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Direct-to-film printing

Print anything.
On anything.

DTF puts full-colour artwork onto cotton, polyester, blends and dark garments with no pre-treatment and no weeding. It is not magic, though — and the running costs decide whether it pays.

Get honest advice How it works
No pre-treatmentUnlike DTG on darks
No weedingUnlike cut vinyl
Print & storeTransfers keep for months
A wide-format printer running inside a print production facility
The honest bitWhite ink needs daily attention. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you a machine.
Any fabricCotton, poly, blends, nylon — light or dark.
Full colourPhotographic detail and gradients, no weeding.
Short runsOne-offs and small batches without setup cost.
Stock aheadPress transfers now, apply them weeks later.
The six parts

A DTF setup is six things, and any one of them can ruin a print

Most people buy the printer and treat the rest as accessories. In practice, film, powder and the cure cause more failed transfers than the machine ever does.

The printer

A modified or purpose-built inkjet laying CMYK plus a heavy white underbase onto film. White ink handling is what separates a good machine from a headache.

The film

PET transfer film, hot or cold peel. Cheap film curls, releases badly and wastes more in reprints than it ever saved.

The powder

Adhesive powder applied to wet ink, then cured. Grade and particle size decide how the transfer feels and how well it survives a wash.

The cure

A shaker-and-oven unit or a manual cure. Under-cured powder peels; over-cured film goes brittle. This step is where most faults start.

The heat press

Even pressure and accurate temperature matter more than platen size. An unevenly heating press ruins good transfers.

The maintenance

White ink settles and clogs. Daily circulation, capping-station cleaning and a proper shutdown routine are the whole job.

The process

Five steps from artwork to garment

Every fault has a step it belongs to. Knowing which one saves hours of guessing.

01

Design

Artwork prepared with the white underbase generated correctly — the single biggest cause of poor transfers is a bad underbase.

02

Print

Colour and white printed onto PET film in one pass, mirrored ready for transfer.

03

Powder

Adhesive powder applied to the wet white ink and the excess shaken off so edges stay clean.

04

Cure

Melted to a smooth, tacky finish — not baked hard. The transfer is now shelf-stable and can be stored.

05

Press

Heat-pressed onto the garment, peeled hot or cold depending on the film, then given a second press to set it.

Why talk to us first

The wrong machine is
an expensive mistake.

Straight answers, not sales patterDTF is genuinely good at some things and a poor fit for others. We will tell you which side your work falls on before you spend anything.
Total cost, not sticker priceThe printer is rarely the expensive part. Film, ink, powder, waste and downtime decide whether the numbers work.
Built for real workloadsA machine that copes with twenty shirts a day is a different machine from one that copes with two hundred. Buying the wrong one is the common mistake.
Support that answersWhen white ink clogs mid-run you need a person on the phone, not a ticket number and a two-day wait.
An operator working at a garment printing bench
Questions

What people ask before they buy

What can DTF print onto?
Cotton, polyester, blends, nylon and most fabrics that will take heat — including dark garments, which is where it beats most alternatives. It does not care about fabric colour because it lays its own white underbase.
How does DTF compare with DTG?
DTG prints straight into the garment and works best on light cotton. DTF prints onto film first, so it handles polyester, blends and dark colours without pre-treatment, and transfers can be made in advance and stored.
How does it compare with vinyl?
Vinyl is fine for one or two colours and simple shapes. DTF handles full-colour photographic artwork and fine detail without weeding, which is where vinyl gets slow and expensive.
Does it survive washing?
A properly cured and pressed transfer stands up to normal domestic washing. Almost every wash failure traces back to under-curing, an uneven press, or cheap powder.
What is the maintenance really like?
White ink is pigment in suspension and it settles. Machines need daily circulation, regular capping-station and wiper cleaning, and a proper shutdown. Skip that for a week and you will spend a day recovering the heads.
What does a setup cost?
It depends entirely on volume, and quoting a figure without knowing your workload would be guesswork. Tell us what you are printing and how much of it, and we will give you a realistic total including consumables.

Tell us what you print

Garment types, artwork, and roughly how many a week. That is enough for us to tell you whether DTF fits, and what a realistic setup looks like.

Get advice See what it costs to run