The Digital Printing Process for Fabrics

• Step 1 : Pretreatment of the Fabric
  All fabric must be pre-treated and dried prior direct DG PRINTS FAB printing. The coating is designed to enhance the quality of the printing and is essential in allowing the dyes to bond to the fabric during the fixing process. If the fabric is not pre-treaded then the dye will simply wash out.


• Step 2 : Printing direct to pretreated fabric
  The image is printed directly to the pretreated fabric. Every fabric is tested and colour calibrated prior to printing. Each different type of fabric will have different printing characteristics that need to be tested and measured to obtain optimum results. At this stage the dyes is not 'fixed' to the fibers. If the dry print were to be washed 95% of the dye would wash out.


• Step 3 : Steaming to Fix the Dye
  After printing the fabric is printed it is steamed. As the fabric passed through a steam fixing process the dye chemically binds to the fibers in the fabric creating a permanent bond.


• Step 4 : Washing and Drying
  Finally fabrics are washed and dried to remove any excess dye and pretreatment chemicals. Because the pretreatment is wasted out the original look and feel of the fabric is preserved.

The advantages of this technology are:

• notable savings on the preparation of the printing equipment(total elimination of frames and cylinders).No film-work or engraving costs.
• max. flexibility in the provision of samples. Outstanding print quality offers a unique print which can not be easily copied.
• Possibility to print acid, reactive and dispersed colorants for a complete range of cloths to glamorize. Unlimited designs and photographic quality printing.
• possibility to undertake production from one meter to infinitum. One off prints and production runs.