# Printing darks without white ink



## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

I was just thinking about several designs that I have had screenprinted on dark shirts and now I have this question. When I had this design printed, they didn't use white ink, they used 2 passes of the same colors. Is there a reason that you can't do this with DTG?


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## charles95405 (Feb 1, 2007)

what design??? but most any design can be printed with DTG machines...but only a couple will do images on dark and I think they use white underbase


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

charles95405 said:


> what design??? but most any design can be printed with DTG machines...but only a couple will do images on dark and I think they use white underbase


It's not the design that's important. I know that for a dtg you use white underlay on a dark shirt. My question is why would you not get a good end result if you just printed a design twice with dtg and did not use a white ink base?


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

tim3560 said:


> I was just thinking about several designs that I have had screenprinted on dark shirts and now I have this question. When I had this design printed, they didn't use white ink, they used 2 passes of the same colors. Is there a reason that you can't do this with DTG?


Hey Tim...

The difference is that the plastisol ink used for screenprinting was opaque whereas the ink for the DTG is not opaque. Of course, the black is the most opaque but yellow is the least with cyan and magenta somewhere between the two.

Because of that, the dark shirt color will "bleed" right through the ink with the DTG process.

Hope that helps!  

John


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## tpope (Oct 3, 2007)

Sure you can do it...

The question is if you will like the outcome.

It's really hard to describe to people, that when you print on a dark fabric without first using a white underbase, you are really mixing colors.

As an example... red shirt plus yellow is orange
red and blue make purple
red and green is brown

This is a transparency issue. A double print of say green atop of red would seal the red out and become more opaque... green

As a designer, I expect that this is pretty understandable. It's kinda hard to present as an idea to Joe Average. Ya gotta show 'em!


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

Ok, that definitely makes sense. So the white is opague and provides the correct canvas from which to start your masterpiece!


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## Aye Poppin (Apr 30, 2007)

I have been having some fun with this truth by the way. Knowing what you color you are printing on and picking colors that will work with it. Cool stuff can be made. Oddly enough i get a lot of colors to show up on brown. I definately don't recommend this style for everyone. You can really ruin a lot of shirts.


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## Aye Poppin (Apr 30, 2007)

Here is an example.


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## Mistewoods (Jul 7, 2007)

The white ink is opaque when printed correctly over pretreatment. it essentially lays on top of the shirt providing a nice printign base. Even screen printers often use a white underbase for printing on dark colors, to give the final color pop.

But with the semi transparent pigment inks used for dtg printing, the white underbase is necessary for perfectly true colors on everything but white and natural. However you can get some really nice tone on tone prints on even dark colors. And you can get decent prints on a wide variety of light colors, ash, pink, powder blue, etc. In fact, on a black shirt I have experimented with two color layers, and gotten some interesting shadowy designs.


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

Right ... you just have to experiment, graphic colors versus shirt colors. Whenever possible, I will just find a shirt color that can handle a graphic without an underbase (costs more and time consuming).

Here are two pics for a job I recently finished on a sky blue guildan ... the first was done two passes of color with no underbase. Our client didn't like it, nor did we ... dull with no POP. So, I had to play with the underbase to get the final result.


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## Mistewoods (Jul 7, 2007)

I like what you did on both of them- and either one could have been good in the right scenario! It can be really nice ( and profitable) to have the white ink option.

How did you adjust pricing to reflect the white ink print versus the dual pass print?


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## tpope (Oct 3, 2007)

That's are great examples that you folks have given.



Mistewoods said:


> I like what you did on both of them- and either one could have been good in the right scenario! It can be really nice ( and profitable) to have the white ink option.
> 
> How did you adjust pricing to reflect the white ink print versus the dual pass print?


I know that this answer is based on the extra time needed for the white and the cost of the white ink...
I too, am interested in how to cost this.


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

Michele,

LOL ... I was kinda upset about ordering all those shirts with that color, before ordering samples to MAKE SURE, the graphic would fly without an underbase. Both my wife and client choose the garment, and we all thought it would work.

Anyway, I don't recall the total bill ... my wife handles all that. We may have given him an additional discount, as he is an ongoing client ... I just dunno off-hand. Our price structure is laid out on the website, if you wanna see how we break this down. But, it looks like it was the difference between 5.95 and 8.40 per shirt, not including the garment. He can be a fussy client, lots of proofs ... but, he loved the first proof I gave him for the next job (white shirts ... yayyyy), so I think I have got down what he likes to see on his tees.


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## SuddenUrge (Mar 26, 2007)

Michael sounds like you got his order down to the "T" ...ha....oh bad jokes early in the morning...time for some Mtn Dew...Also for the printing the CMYK onto a black shirt I'm sure I've got one laying around the shop where I forgot to underbase the image before hitting print...will post it later if I can find it


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

tim3560 said:


> I was just thinking about several designs that I have had screenprinted on dark shirts and now I have this question. When I had this design printed, they didn't use white ink, they used 2 passes of the same colors. Is there a reason that you can't do this with DTG?


_Sometimes_ two passes of the same color will work for screen printing a design on darks.

It is design dependent. It's not something that would work well on _every_ design.

Most screen printers _will_ use a white underbase when they are printing on a dark garment to make the colors in the design come out right _consistently_.


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

SuddenUrge said:


> Michael sounds like you got his order down to the "T" ...ha....oh bad jokes early in the morning...time for some Mtn Dew...Also for the printing the CMYK onto a black shirt I'm sure I've got one laying around the shop where I forgot to underbase the image before hitting print...will post it later if I can find it


LOL, I won't EVEN show all the various types misprints (operator eror) I have made since starting this gig. A test print I did last night on a gildan dijon (yellowish) colored pigment dyed tee, the dark grey blue didn't show up any blue anything, just a dark grey. I can, either, lay a light underbase on it, or choose a lighter color tee for it (likely, latte ... a very light tan color).

I am sure this would be far easier to just stick to the popular colors of black and white tees ... but, that's no fun!


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## tim3560 (Jan 7, 2007)

With the white ink being opague, does it leave a hand on dark shirts?


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## Mistewoods (Jul 7, 2007)

tim3560 said:


> With the white ink being opague, does it leave a hand on dark shirts?


Yes it does. It is not real heavy but the non-white ink prints just feel like the shirt. The white ink prints you can definitely feel the smooth surface of the ink coating.


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## Gunslinger (Aug 3, 2007)

As Michele said ... and depending on the shirt color and print color, tweaking the underbase can give a softer hand. For the print pictured, the darker colors had next to no underbase ... so overall, the shirt had a pretty soft hand.


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