[mwn]

Hi Shoppartners,

Spreadshirt.net will roll out Digital Direct printing in Europe soon! This new method will replace our current Digital Transfer printing, which is used in those cases where full-color is required, and quality and durability can be traded off for that, in comparison to Plot Printing. With this new method of digital printing, no transfer material is needed anymore, which looks better and makes the shirt more comfortable to wear.

You do not have to change anything in your Shop; your existing products will be automatically switched over when it is Digital Direct enabled, and the existing images will be printed the same size as before. Digital Direct will print at 200 DPI, so you may want to upload your digital images in this resolution to see it in the size you want to use it on any new products you're creating in confomat.

Pricing
To keep the pricing for Digital Printing simple we will have only one fee for Digital Direct, no matter if printed on white or dark apparel. Digital Direct will cost 3 GBP (4,50 EUR) on all apparel. Compared to Digital Transfer on white (2 GBP) this is 1 GBP more, but 1 GBP less than Digi Transfer on dark apparel (4 GBP). Please take this price difference into account when setting your product's commission.

There will actually be two phases in the rollout of Digital Direct. First, we will start with DD on white apparel and certain light colored apparel, colors we feel provide the best results with Digital Direct. Since white is not printed but transparent, the shirts color is shown instead. Examples:

• White colored shirt + Digital Direct
• Light colored shirt + Digital Direct

The second process will be launched later this summer; Digital Direct for use on dark apparel. This replaces the Digital Transfer Overlay that is available in the UK, France and Holland. This Digital Direct (Underlay) uses the same process as Digital Direct, except a layer of white ink is first printed under the design, so the colors are visible on the dark material. Examples:

• Black Tshirt Full Image shot
• Black Tshirt Zoom Image shot

We are testing the Digital Direct process for use with all our products that currently enable digital printing. We will enable more and more products for Digital Direct, and eventually replace all products with the new technology. Until then we will continue to use the older Digital Transfer technology if necessary, i.e. for some products that take more time to optimize and for printing on sleeves. A list with exact products that are enabled for Digital Direct will be kept up to date here.


I will post more information in the coming days about what stages we are in, release schedules, etc, so subscribe to this post or check back for more updates!

[mjrproductions]

That's great news Martijn.

You say that the new process is 200dpi. Does this mean existing products will print about 3/4 of the size the preview in my shop shows, or will you automatically upsize (interpolate) any existing designs?

Can't wait to get started with this. I've several designs waiting.

[mwn]

Hey Mike,

Yes, they will be scaled up before production, so they will be made true to the previewed size.

[mjrproductions]

Thanks for that Martijn.

It's good news all round.

[Jay1]

Hi Martijn, that`s excellent, waited a long time for that, works perfectly in US.

[seventy2]

Good news.

[kosmonaut]

Outstanding!

[bhoywunda]

fantastic news

[chamers]

just spotted this, it sounds like great news! Can anyone comment on what "quality and durability can be traded off" actually means in practice? I appreciate this will not be as hard wearing as the plot printing but has anyone had any experience with this? Is it good for one wash.... six washes..... I know it's hard to generalise but any real world opinions would be appreciated!

[ian-b]

There's a thread with photos of digital direct prints that shopkeepers have ordered on the US forum. Unfortunately there seem to be teething problems at the moment. The quality is very inconsistent - some people have been happy with the shirts they've ordered, and some have been very disappointed, and going by the pictures, they have every right to be disappointed.

There seem to be issues with getting an even coverage of ink onto the dark coloured shirts. We're getting lots of little "pinholes" and cracks in the designs. Some of them almost look like you'd expect it to look if the shirt was printed when the machine was starting to run out of ink. The white underlay looks a bit thin. Hopefully they'll get on top of the problems soon.

If you want to register to read the thread, this is the link:
http://www.forum.spreadshirt.com/showthread.php?t=2654