What is the difference between DTG and DTF printing?

DTG sprays ink directly into the garment, so it needs high cotton content and has almost no feel. DTF prints onto a film and heat presses it on, which works on any fabric and is more opaque, but leaves a thin layer on the surface you can feel at the edges.

Which printing method lasts the longest on a t-shirt?

Properly cured screen printing, usually with plastisol ink. DTG does not crack but fades gradually; DTF holds colour well but can start to lift at an edge. In all three cases an under cured print fails within a few washes regardless of method.

How can I tell if a shirt is screen printed?

Feel the edge of the design and look at a light area. Screen printing gives flat solid colour with halftone dots in a regular grid, and a soft raised area that follows the artwork. A transfer has a hard edge all the way round the print.

Why do printers have minimum order quantities?

Because screen printing has a setup cost per colour: a screen to make, expose and register for each one. Once set up, each shirt costs very little, so the minimum spreads the setup. DTG and DTF have no setup and therefore no minimum.

Printed things

Screen printing, DTG and DTF: how to tell them apart

3 November 2026 · 6 min read

Nearly every printed shirt you can buy was made by one of three processes, and you can usually identify which by running a thumb across the print. Screen printing pushes ink through a mesh, one screen per colour. Direct to garment sprays ink into the fabric like an inkjet printer. Direct to film prints onto a plastic carrier sheet and heat presses the result onto the shirt. They cost different amounts, they look different close up, and they fail in different ways. None of them is simply best, which is why all three are still in use.

Screen printing, and why it still wins at volume

A screen is a fine mesh stretched on a frame, coated with light sensitive emulsion and exposed so that the areas of the design wash out. Ink is pushed through those open areas onto the fabric with a squeegee, and then the garment goes through a dryer that heats the ink to its curing temperature so the resin cross links and binds to the fibres.

One screen does one colour. A four colour design needs four screens, four set ups, four passes and registration between them, and that is the whole economics of the process: the setup cost is high and the cost per shirt after that is pennies. Printers quote minimums for exactly this reason.

The ink sits on top of and slightly into the fabric as a film, which is why a screen print has a feel: you can find the edge of the design with a fingertip. Plastisol, the common ink, is a PVC based ink that sits higher and lasts extremely well. Water based and discharge inks soak in further and feel softer, discharge actually bleaching the dye out of the cotton and replacing it with pigment, which gives the softest hand of any method on dark cotton.

At volume, screen printing produces the most durable print per penny of any process, and the solid colour it lays down is denser than anything a digital process can match.

Direct to garment, which is a printer with a shirt in it

DTG is an inkjet. Water based pigment ink is sprayed straight onto the garment, and on anything dark the shirt is first sprayed with a white underbase and heat set before the colour pass goes down.

The advantage is that colour costs nothing. A photograph, a gradient, fifty colours and one colour all take the same time and the same ink, so DTG is what makes a single shirt with a complicated image possible at all. There is no setup, so there is no minimum.

The cost is per shirt and it does not fall with quantity, which is why DTG gets expensive above a few dozen pieces. It also wants high cotton content, because the ink bonds to cellulose fibres and not to polyester, and it needs a pretreatment that can leave a faintly visible square around the print on dark garments if it is sloppily applied.

A DTG print feels like nothing. The ink is in the fabric rather than on it, you can see the weave through the colour, and on a light garment with no underbase it is the softest result available. It is also the least opaque: colours on dark fabric go slightly duller than the file, which is covered in the piece on why printing on black fabric is harder than on white.

Direct to film, the newest of the three

DTF prints the design in reverse onto a clear PET film, dusts the wet ink with a powdered adhesive, melts that, and then heat presses the film onto the garment. The film peels away and leaves the ink and adhesive behind as a thin continuous layer.

It is unfussy about what it prints on. Cotton, polyester, blends, nylon, canvas, a cap, a bag: if it survives a heat press it takes a DTF transfer. That is a genuine advantage over DTG, which effectively needs cotton.

It is also opaque, because the white is printed as part of the transfer rather than sprayed onto the garment, so colours stay bright on black without the dullness DTG gets.

The trade off is feel. A DTF print is a film sitting on the surface, with a definite edge you can feel all the way round, and it does not breathe. On a large print across the chest that is noticeable. It is also the newest process, which means the long term durability data is thinner than for the other two, and quality varies a lot with the operator and the adhesive.

Telling them apart on a shirt you already own

Run a thumb across the edge of the design. A clear raised edge all the way round, with a slightly plasticky surface, is a transfer: DTF or a vinyl. A softer raised area that follows the shapes of the artwork rather than its outline is screen printed ink. No detectable edge at all, with the weave visible through the colour, is DTG.

Then look at a light area under a bright light. Screen printing lays flat solid colour, and halftones appear as a regular grid of dots. DTG and DTF both produce an irregular inkjet dither, finer and more random than a halftone screen.

Then stretch the fabric gently next to the print. A screen print flexes with the cloth. A transfer resists, and on an old one you will see fine cracks appear in the film as it stretches.

Finally, look at the back of the fabric. A discharge or water based screen print will often show a faint ghost of the design through the cloth. A transfer shows nothing at all.

Which lasts longest

Properly cured plastisol screen printing is the benchmark and will outlast the garment if the shirt is washed inside out and cold. The failure mode is cracking, which happens when the ink was under cured or laid on too thick.

DTG is in the fabric, so it does not crack. It fades. Pigment sits on the surface of the fibre and abrades away over dozens of washes, and the print goes gradually softer and lighter rather than breaking up. Many people prefer that kind of ageing.

DTF holds colour very well and fails at the edges and the folds, where the adhesive lets go and a corner starts to lift. Once lifting starts it continues.

The variable that matters more than the method is the cure. An under cured print of any kind will fail in a handful of washes, and no buyer can see curing in a photograph. What you can do is wash it in a way that does not punish the print, which is the subject of its own piece.

What this means when you are buying

If you want a photographic or many coloured design and you are buying one or two, it is going to be DTG or DTF, and that is not a compromise. If you want flat bold colour with a crisp edge and maximum longevity, screen printing is the thing to look for, and it will usually be a design sold in quantity.

If you are buying something that will be washed constantly, ask about the ink rather than the process. Water based and discharge inks on cotton give the softest result that still lasts; plastisol gives the hardiest.

On our own garments, we do not yet have a print supplier contracted, so we are not going to name a process on a product page before we can name it accurately. What we can say is what the artwork needs: the window of moths and the sleeping cat are drawings with fine linework, and fine linework is the first thing any of these three processes loses if it is done badly. On canvas the question changes again, because a heavy woven surface takes ink differently from jersey.

Questions people actually ask

What is the difference between DTG and DTF printing?: DTG sprays ink directly into the garment, so it needs high cotton content and has almost no feel. DTF prints onto a film and heat presses it on, which works on any fabric and is more opaque, but leaves a thin layer on the surface you can feel at the edges.
Which printing method lasts the longest on a t-shirt?: Properly cured screen printing, usually with plastisol ink. DTG does not crack but fades gradually; DTF holds colour well but can start to lift at an edge. In all three cases an under cured print fails within a few washes regardless of method.
How can I tell if a shirt is screen printed?: Feel the edge of the design and look at a light area. Screen printing gives flat solid colour with halftone dots in a regular grid, and a soft raised area that follows the artwork. A transfer has a hard edge all the way round the print.
Why do printers have minimum order quantities?: Because screen printing has a setup cost per colour: a screen to make, expose and register for each one. Once set up, each shirt costs very little, so the minimum spreads the setup. DTG and DTF have no setup and therefore no minimum.