# White underbase on white shirts



## gabest (May 12, 2015)

Hi guys,

I am setting up a small fashion label, we will have our designs printed on shirts for a start. In the beginning we will only have white and heather grey blanks. So far I have tested printing shops using Brother, Polyprint and Epson, but washability is really poor across all. The original prints look the best by Polyprint, but no matter the brand, during the first three washes colors fade some 30% which I think is way too much. I washed them on 30 degrees, inside-out. 

I was wondering, if printing a thin white underbase under the the artwork could help the issue without significant additional thickness and cost? Does anyone have experience with it?

I am sitting in Hungary where I find the DTG market to be kinda underdeveloped, print shops don't play around much enough with settings etc. to get the best possible results, so I thought I have to take the reins and tell the printers what to test to get better wash results. Results with two pass and appropriate cure were the same. 

I would be happy to hear any ideas. All help is appreciated big time.

Thanks,

Gabor


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## zerg71 (Sep 9, 2014)

Definitely printing a thin underbase of white will stop fading of the colours but as you already mentioned it will generate more costs (pretreatment, ink, curing time) and thickness of shirt. If you print only CMYK on white shirt it gets into garment - your colours will fade with more and more washings but your printing will be 100% complete. If you put pretreatment and ink it makes a kind of a layer on garment - properly pretreated and cured shirts will last at least 10 washings but then you can experience scrapping off.

You can try a pretreatment for light coloured (and also white) garments. I didn't try that yet but I heard that it helps to keep the vivid colours and gets better washability.

--- EDIT ---

When you put a pretreatment for light shirts you don't have to put white.


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## gabest (May 12, 2015)

Thanks Zerg. I have considered the pretreatment for white shirts but the feedback on this forum varies widely, most even say that after a first few washes when prints look great, washing out will actually be worse. Some also reported issues with color accuracy. 

I am looking for a result that should last the first 5-10 washes almost perfectly, then it can fade slowly, but I want the shirts to look good (max 20% fading) for about 30 washes. That should make up for around a year of wearing. I am fine with a slow fading-out after that. 

I hope since the white layer can be far less thick than on a black shirt, and probably less pretreat can be used, the overall feel of the shirt will be something like of screen print, not too heavy. I believe costs will be not too high either for the same reason.


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## soldier king (Nov 13, 2013)

hope you find the answer


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## gabest (May 12, 2015)

Is there anyone who have tried the white underbase on a white shirt? Since doing this is not a common practice, I would be really interested to get a glimpse into how it works and feels, and if the results last.


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## EricDeem (May 7, 2011)

You will still need to pretreat the white shirt if you plan on printing with white ink...even if it is just a tiny amount. I haven't tried but have heard of people diluting the Epson PT more at 2:1 instead of 1:1 and lightly spraying shirts and printing a very light white layer and then CMYK since Epson's PT doesn't like CMYK only prints. This is being done to give the image more depth and pop but I have no idea if it will help with the color retention after washing. I might try it myself if I have time later and see what happens.


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## gabest (May 12, 2015)

Thanks Dekay, would be nice to hear how did you get along with the print. 

I did some research on CMYK pretreats, and the Firebird Light and the Image Armor Light have received some very nice feedback on this forum. Everyone says washability has increased, but they do not specify by how much. Do you have any idea about it? Don't the colors tend to wash out faster once the pretreat has washed out from the fabric?

I am wondering, how the come DTG printed fashion shirts from big brands generally last pretty long? What techniques do they use?


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## BandPrints (Feb 4, 2007)

I wouldn't pre-treat and print white ink on the white shirts. It leads to yellow staining with dupont pre-treat. There are two great options for white shirts and we follow these rules very closely for amazing detail and wash fast prints. First, stick to a higher-end shirt such as a ringspun. This provides a much smoother and tighter knit print surface. It helps reduce the "fade" look since there is much less Fibrillation. As it washes and the shirt fibers (white) come through the printed fabric ever so slightly it can cause a faded look. This is reduced by using ringspun fabric. 

There are a lot of variables in DTG but if you stick to the core ones that work (Ringspun, pretreat, and quality ink deposit) you shouldn't have an issue.

Second, use light garment pre-treat. It doesn't take much but this is intended to provide much greater washability for the inks and also allows them to "sit" on top of the fabric as the CMYK prints (similar to when printing on white ink) as a smoother surface so you get sharper more crisps prints. Combine this with a ringspun shirt and you have a win - win.

As for pre-treat washing out it is only suppose to washout when there is no ink on top of it. The second curling of the ink and pre-treat creates a chemical reaction to bond and lock the two together.

Don't over think DTG printing and how it is done, too many people do. The key is to know that your printers are using "real" dupont ink and not some Chinese knockoff. Also, for print settings making sure they are running the right settings (usually 1440x1440 DPI or two passes of 720x720). IF they are printing cheap say at 720 DPI you will get a duller print that will only fade much faster over time.


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## gabest (May 12, 2015)

Thanks for your reply. We found a Dupont pretreat for CMYK and I am already seeing a great improvement compared to non-pretreated prints. I read here that both FB and IA are both superior to the standard Dupont pretreat, so I am expecting even better results with them. 

I think blank wise I am using the best available, here in Europe after testing 7 brands Stanley & Stella has proven to be the best: very smooth surface, minimum fibrillation, great fit. My printer uses standard Dupont inks provided by Polyprint, so I believe inks should be decent as well. So currently ink and blank wise I should be good, I hope I can test with either FB or IA light pretreat in a couple days to see what the final look will be.

By the way, would you recommend FB light or IA light for Dupont inks? Do you have experience with either?

Thanks!


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## BandPrints (Feb 4, 2007)

We will be testing FB for white inks but are sticking with dupont for our light pre-treat. Have never had an issue with it and we print A LOT of product. We don't apply much light pt, just a very quick pass and the prints are hands down awesome. What print settings are you using for your printer?


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## gabest (May 12, 2015)

We tested white base, 2x25%, 1x50%. The printer is not mine, so I am not sure how it translates to resolution. The design itself has a monochrome, photo like background with some geometric touches, and there is a logo in the front with gold color. With pretreat, 1x50% provided the best results, black were the fullest with these settings. Interesting though, that with the other design which is colorful, 2x25% was the nicest.


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## BandPrints (Feb 4, 2007)

In regards to printing on black or colored shirts you would be in the area of 70-100% on the white base with 0 highlight white at 1440x1440 dpi.

As for white shirt printing you shouldn't be using white ink, but you should be running your CMYK passes somewhere in the area of 1440x1440 DPI at 90-100% color (usually 100%) with the light pre-treat. Or you can run two passes of 720 if 1440x1440 is too saturating as a one pass. 

Really running a 2x25 doesn't help what so ever (waste of time and money since it is 50%) or even 50% base on a white shirt is a lot of money being spent to (running a print twice to get the same effect is just crazy). IF white ink being put down is making such a drastic change to the finished print compared to running proper light pre-treat then you would technically want to run it the same that you print your light colored garments with white ink (light blue, pink, and such). Usually you can run the light shades at the same deposit level you run your black shirts but at 1440x720 DPI to slightly reduce the deposit. This way you keep your numbers consistent.

Also, if you don't own the machine I would hope the printer you are contracting to has enough knowledge to print quality merchandise. If not that would be a starting point of the problem.

When I asked the print settings I was more referring to your CMYK resolution (720, 720x2, or 1440)


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## gabest (May 12, 2015)

Thanks so much for all your help. Unfortunately I don't know what were the DPI settings they used, my guess would be the highest. With the colorful print on the white shirt, we tested it with 1x50%, 1x100% and 2x25%, and the latter had much better results than any of the one-passes. 

Until you mentioned, I wasn't told that DPI and color usage % are two different things. This gives room for some extra testing. 

The result with this monochrome print was good, but the print looked much-much darker than the original design. Like if brightness was reduced to zero, many details got lost in the print. We printed in 1x50%. Do you have any guesses what could have gone wrong? Maybe wrong DPI setting?

I was wondering, that if printing on a white shirt, generally is it difficult to replicate the original design? I mean, does it happen regurily that the design file has to be tweaked for the printer to print the result that was expected originally? Or should the printer RIP be capable of making all the necessary settings? Is it natural that we have to do many-many tests to be able to replicate the original design?

I greatly appreciate your help!


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## BandPrints (Feb 4, 2007)

gabest said:


> Thanks so much for all your help. Unfortunately I don't know what were the DPI settings they used, my guess would be the highest. With the colorful print on the white shirt, we tested it with 1x50%, 1x100% and 2x25%, and the latter had much better results than any of the one-passes.
> 
> Until you mentioned, I wasn't told that DPI and color usage % are two different things. This gives room for some extra testing.
> 
> ...


In regards to just about all printing the rip should do the work, it seems you guys are overly complicating it. I did that way back when we got into DTG. Basically when printing onto white shirts you should get true to color prints (when set properly) since you are on a 100% white fabric. Please note, this is where the fact of using a high quality Ringspun blank comes into play since it gives the smoothest print surface.

In regards to NO underbase and using a proper light pre-treat onto a white shirt it will give that surface and retention you need to get great quality. From there you should print 1440x1440 DPI at 100% strength. If you mess with the % or brightness (anything for that matter) it will change the color level. We never mess with artwork, just rip and print with proper settings. The ONLY color we sometimes have to touch up is black if it is extremely black heavy since this will over saturate. But we never like to touch artwork, so usually we can print differently to adjust for this such as bi-directional or 720x720 double pass (same ink deposit as 1440 but allows it to not over saturate sometimes).

With experience you will know what to do.

BUT with that said, I suggest just loading the png file right into the rip. Setting your print at 1440x1440 DPI (don't touch CMYK %) and print on the light garment pre-treated shirt. Then to compare take the same shirt style /pretreat and run 720x720 double pass and see if there is a difference.

I think too many people over complicate how they print, and the issue becomes replication in the long term. Also, ever so often there are a FEW colors a dtg machine cannot produce such as neons for example. 

Most machines can go up to 1440x2880 but this is way over kill and over saturation, 1440x1440 is the perfect amount for CMYK.

So once again don't touch % on the brightness settings, you are basically telling it to lighten up the print, then by printing over it twice putting an odd ink amount down.

I like to say, if you can print it out on an epson paper printer (say epson 310) you should be able to achieve it on the white shirt especially with proper dupont pre-treatment.


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## gabest (May 12, 2015)

BandPrints, this is great advice, thanks so much for it. I will try all of them in the coming days, and let you know how it goes. 

I have only washed the pre-treated shirt twice so far, but the results are already great. I can barely notice any loss of color or anything, while the non-pretreated one has faded already. Will keep on washing but it looks great so far.


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