Abstract
Digital printing is the latest printing technique that involves the creation of prints with the help of styles conceptualized using computer software. The technique is gaining popularity over other troublesome and time-consuming printing techniques like roller, screen, and transfer printing because of cost-effectiveness. The Designs may be repeated again and again. The technique finds application in designing a spread of apparel, accessories, and residential textiles.
Knitted accessories aren’t only comfortable because of good moisture, air, and warmth transmission properties, but also can be decoratively embellished to supply an appealing look. Several surface embellishment techniques, like hand painting, crocheting, applique work, the addition of trims and notions, and digital printing, are often applied to beautify knitted fabrics and accessories.
Digital printing is the process of making prints using designs from a computer as a reference as critical analog printing, which needs screen printing. it absolutely was introduced in 1950 for paper printing but the technique was later deployed for textiles in addition.
It emerged as a prototyping tool and a vehicle for printing small batches of cloth for niche market products, namely apparel, accessories, and residential textiles. It shortens the interval from design to production, hurries up sample production, and reduces production lot size and inventory costs.
1.Introduction
Digital printing is the process of creating prints from an electronic file. Digital printing doesn’t depend upon a press plate to hold the image and also doesn’t require any setup sheets. thanks to lower production costs, digital printing has replaced lithography during a big selection of markets.
Digital printing makes use of a raster image which is distributed to the printer with help of digital files and graphics software applications. The toner actually forms a skinny layer on the surface and with the assistance of a fuser fluid as a part of the warmth process or UV curing process is also used for adhering to the surface. the most advantage is the elimination of the printing plate and thus helps in saving time, effort, and money.
It usually refers to professional printing where small-run jobs from publishing and other digital sources are printed using large-format and/or high-volume laser or inkjet printers.
Digital printing encompasses a higher cost per page than more traditional offset methods, but this price is sometimes offset by avoiding the price of all the technical steps required to create printing plates.
The savings aborning and also the ever-increasing capability of digital presses implies that digital printing is reaching the purpose where it can match or supersede offset technology’s ability to supply larger print runs of several thousand sheets at a coffee price.
The artwork is formed on a computer and directly printed onto the fabric. In fact, digital printing is another to traditional printing methods like flexography, lithography, printing process, letterpress, gravure, and others.
Digital printing is actually an inkjet process. A series of print heads pass back and forth across the material, spraying dyestuff onto it. The print head is supplied by a variety of colors normally based around cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (in some instances with tonal variations), the optical mixing of which, when printed, gives rise to a full spectrum of color. A printer driver, employing a digital version of the planning as a reference, controls which color is printed and when.
How Does Digital Printing Work?
The image that we would like for printing is directly sent to the printer through a digital file like PDF, TIFF, and lots of other formats. the method is right for printing that needs smaller quantities with high amounts of detail. the method doesn’t include prepress stages between the document file and therefore the final product – prepress stages are mandatory in most of the opposite traditional printing methods out there. On the opposite hand, we don’t need messy formatting equipment like photo chemicals and film plates for this process. The print will take off perfectly after we follow these few steps in digital printing.
The very initiative is to arrange a clean, sharp image with a high resolution for printing purposes. Then crop marks and bleeds are added as per the necessity of the printing order. Crop marks are the lines on the corner of the print. Once the bleed is trimmed, crop marks will make sure that there aren’t any unprinted edges within the final trimmed document. the subsequent step would be an imposition. This ensures the utmost area of the paper is employed for the print. This helps to create the print job efficiently and block on paper waste. The ikon file should be converted into a GIF, TIFF, JPEG, or BMP file. most significantly, before being sent to the printer, the files must be formatted properly. On the opposite hand, PDF files also are used for printing purposes looking at the software that we use.
Benefits
It is an easy process that produces anybody to be able to print easily. it’s simple as that it doesn’t require knowledge of prepress or blending ink. It gives full color. Various design possibilities with full color and gradation print without the limitation of colors. It also gives you Quick delivery full-color print.
The print is completed in one process without using plates. It enables quick delivery. The color matching time is reduced. It’s now possible to make one sample that has an identical quality compared to the ultimate product with the first design.
Using the digital data makes easy and straightforward color matching and supported the first design the assembly can start instantly. Analog printing requires time for color matching before starting the assembly. In digital printing, that point isn’t needed. It consumes lower-cost production is achieved by printing without plates and with fewer production processes.
It has a little volume of production. On-demand and just one product are possible by printing without plates. Variable data printing and custom-made production also are possible. Not just that it’s Environmentally friendly. Inkjet printing reduces ink wastes because it ejects ink only to the parts to be printed. It also reduces the method to scrub the plates after printing.
Pros and Cons
Digital printing enables manufacturers to streamline the whole design, sampling, and production process. Reduction of downtime is one of the largest benefits. Digital printers don’t require lengthy set-up or clean-up time between patterns and may still produce the best print qualities. Additionally, the elimination of screen cost in sampling and short production runs is another added advantage.
Mass customization is feasible because the system provides flexibility to designers to create pattern and color changes instantly and print a sample before engraving screens for the ultimate run. Digital production machines facilitate the printer to provide as little collectively repeat of several patterns using multiple colorways in a very fraction of seconds.
The motifs or selected designs are printed everywhere as repeat patterns, borders, or on hemline as per the designer’s design ideas posing no difficulty of printing even at the perimeters. The bonding of the dye to the transparent fibers of the synthetic fabric ensures extraordinary brilliance of shades and hues of colors. Digital printing saves time and value for sampling.
Continuous tones will be achieved that is comparable to photographs, unlike half-screen and screen printing that necessitates the preparation of screen and provides limited color options.
Digital printing improves printing efficiency and offers an array of vivid innovative prints, color palettes, and speed. The speed and cost-effectiveness of single-pass printers are corresponding to rotary screen printing.
Variable drop sizes in print head, fabric handling, nozzle failure, and fabric wrinkle detection system, reduced environmental impact, and better uptime of the printer thanks to no screen changes are a number of the features that modern digital printing systems offer.
However, the technique has some disadvantages also. it’s time-saving for sampling only. Moreover, sampling and cost are high with higher cost and time interval for bigger production runs. Another disadvantage is that the slow speed of the method.
2. Future of Digital Printing
When it involves digital fabric printing in India, it’s a beautiful future because of the various benefits related to it. Let’s take a glance at the factors that make it a beautiful business for the long run.
a. Print on Demand
Yes, you’ll be able to print on demand because today customers have their specific options. they will come up with a thought of fashion or design that they require to print on their clothes. the simplest part of this kind of printing is that you simply can print small or large reckoning on the requirements of the purchasers.
b.Low Startup Cost
Digital printing may be a low–cost startup. This demands lower operating costs. you are doing not need the complete setup for this, just a computer and digital machine will do its job. Besides, you want to have the knowledge to house customized designs to urge more customers.
c.Less Operational Space
Since digital printing doesn’t require an enormous set up, it can move with less operating space. you’ll be able to easily found in an exceedingly small area.
d.Quality of Printing
This is the simplest advantage of digital printing. It offers high printing accuracy and fast printing that pleases your customers initially glance. Keeping pace with technology is important but the standard is some things that can’t be compromised at any stage of your business. So, it ensures the standard of printing. Digital Fabric Printing India could be a new era business that’s growing beyond leaps and bounds.
3. Demand for Digital Printing going up
The growing acceptance and recognition of digital printing are delayed by many bottlenecks like print speed, ink performance, and value, color registration, substrate handling, color control, wash and wear fastness, and fixing and curing.
Yet, the technique remains predicted to boom over the following few years.
Team Apparel Online talks to digital printing service providers in Delhi-NCR to decode the explanations behind this technique’s growing demand and prevalence.
Emerging vibrantly in S/S 2013 runways, many international designers like Prada, Pucci, Jil Sander, Etro, Christopher Kane, Erdem, Issa, Mary Katrantzou, Moschino, Cheap & Chic, Mulberry, Roksanda Ilincic, Akris to call some created abstract, submerged, mirror, psychedelic and photographic prints using digital imaging techniques resulting in a boom for the techniques within the industry. Also picked up by Indian designers and exporters, digital printing has become a necessity for the market.
They are working with designers like Tarun Tahiliani, Rohit Bal, Ritu Kumar, Ranna Gill, JJ Vallay, Rajesh Pratap Singh, and high-end home-furnishing brands, all of whom are incorporating digital printing in their collections.
Not only in exports, but the demand for digitally printed fabrics is additionally growing within the domestic market also. Digitally printed leggings, sarees, suits, shawls, scarves, and stoles are in great demand, and also the fabrics may be easily seen at many retail stores, but the most important domestic requirement is being fulfilled by digital printers from other areas compared to the Delhi-NCR region.
Sikander Peshoria, Co-owner, Garb & Guise explains the explanation, “In the export sector, the standard controls involved are very stringent but in domestic it’s easier to manage and run the show with none hassles or any technical knowhow because the qc don’t seem to be rigid and rejections are acceptable, therefore the costs also are cheap, thanks to which most of the domestic digital printing orders for are moving towards Surat.” the corporate with a printing capacity of 7000 meters per day does digital printing on cotton, cashmere, wool, modal, silk and a range of other fabrics for stoles, sarees, shawls, and scarves together with running length fabrics for domestic brands, fashion/textile/graphic designers and overseas buyers. Their export demand for wool, silk, and cotton printed fabrics comes majorly from Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, and the USA.
4. Digital Printing’s Impact on Fashion and Apparel
When it involves printing for the style industry, screen printing has been the first method of production. With the flexibility to print with bold colors in an exceedingly precise and controlled manner, screen printing – which has origins dating back as far as 960-1279 AD in China – wasn’t commercially popularised for the style industry until the 1960s.
During that decade the primary rotatable, multi-color garment screen printer was developed within the US to permit logo printing on bowling uniforms. Following that, screen printing became the go-to technology for the fast-fashion movement, particularly as production moved to cheaper labor countries like China and India.
However, further, as high screen and screen storage costs, many designers were restricted by the technology’s limitations. Barriers to print design development included the labor-intensive work required in applying ink to screen to clothing, the high-water consumption that arose from washing the screens, and also the inability to style complex imagery with the screens’ mesh.
New, innovative printing technology was required to supply an answer to those issues. The industry, and particularly the buyer marketplace for fashion and apparel, increasingly requires flexibility.
Although screen printing remains a thriving industry as many end-consumers are attached to simple low-resolution, bright-colored prints on their garments, digital can create a reduced environmental footprint, enable greater flexibility, personalization, and has given fashion designers the pliability to experiment with their styles by breaking down design boundaries.
The introduction of inkjet technologies for fashion and apparel applications over the years has meant that high-resolution pattern and image prints became increasingly popular within the garment industry – from complex florals and animal prints to detailed photorealistic visuals and repetitive, intricate brand designs.
However, also as changing the way during which and what a designer creates, inkjet has also had a broader impact on fashion seasons, business models, and also the supply chain.
Courtesy: Solunaris Color Expert Solutions
5. You-Nique highlights digital printing in fashion
You-Nique, a fashion show in Ahmedabad, highlighted digital printing because of the sustainable future course in fashion wear. Seven leading designers of the town united to form 70 exquisite wears as a part of the gathering. Models scorched the ramp in exquisite wear digitally printed in chanderi, soft silk, smooth satin, handloom, khadi, and chiffon.
The show organized by Solunaris Color Expert Solutions displayed the designs and colors that are at the core of digital printing utilizing the specialized inks for reproducible and consistent print results and outstanding fastness properties. Solunaris could be a daughter company of Jay Chemical Industries Ltd.
The You-Nique collection was also a trial to showcase the vibrancy of color print design and form and created an open feedback platform with designers to explore contemporary techniques. All the clothes used Antelos Digital Printing inks manufactured by Solunaris. These are reactive inks that are environmentally friendly and enable high color yield without nozzle clogging.
“We see this as a tiny low but effective ripple within the digital printing industry that’s poised to grow exponentially across the world. The anticipated growth should be fortified using sustainable methods of production and raw materials. You-Nique provided an avenue to involve multiple stakeholders of the style industry to consider innovation on this line of thought,” said Sandeep Gupta, head of business development (Asia Pacific), Solunaris.
The brands prefer digital marketing
With the increasing usage of the internet by consumers, around 87% of brands are choosing digital marketing, besides television and print medium, for customer engagement and brand promotion, says a report. The Digital Marketing Industry Report 2016 was released by the digital marketing agency Social ram down May and June 2016 with the participation of 376 Chief Marketing Officers and marketing heads of assorted companies. “The report highlights the increase of digital marketing, though brands still use television and print medium to possess a 360-degree approach,” Social Beat Co-Founder, Vikas Chawla said.
“While brand awareness and lead generation seem to be the first goals, digital marketing is increasingly being leveraged for customer engagement and customer service too,” he said.
6. Conclusion
Digital printing provides a multidisciplinary environment for the event and production of innovative textile and apparel products. the arena is characterized by an oversized number of companies that are exploiting available technologies and lengthening the boundaries of economic application. it’s emerging as a major industry and because of the employer of execs who are competent in their chosen field of technology.
The work of designers is significantly affected. this is often not simply because of the talents they have to form designs for digital printing. The lead times for digitally printed products are often very short because production batches may be as long or as short because the market will take. Consequently, designers exploiting the potential of the technology are working closely in time to the purpose of sale: for garments, this is often the domain of ‘Fast Fashion’. As digital textile printing continues to proliferate within the global fashion and apparel sector, taking more of the worldwide market share of volume of printed fabric, business models and styles will still evolve. With digital textile printing, the style and apparel markets still break down barriers and enable new possibilities, but there are still challenges ahead like metallic or glitter inks and therefore the next big focus – a way to connect the provision chain within the Fourth historic period.
Streamlining production workflows, connecting digital textile printers with siloed processes both up and downstream – like the cutting process with machine-to-machine (M2M) communication and data harnessing technology – will enable a discount within the cost of printed fashion and apparel goods for the top consumer. The proximity to the tip consumer will decrease (increasing flexibility and customization), lead times will improve and garments will only be created once they’re ordered.
Digital textile printing marked the start of the digital transformation within the fashion and apparel supply chain. And while it’ll never fully replace screen printing as mass-market products will always be needed within the global marketplace, digital printing will still transform the industry in terms of production, rebalancing power within the industry (more to the patron and also the designer) and increasing sustainability within the garment printing space.
We forestall to seeing this future.
7. References
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https://mimaki.com/topics/product/inkjet_printer/advantage-digital-printing.html
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