An Intro to Digital Printing on Fabric

Digital fabric printing is a relatively new technology with tons of applications. Most commercial fabrics are rotary screen printed; each print run is typically several thousand yards. These fabrics are quite high in price due to the cost and time required to prepare a unique set of screens. Digital printing's big advantage is the ability to do small runs of each design -- there are no screens to prepare.

The inks used in digital printing are formulated specifically for each type of fiber (cotton, silk, polyester, etc.). During the printing process, the fabric is fed through the printer using rollers and ink is applied to the surface in the form of thousands of tiny droplets. The fabric is then finished using heat and/or steam to cure the ink (some inks also require washing and drying). Digitally printed fabric will wash and wear the same as any other fabric.

Designs can be created digitally with almost any graphic design software (Photoshop and Illustrator are the most popular). As well, artwork or photographs can be scanned and then digitally manipulated to make a pattern.

Determine what color model the digital printer (most often CYMK or Lab) and select colors accordingly. Colors will appear differently on the fabric than on the computer screen. Personalizationis a great way to make the fabric unique. Every yard printed can be completely customized and personalized. With digital printing, Lean and Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing is a key attributes -- small runs of fabric can easily be printed for sampling purposes. No more hunting high and low for the perfect print, only to find that it's no longer available. The major downside to digital printing is the cost. As with any new technology, the costs are always high when it first becomes available. As time goes on and the technology continues to develop it will undoubtedly becomemore affordable.

When dealing with printing services, expect to pay around $20 to $50 per yard of finished fabric. Most services have no minimums and allow purchases as low as 1 yard at a time. Some have minimums and set-up fees but the cost per yard may be lower. The typical turn-around time is 2-3 weeks, but may be more if the base fabric is out of stock. Other unique digital resources are new papers like synthetic paper, waterproof paper and vinyl paper.

Oliver David writes articles for blogs on topics like sticker paper and synthetic paper.

Color Digital Printing: Welcome to the Evolution

Color digital printing has given the printing business a new lease on life as new color printing presses edge out traditional offset printing technology in color richness, quality, and print media flexibility. It won't be long until offset printing ends up on the dust heap of other previous inventions like the typewriter and the pay telephone. Color digital printing stands alone as the most viable printing solution for all industries and professions.


The main differences between digital printing and traditional methods such as lithography, "gravure", or letter press are that no printing plates are used, resulting in a quicker and less expensiveturnaround time, and typically a loss of some fine-image detail by most commercial digital printing processes. The most popular methods include ink jet or laser printers that deposit pigment or toner onto a wide variety of substrates including paper, photo paper, canvas, glass, metal, marble and other substances.

In addition to superior quality, color digital printing utilizes a software framework to set up document printing, which eliminates the time and labor spent altering the mechanical structures of an offset printer. What this means in practice is that digital color printing opens up two options that are simply not tenable in an offset environment:

1. Variable Data Printing
All of the set up work is done via software, digital color printing allows smaller internal alterations on printed media to be performed on the fly. This might be a client's name, print run number, date, tabulated dollar amount, or any other form of printing that would vary from copy to copy of the media being produced. Variable data printing alone makes digital far superior to offset innearly any printing capacity, and the time and collars saved from VDP translate directly into profits or dollars saved for the publishing organization.

2. Print On Demand
Once a labor-intensive printing process, now with the ease of a computer and keyboard, an entire digital print job can be created, stored and then quickly up-loaded for digital printing on a color press. With no mechanical adjustments to be made, a digital printer is free to do short run printing, smaller orders or to print a customer's protect on demand. An excellent example is for a book publisher. With print on demand, a book only needs to be printed once an order is placed, saving the high expense of printing multiple copies of a book to only have it sit, unsold.

The digital printing can offer significant benefits with new and unique technology. Smaller toner particles and greater reduction in printing oil allows digital printing to have a very near offset lookas well as texture. With color digital printing the future is not in doubt. And this future will see color digital printing revolutionize printing practices. Even the paper industry has undergone a transformation as new and unique papers like vinyl paper, decal paper and even waterproof paper have been created for use in digital printing.

Oliver David writes articles for websites on a variety of topics like waterproof paper and vinyl paper.