DTG, DTF, Screen or Sublimation: What a T-Shirt Store Must Ask

A T-shirt store that prints in-house sells more than a design on a shirt: it sells what its press can print. A photo on a black cotton tee, a two-colour logo on fifty shirts and an all-over print on a running shirt need different machines, files and order data. This comparison is part of the print on demand explained cluster, written for print shops that run their own production.

Every statement about a method below comes from the maker of the equipment or ink, with the page and the date it was checked; the full list is under Sources. The second half turns those facts into the fields a product page has to ask for.

How do DTG, DTF, screen printing and sublimation differ for an online store?

DTG, DTF, screen printing and dye sublimation differ in the garments they print on, whether they print white on dark fabric, the artwork they need and the work before and after printing. For an online T-shirt store those differences decide which options a product page shows and which file it must collect before checkout.

• DTG (direct-to-garment). An inkjet printer prints CMYK and White ink straight onto a pre-treated garment, which is then cured with a heat press.
• DTF (direct-to-film). The design, with CMYK and White inks, is printed on film, covered with transfer powder and heat-pressed onto the fabric.
• Screen printing. Ink is pushed through one screen per colour onto the garment on a press, with curing between colours and at the end.
• Dye sublimation. A CMYK print is transferred with heat into polyester or a polyester coating; there is no white ink.

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<a href="https://solution.printcart.com/insight/t-shirt-printing-methods-for-online-stores"><img src="https://solution.printcart.com/insight/t-shirt-printing-methods-for-online-stores/method-matrix.webp" alt="Matrix of DTG, DTF, screen and sublimation against five order requirements such as dark garments and polyester" width="1440" height="1080"></a><br>Source: <a href="https://solution.printcart.com/insight/t-shirt-printing-methods-for-online-stores">Printcart</a>

The comparison table above sets out five criteria with a source in every cell. The criteria were chosen because each one changes something on the product page: the garments offered, the colours allowed, the file accepted, the production time and the price.

Which fabrics and garment colours does each method print on?

Each method has a fabric rule that the product page must enforce. Sublimation works on polyester and coated surfaces and has no white ink, so it needs light polyester garments. DTF transfers apply to cotton, polyester, blends, nylon and rayon. DTG prints on pre-treated garments such as cotton T-shirts. Screen printing runs T-shirts through a press, and simulated-process separations print on darker materials.

For a store, the consequence is a short list of garments per product. A sublimation shirt should not offer black or a cotton blank; Epson lists only cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks for its SureColor F170, and Roland DG names printing on dark fabrics and with white ink as advantages of DTF and DTG over dye sublimation. A DTG product on dark garments needs a pre-treatment step that a light garment may not, which changes production time; Epson's own guide warns that a pre-treatment that is too weak weakens the White ink and blurs edges.

The T-shirt printing store handles this with WooCommerce size and colour attributes: its sample catalogue has 37 variable products with 435 size and colour variations, so each product lists only the garment colours you allow.

What artwork does each method need from the customer?

Each method needs a different file from the customer. DTG and DTF print from full-colour raster files: Epson's Garment Creator 2, its workflow software for both, supports JPEG, TIFF, PNG and BMP. Screen printing needs the artwork separated by colour, spot colours from vector images and photos as halftones. Sublimation prints full colour from four CMYK inks, with no white.

Anatol, a maker of screen printing presses, describes spot colour separation as the most common type and says it is done for vector images, separating each colour one at a time; photographic designs use four-colour process or simulated-process halftones. That is why a screen-printed product should either accept vector files or count the colours of the design, and why the store must know the number of colours before it can show a price.

Two upload rules follow for DTG and DTF. The file must have enough pixels for the print size, and a transparent background, usually a PNG, keeps a white or coloured box from printing around the design. The artwork upload feature of a Printcart store lets customers design online or upload their own file on the product page; the print-ready file policy covers what to check, fix or reject at that moment.

What must the product page capture for each method?

The product page must capture every choice that changes production: the garment and its colour for all methods, the print location and size, the number of ink colours for screen printing, and the fabric content for sublimation. In a Printcart store these become product options and design areas, so the customer can only order what your press can print.

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<a href="https://solution.printcart.com/insight/t-shirt-printing-methods-for-online-stores"><img src="https://solution.printcart.com/insight/t-shirt-printing-methods-for-online-stores/product-page.webp" alt="T-shirt product page with ① demo notice, ② price range, ③ size, ④ garment colour, ⑤ Start design button" width="1440" height="810"></a><br>Source: <a href="https://solution.printcart.com/insight/t-shirt-printing-methods-for-online-stores">Printcart</a>

The demo product page shows the base layer every method shares: five sizes from S to XXL and six garment colours, 30 variations, and a Start design button for the Printcart designer. Method-specific fields sit on top. In a Printcart store they are option sets with their own prices and quantity breaks, as described on the printing options and pricing page, and every order gets a print-ready file for production.

Which method should an online T-shirt store offer first?

An online T-shirt store should first offer the method that matches the orders it already gets. Single custom shirts with photos suit DTG or DTF; repeat orders of the same logo suit screen printing; light polyester sportswear suits sublimation. The decision matrix above maps four typical orders to the method that fits and the reason.

Run length is the main business difference. M&R, a maker of screen printing presses, recommends at least a four-station, four-colour manual press to start and describes the manual press as a sampling and short-run press once an automatic press arrives; Anatol says a 10+ station automatic carousel only pays off with a steady, ongoing order flow. DTG and DTF have no screens to make, so their set-up does not grow with the number of colours in the design.

Starting a business around these choices, from niche to platform, is covered in how to start a T-shirt printing business. Shops that would rather not print at all can route orders to a fulfilment partner, as described in the print-on-demand T-shirt store on Shopify case, and every method needs artwork the customer has the right to print, which avoiding copyright infringement on T-shirts covers.