# DTG vs. Screen - Simple Line Art



## nevermind (Dec 14, 2006)

How do the Digital printers compare to traditional screen printing on simple line art? In terms of durability and color saturation? 

Let's say stick figures for example - printed all in white, or all in black - occasional color. But nothing complex like a photo. More like the Life is Good stuff.


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## csquared (Sep 8, 2006)

with DTG you will get good washability and color saturation but if I was doing large quantitiy orders that are simple I would screen them, also if you are going to be doing mainly black shirts with white text screen printing might do you better, I do one off shirts for a website so DTG is great for me and is better on space than a screen printing operation.


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## nevermind (Dec 14, 2006)

Thanks - so the quality is about the same. But the economics come into play when we start talking volume?

I was thinking of leasing a DTG printer to get going and then contract out to screen if volume requires. 

I am shying away from screen because I'm not a printer, but rather a designer. So I understand my way around computer equipment, but certainly not screen printing and don't want to give away the margin of contracting out at this stage.

Make sense? Or am I nuts?


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## csquared (Sep 8, 2006)

With dark shirst you have to pretreat and it takes an extra pass on the machine for the white underbase so some people shy away from that but on light shirts you can crank out a lot of them. 

Sounds like you have the right idea, I also am a designer so DTG was great for me and I love how I can think of something put it on the computer then see how it looks on a shirt without all the setup and waste of screen printing, this is also good for when someone has a large order you can show them a shirt with there design right away. 

I think realisticly you can print 400+ shirts a week if you are so inclined


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## nevermind (Dec 14, 2006)

Thanks - I think I am going to be in the situation where I have lots of designs (20+) but smaller runs (20-50). Mostly on white or light colored shirts, but there are a ton of folks into black!

The idea of being able to design and print is really compelling and I do like the concept of being able to offer a "proof" before having a customer commit to the job.


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## TahoeTomahawk (Apr 12, 2006)

nevermind said:


> Thanks - I think I am going to be in the situation where I have lots of designs (20+) but smaller runs (20-50). Mostly on white or light colored shirts, but there are a ton of folks into black!
> 
> The idea of being able to design and print is really compelling and I do like the concept of being able to offer a "proof" before having a customer commit to the job.


Keep in mind that you will also need a white underbase for most colored shirts too. We've found that we have to do an underbase for just about every color just like we do black shirts, except for rare cases like this shirt is yellow or light blue / gray and your design is mostly black. Then you can get away with not putting an underbase down. Otherwise if you don't do an underbase your colors come out different.

The trend does seem to be black these days. In the past 4 1/2 months of printing we've only had orders for a handful of white shirts (less than 20) where we've printed over 1200 black and colored shirts.


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## Tshirtcrib (Jul 21, 2006)

The trend does seem to be moving towards darker colors, but do you recommend a underbase for all t-shirts that are not white?


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## csquared (Sep 8, 2006)

as long as your print is darker than the color of your shirt you should be ok, but if you want a bright color on a shirt you will need to do an underbase


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