DTF PRINTING

There are several reasons for the need to print on shirts and various clothing details: business branding, fashion uniqueness or a souvenir from a trip or event. In order to print on clothing there are several common methods today: silk screen printing, sublimation printing or DTG (digital printing directly on fabric). In recent years, another and new way of printing has joined the variety of methods and it is DTF printing.

So what is DTF?

First of all, DTF is a digital printing method, which means that the artwork is printed by a printer (and not by a person or machine).

And it needs to be clarified: the emphasis is on printing the graphics and not printing the shirt.

The difference is that in almost all digital printing methods there is an intermediate step between the preparation of the graphic and the step in which it is transferred to the shirt (you can read about the printing steps of DTF or sublimation to understand this principle better).

DTF stands for direct to film. What is meant by this is that the printing is done first on film and only then is the print transferred to the shirt.

These initials come to emphasize the difference from another digital printing method, which is DTG, which indicates direct printing on the shirt (in this method, the shirt itself goes into the printer, which prints directly on it).
This way of printing is relatively new but it has gained a lot of momentum thanks to the significant advantages it has over other printing methods.