Top 10 T-Shirt Printing Mistakes & How To Avoid Them

hey friends Dave you're a Transfer Express and today we're going to cover the top 10 most common heat printing mistakes and how you can avoid them while printing apparel with custom transfers and a heat press is one of the easiest and most accessible ways to print t-shirts there's always going to be a few things to keep in mind for frustration free printing saving you time and ensuring you're delivering quality products to your customers that you can stand behind so are you ready let's learn something today if you are new to transfer Express we are the world's largest supplier of custom screen printed and digital heat transfers heat presses free customizable designs wholesale apparel and expert advice to help grow your t-shirt business if you haven't already subscribed we are kicking out new videos like this one every single week with the rise of direct to film heat transfers as well as this Resurgence in plastisol ink screen printed transfers printing apparel with a heat press is more prominent than ever from large commercial print shops to on-demand fulfillment and even at home Etsy shops or online stores utilizing the technology almost anyone has access to the same quality decorations that your favorite brands are using and all you need is a heat press to get started now just like many Endeavors or businesses a lot of knowledge is going to come from your experience for apparel decorators this is typically misprinting shirts or dealing with frustrating applications that's going to slow your productivity down all things that are going to cost you money in the long run so today we're sharing our experiences so you don't have to make the same mistakes that we did so whether you're just getting started and learning or your seasoned Pro looking for a little refresher these tips we're covering here today are going to be perfect for you so let's get right to it now our first on the list here today is one of the most common things we see and that is bad print placements on the Garmin this could be crooked or misplaced prints that aren't the most flattering to wear most commonly these are what we call Belly prints or a print placement that is just too low so that Center chest print location is actually on the more center of the shirt placing that print on the abdomen when worn something no one wants to wear and as apparel decorators we want to be creating shirts that people love to wear right well to help with print placement there's a few tools and tricks that you could employ to ensure that you're printing in the perfect spot now the first are placement guides and rulers similar to these now these help you Center and align your prints on the shirt while they're on press now you could align to the collar and then you have it nice and centered and you have a nice Center Line as well as a marked left chest and a right chest location now you could also use more well a simple method of measurement your your fingers right so I use my fingers to place most Graphics three fingers down from the collar for me that's exactly two and a quarter inch but anywhere within that one and a half to three inch range is going to help you avoid prints that are too low now prints that are too high are almost always acceptable while those lower prints don't really want to be worn by your end customers now the same is going to go for a left chest print location too low or too far into the armpit not exactly ideal you could always are on the higher side or more to the center when you're unsure now of course for finding the center of your transfer you could always fold it over in the light to align the ink on each side and then just gently crease the top and bottom to Mark a center line of the graphic this comes in super handy when you have those opaque paper carriers like on our goof proof screen printed transfers now we could talk about place men all day but if you want to learn more in depth we actually have a full video put together on print placement and positioning that could be sure to help you out so we're going to link that one right here and down in the description now the next issue that we're going to cover here is misapplied transfers not all heat transfers are the same and you need to follow the correct instructions for the transfer type that you are using there's three key elements to successful print application time temperature and pressure now these settings are your recipe you're not going to go bake a cake and go off script and accept the same delicious perfect results right no I didn't think so so with the correct time temperature and pressure you can ensure your prints leave your shop with the long lasting quality that you want to hang your hat on now here at Transfer Express we have all of our transfers independently tested to 50 wash dry Cycles essentially the industry Benchmark when applied correctly and when applied correctly is actually the key words here follow the recipe for the specific transfers that you are using you'll commonly find those in the box with your transfers when they arrive now with time temperature and pressure I like to think of them as kind of a tripod if you remove one of the legs the other two legs are going to fall over so say while you have the correct time and temperature settings if your pressure is off the transfer is not applying correctly now the same goes here for the peel you'll find hot peel warm peel and cold peel transfers hot peel means immediately after the Press opens no delay because as that transfer cools the Ink's going to adhere back to that carrier sheet making it harder to remove now warm peel transfers are waiting about three to five seconds after the Press opens and cold peel transfers should be at room temperature before removing the carrier typically five to ten minutes depending on your environment now our next topic while somewhat related to the heat as well deals with overlooking fabric compatibility each transfer you're going to use from direct to film to heat transfer vinyl is approved for use on a specific set of fabrics now these will differ from transfer to transfer with some specifically made for printing on synthetics like spandex or nylon choose a transfer type like Ultra color Max direct to film transfers for printing on spandex or something like Ultra color stretch for printing on nylon now this is due to the different elasticity in the inks and the transfer as well as the adhesive that's used on that specific transfer type now this one is related to temperature here too because many synthetic materials are much more heat sensitive than say organic fabric like cotton so choosing a transfer that applies at a temperature under 300 degrees will reduce the chances of scorching the apparel leaving behind that dreaded Press Box on the shirt that's not going to go away I do want to mention here as we're talking about discoloration on a shirt that it's very common to see discoloration in Cotton garments when using heat applied products now this is just the difference in moisture content in the fabric that when you're pressing it it's steamed out of the shirts now that Press Box is going to return to the normal color once the fabric absorbs moisture from the air and the environment for our next common heat printing mistake we're going to shift back over to our pressure component and that is leaving collars or seams on the printing surface now for proper application you're going to need a flat smooth even surface for pressure for proper printing free of any obstructions so that means rolling the collar off of that lower platen collars and seams are going to affect your contact with the upper platen making proper application a lot harder than it needs to be for applications where you have buttons say on a polo or the shirt I'm wearing or maybe even like a a baby onesie you could use a smaller printing Platinum if your press allows interchangeable platens like these hotronix machines do now if it does not that's okay you could use Simple tools like a blank computer mouse pad to raise the printing surface so any buttons seams collars or obstructions are below where the heating element is going to make contact with your apparel for number five here on our list today we're gonna shift over to our focus on ink colors nothing is worse than choosing the wrong ink color for printing on your specific type of apparel because you only realize it after the shirt is actually printed and that is just a oh no when you realize it now colors on screen are always going to differ from the actual printed result in real life we're going from light on a screen to physical ink so say for plastisol ink transfers like our goof proof screen printer transfers you could utilize something like the color selector Swatch book that has a reference to the real ink color printed on a pellon fabric now this makes it super easy to confidently pick colors that will work for the shirt color that you're printing on super helpful for those trendy tone on tone prints too now for digitally printed options like our Ultra color Max direct to film transfers you're going to want to avoid any drastic color shifts from screen to print so using a specific CMYK value instead of say an RGB value is going to yield you a much closer result without any surprises when the transfers arrive we've got a great video on the difference in CMYK and RGB color modes that we're going to link down in the description that you could watch next up not testing applications yourself sometimes this is hard for apparel decorators because your customers are going to request a specific apparel Style with a blend of synthetic fibers maybe even weird dies in it or it's sublimated or maybe it has a waterproof coating that's going to repel your transfers too well it's always best to test before you agree to any full production runs now this helps avoid so many headaches delays and customer disappointment be honest and upfront about your capabilities and and be confident in the services that you could provide to your clients now this could even be present when a customer requests that you print on their own supplied apparel sometimes these are pre-laundered with detergents treatments or fabric softeners that are going to make decorating way harder than it needs to be not only does a markup on an apparel that you purchase from A supplier add to your profit margin but it also gives you an easy Avenue to replace garments with the exact same style if you do happen to make any mistakes and misprint a few shirts now sometimes it's okay to say no to a job that's going to take too much time and not be worth all of the hassle or the effort it just depends on the project now next up on the list is inaccurate proofs and mock-ups now if you're taking the time to proof a project with a customer before printing it it needs to match what the final product is going to be I just want to take a quick side note right here you should always be providing mock-ups for custom orders to cover yourself in disputes and set clear expectations of what your customers are going to receive it just looks really super pro and everybody else in the industry is doing it all right and sidebar regardless if you're a custom decorator or running your own brand your mock-ups should reflect what your end product is going to be and we've packed a lot of helpful tips into this very short video we'll link right here all about apparel mock-ups so that you could quickly and easily create proofs to send to your customers or post as product photos on your online store but next up print sizing with mocking up your apparel it's helpful to include the print size which should match exactly to the real shirt this right here is an example we used in the mock-up video that I mentioned where an online proof is actually very misleading to the actual product that was received and all of it is here in the print size needless to say this leads to disappointed customers something you're going to want to avoid reference common dimensions for the print location that you're going for so something like 11 inches wide is perfect for most Center chest or full front prints while left chest logos should be sized no larger than four to maybe four and a half inches or so of course this is going to vary depending on the aesthetic that you're going for now you could use a piece of paper measured and then folded or cut down to see exactly how it's going to look on the shirt itself so we're going to link our full print sizing video down in the description for your reference as well now this next mistake can really make or break your t-shirt business accurate cost and pricing now we're in this business to profit right and that profit should more than cover the cost of the blank garment the decoration and any labor costs or overhead expenses that you'll have without accurately calculating how much a project is going to cost future produce you're flying completely blind on your profit margin one easy way to ensure that you're making a profit is a simplified cost times two pricing model that's essentially doubling the cost of the shirt and the transfer to then cover your labor and overhead expenses and in many cases it's more than enough of course having detailed expense calculations is ideal we've actually got a video for that one too that will link right down in the description below now nothing is worse than investing your time and effort into a project and then finding out you actually lost money definitely not the way to profit speaking of profit this brings us to one of our last points here in our video pre-printing bulk inventory now one of the largest benefits of printing apparel with a heat press is the ability to easily print on demand reducing the Financial Risk if styles designs or certain colorways don't sell I I've lived this one personally as my band hasn't played a show in almost four years but I still have boxes and boxes of printed band tees that we never sold sitting in the garage by printing on demand you could use the blank t-shirts for any other designs in your online store or for fulfillment for your other customers reducing waste and only printing the transfer on the blank garment when the product is ordered this makes printing on-site at events tournaments and markets much less of a Financial Risk now printing on Demand with a heat press brings a whole bunch of other benefits too from the low initial investment into equipment and the wide variety of products and fabric types that you could print on all of this with almost zero maintenance something that those direct to garment printers require quite a bit of with those clogging ink lines and pesky printheads okay so that was 10 but I've actually got one more here as a bonus point that we had to include in in the list today and that is not storing materials and heat transfers properly now when stored properly plastisol and digital transfers are going to last for a long time we actually pressed a 10 year old transfer for a video that will link in the description that applied perfect but it was stored in a climate controlled office away from temperature swings large differences in humidity and away from any sunlight storing transfers in a garage or anywhere the temperatures shift should be avoided for a stable cool dry environment nothing is worse than trying to figure out why a transfer is not applying correctly all the settings are right and these exact transfers printed perfect a month ago what happened it's going to drive you mad and they probably absorbed way too much moisture or they had been heated up essentially fully curing the inks to the carrier sheet and they aren't coming off so do you have any common mistakes from your experiences that you'd like to share think we missed something let us know down in the comments below we always love to keep the conversation going with the apparel decorating Community as always be sure to hit that like button and subscribe here to the Transfer Express YouTube page and stay up to date on all of the helpful t-shirt printing tips tricks inspiration and education that we're dropping every single week but until next time I'm Dave copy pressing frustration free pressing right we'll see you next time

Channel: Transfer Express

Views: 38,331

Keywords: transfer express, heat printing, heat press machine, home business t-shirt, tshirt printing help, tshirt printing mistakes, mistakes to avoid, heat press, screen printing, tshirt printing tips, how to print tshirts, beginner tshirt tips, beginner tshirt business, heat press printing, how to heat press tshirts, direct to film, dtf transfers, dtf mistakes, tshirt prints, dtf printing mistakes, plastisol transfers, tshirt printing easy, easy tshirt tips, print tshirts

Id: iEfSb4dSyNI

Length: 16min 58sec (1018 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 10 2023