Silk Screen printing, which employs a stencil to drive ink into the fabric, is superior to Direct To Garment (DTG) shirt printing, which uses a large-scale inkjet printer to print on cotton-based fabrics (such as t-shirts). It’s quicker, cheaper, and better for the environment when used for short runs.
DTG shirt printing is more environmentally friendly than silkscreen shirt printing. Because DTG utilizes water-based inks when printing directly onto clothing, no useless additional inks are required, and the only waste that does occur is from the periodic print head cleaning, which does not use any external materials but simply ink; this is the only waste. A milliliter-sized head clean every day is often sufficient for printers that are regularly maintained. As long as ink waste is properly disposed of, DTG printing of t-shirts should have no environmental impact. Consequently, excess ink is flushed down the drain when the screens are cleaned, resulting in a lack of ink on the t-shirt.
Screen printing is a printing method that uses a stencil to apply pigments to a piece of cloth. For each color in a design, a separate screen is needed to create the stencil. DTG, which just requires software and computers to send a design directly to a printer, can create all colors at once. Printing begins with a white coating on dark-colored materials before moving on to the other colors. Setting up DTG takes far less time and is therefore better suitable for printing small quantities of t-shirts.
For orders of fewer than 50 t-shirts, direct-to-garment printing (DTG) is the better option since it is less expensive. Using DTG printing’s minimum setup, a single t-shirt may be produced for $5 to $10 in supplies (including the shirt). The idea that screen printers can produce more inexpensive prints on large runs with numerous colors and drying time appears implausible.
Custom streetwear printed with DTG shirt printing technology outperform those printed with silk screen printing in every manner. When printing smaller quantities, DTG is the superior choice since it is more eco-friendly, quicker to complete, and costs less money. In contrast to screen printing, direct-to-garment printing (DTG) looks to be the future of shirt printing in Singapore.