DTF printing solved the two problems that made small custom apparel orders painful: color limits and setup costs. There are no screens, so there is no per-color charge and no minimum that makes a run of twenty pieces uneconomic. If you can see it, it can go on a shirt.
We print DTF in house in Staten Island and ship across New York City.
What DTF is
Direct-to-film printing puts your artwork onto a special film in full color, coats the ink with an adhesive powder, cures it, and heat-presses it onto the garment. The result is a flexible full-color print that sits on the surface of the fabric.
Because there are no screens to burn, there is nothing to set up and nothing to charge you for setting up. A one-color design and a forty-color photograph cost the same to print.
What it is genuinely better at
- Full-color and photographic artwork. Gradients, shading, photographs, illustrations — things screen printing charges per color for and embroidery cannot physically do.
- Small runs. Twelve shirts is a normal order, not a problem.
- Personalisation. Twenty shirts, twenty different names or numbers, no extra setup per variation.
- Mixed fabrics. Cotton, polyester, blends, performance fabric and nylon all take DTF. That is not true of every method.
- Dark garments. DTF prints its own white base, so bright artwork on a black shirt looks bright.
Where it is the wrong answer
We would rather tell you now than take the order. DTF is not the right choice for a large run in one or two colors — at a few hundred pieces, screen printing is cheaper and the ink sits in the fabric in a way DTF does not match.
It is also not the right choice for anything that lives in a commercial dryer. DTF is bonded with adhesive and heat is what breaks that bond. For daily-wear uniforms washed hot several times a week, embroidery will outlast it comfortably. We wrote the comparison here: which method actually lasts.
What NYC customers use it for
- Event and launch tees in full color, ordered late
- Club, band and motorcycle club artwork with detail screen printing would price out of reach
- Staff shirts for agencies and studios where the brand is not a flat two-color mark
- Memorial and fundraiser shirts, where the artwork is often a photograph
- Small-batch merch for shops, gyms and restaurants testing a design before committing
Artwork: what to send
Send the highest resolution file you have. For DTF, resolution genuinely matters — the print reproduces exactly what you give it, including the softness of a low-resolution logo pulled off a website. Vector is ideal, a large PNG with a transparent background is excellent, a screenshot is not.
If your artwork needs cleaning up, we will tell you before we print rather than after.
Turnaround and getting it to you
DTF is one of the faster methods because there is no setup step. Turnaround depends mostly on whether the blanks are in stock. We ship across New York City, and local pickup on Staten Island is free.
Send your artwork and quantity: request a quote or call (929) 487-3382. Appointment only, Monday to Saturday, 9 to 5.