol (i don't see much fibrillation even after all those years of washing, so i'm not guessing water based ink but it could be)

Another cool technique/special effect is heat sealed screen prints. after screen printing and fully curing you can heat press a design using teflon to give a smooth feel and a slight shine. if you used a heavy deposit of ink, you can get the print to look like vinyl.

i'm told theres other sheets besides teflon you can get that have textures to them (i'm thinking burlap texture, scales or mesh texture kind of thing) that can be used to give the print a cool textured effect


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## Virtualburn

Yes the Blue and Red have a slight raised feel, even looks as if it has white colour behind the print. Where it's broken up it's revealing the colour of the shirt. But the black is very smooth and seems to be almost soaked into the shirt, no rasied feel, no wear and no fading. 

This is the type of print I'm after, long lasting and clear. So I just wanted confirmation of the technique / ink used.


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## red514

Virtualburn said:


> Yes the Blue and Red have a slight raised feel, even looks as if it has white colour behind the print. Where it's broken up it's revealing the colour of the shirt. But the black is very smooth and seems to be almost soaked into the shirt, no rasied feel, no wear and no fading.
> 
> This is the type of print I'm after, long lasting and clear. So I just wanted confirmation of the technique / ink used.


it could be either Plastisol or Waterbased, i'm leaning towards Plastisol. I've printed black plastisol on light grounds with a very thin viscosity, giving a soft (comparable to waterbase inks) long lasting print


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## CottonCombed

Thanks for the post, now it became clear to me, about various printing technique.


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