What is the difference between screen printing and digital printing? Which is better?

These are the two most common questions that we get asked on a daily basis. Unfortunately, there is no short answer to either. With the screen printing method, plastisol ink is squeegeed onto your item through a screen that acts as a stencil. Digital printing uses inkjet technolgy to print a water-based ink directly onto your item from the computer. Each printing method has its benefits.

The difference in the INK used by each printing method is what causes the difference in print quality/texture/brightness/durability.

The difference in the PROCESS is mainly what causes the difference in pricing.

We have provided a thorough comparison of each method below. If you still don't know which method is better for your particular job, please call us and we can make a recommendation for you.

 
 
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Due to the set up time involved, we have a minimum order quantity of 12 pieces for screen printing.
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Since there is virtually no set up time involved, there are no minimum order requirements for digital printing.
With the screen printing method, we use a plastisol ink which has the thickness and consistency similar to a creamy peanut butter.
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The digital printer uses water-based ink, which has a consistency similar to milk.
Since plastisol ink is considerably thicker than the water-based ink used in the digital printer, it is denser and more opaque.
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The ink in the digital printer has to be thin enough to flow through the tubing and through the tiny holes in the print head. Thus, it is less dense and less opaque than plastisol ink.
 
 
When screen printing an image such as the one to the left, we would squeegee green and purple plastisol ink onto the shirt. The ink layer sits on top of the shirt like paint, leaving a slightly rough textured print. When printing solid colors, the screen printing method yields superior vividness, opacity, and durability. We would always recommend screen printing over digital printing for this type of image, unless you require less than the minimum order quantity of 12.
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When digitally printing an image like this, the purple and green colors are achieved by printing tiny dots of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (CMYK) in different densities. The ink absorbs into the shirt, leaving a very soft feel to the print. Solid colors will be less vibrant when digitally printed, and they will fade a little after the first washing. Depending on what you want, this may or may not be a bad thing. Digital printing works very nicley for printing softer colors.
 
 
Think of plastisol as being like paint. Imagine if you went to the paint store, picked out the brightest can of red paint you could find, then painted a stop sign on a piece of paper. Imagine the vividness of red you would achieve.
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The digital garment printer is almost identical to your average desktop color inkjet printer. The main difference being that you can load a t-shirt into it. Now imagine the brightest red stop sign you could print on your inkjet printer. It would look red, but it can't come close to the red you would find in a can of red paint.
 
 
 
We CAN screen print full color images. Similar to digital printing, we do this by printing small dots of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Each color is separated onto a different screen. Once again, screen printing will provide superior brightness and durability over digital printing. Screen printing this type of image can be expensive if done in small quantities, especially if you wanted full color printing on both sides of the shirt.
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Digital technology makes full color printing in small quantities affordable. A full color print costs the same as a 1-color print. Digital printing has the ability to produce a higher resolution print than screen printing, but it is only apparent when examining the print very closely. At an arms length, you can't really tell a difference in resolution. Once again, digital printing yields a slightly less vibrant print, and it will fade slightly with the first washing.
 
 
With screen printing- separating the colors, making the screens, setting up the press, and cleaning up afterwards takes a lot of time. However, once the press is set up, the output speed is much faster than digital printing. This makes screen printing much more economical that digital printing for high volume orders.
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Digital printing requires virtually zero set up time. However, the output speed is much slower than screen printing. The ink is also more than 10 times more expensive. The prices for digital printing can only go so low, and they bottom out at a quantity of 72.
 
 
Click here! for screen printed quality samples and pricing guidelines.
Click here! for digitally printed quality samples and pricing guidelines.