Some people are confused about traditional thermal transfer printing (traditional heat transfer printing) and digital transfer printing (digital printing). One of our customer also had the same problem before for his tropical print clothing, like tropical print bathing suits and tropical print leggings, which ACTEX manufactured for him. Hence, today, we are going to introduce about the differences between these two kinds of printings.

Printing Process

Traditional thermal transfer printing belongs to plate printing, usually prints the pattern first. It is a technology that prints patterns on heat-resistant adhesive tape(pet release membrane medium), and prints patterns and patterns of the ink layer on finished materials through high temperature heating and pressure.

Digital printing, belong to plateless printing, do not need to make a screen or plate, it is usually set by a computer to print the pattern, through the computer for color measurement, color matching, spray printing, which is completed by machine printing.

Printing Color Quality

Traditional thermal transfer printing, use thermal transfer film printing to form multi-color patterns at one time, without color registration, and simple equipment can also print realistic patterns. But it can not solve the problem of color reproduction well. And the color of the garment will change after high temperature pressing, and the white will have some yellowing. This is caused by the evaporation of moisture of the garment. After washing, the color will return to normal.

Digital transfer printing use the computer to do color measurement, so that the color of digital printing products can theoretically reach 16.7 million, breaking through the traditional textile printing and dyeing pattern color registration limit, especially in the printing of high-precision patterns such as color gradients, moiré or nabulous patterns, digital printing has unparalleled technical advantages. It is CMYK mixed color printing. All colors are mixed with four-color inks. A little additional influence such as ink differences, differences between print heads, and small changes in the environment during the printing process, will affect color accuracy of a series of mixed colors. Therefore, the color accuracy of digital printing is slightly worse than traditional printing, although it can solve the problem of color repeduction well as long as the ink quality is guaranteed.

Handfeeling After Printing

For traditional thermal transfer printing, the pattern is a bit hard to the touch, and the breathability is not as good as the screen printing. It will become soft after washing, but the breathability is relatively poor.

Digital printing don't affect the handfeeling after printing.

Production Quantity

Traditional thermal transfer printing has a large capacity in high speed of printing.

Digital printing has a small capacity in lower speed of printing. Efficiency is money. The speed of printing is to a large extent the benefit of the enterprise, which needs to be further improved.

Market Price

Traditional heat transfer printing products have low market prices because they are in large capacity, used for popular products.

Digital printing products, like  , have higher market prices because they can be personalized products, in lower printing speed. Although digital printing does not need to make a screen, the total cost under small production is lower than that of traditional heat transfer printing, but the price of ink used is higher than that of traditional printing dyes and pigments.

Application Products

Traditional thermal transfer printing application products are relatively single. It has high requirements for the substrate, which can only be heat-transfered on the flat substrate, and it needs to be resistant to high temperature. So it is ok to apply for printed apparel.

Digital printing application products are relatively wide, suitable for mass production or personalized productions, not only digital printing apparel, cups, etc.. Recent years, digital printing is getting more and more popular in apparel. ACTEX, as one professional clothing manufacturer in china of underwear vendors, swimsuit vendors and fitness clothing manufacturer, make more and more custom printed underwear, swimsuit and activewear in digital printing, which are exported to allover the world.