Direct to film printing technology is gaining more and more momentum. It is an affordable way in which to add a new production line to your business and expand your product offering by enabling printing on a greater variety of fabrics than direct to garment printing technology.
As with virtually any production method, direct to film printing has its advantages as well as its limitations. One such limitation is the need to apply “rasters” to the design prior to printing. This production requirement is particularly unique to transfer printing such as DTF or Toner Transfer and is used to improve the feel of the transfer on the garment as well as to improve the wash-fastness (or longevity) of the print.
Rasters are essentially pre-defined areas within the design that do not include any ink laid down on the transfer sheet. When applied to a garment, these areas appear as small gaps or holes in the printed design. When applied to the design properly, these raster areas are not as obvious within the image and unless viewed from a very close distance appear to blend into the image without compromising its quality too much. The problem with this is that creating a proper raster pattern on an image is essentially unique to each design and is also complicated as well as time consuming to begin with. The result in many cases is a printed image on a garment that has noticeable raster patterns and results in less than good quality product that you’re trying to sell to customers.
So, can I successfully print direct to film produced images that have a good feel as well as lasting washability on garments without including rasters in them? The result is a resounding yes! CADlink Technology color specialists have carefully created custom color profiles/printmodes within the Digital Factory Direct To Film Edition software that enable printing without the use of rasters.
These “no raster” printmodes are available for select direct to film printers and provide a DTG effect that produces end-results that are as close to DTG printing as you can get. Does it replace DTG printing? No, it certainly doesn’t but you can achieve results that are definitely comparable.
Contact your Direct to Film dealer or CADlink to download a free trial version and see for yourself.