Digital Textile Printing

Digital Textile Printing

The saga of digitally printing and dyeing of fabric,yarn and garments involve a past of a few decades,adynamic present and likely a bright feature.This introduction accounts for the origions and evolation of textile printing to digital solution.It identifies some of the many creators and pioneers of these technologies and assesses theis impact on the textile printing  industry.

If focusing on the market demand for textile printed application,it attempts to answer question such as:-

1) How is technology evolving to address market demand?

2) What are  the market forces driving the adoption of digital technology for printing textile?

3) What are the global trend that shed light on the future of digital printing of textile?

4) What are  textile application that digital printing can supply more cost effectively than existing analog printing methods?

Digital color printing technology is sparking a fundamental change in the textile and apparel industry.Traditionlly to create printable design for fabric,color sepration and screen or rollers had to be used for the transfer of design to fabric.

Digital textile printing is the process of creating printable design for fabric on a computer,which can be sent directly from the computer to fabric printing machinery without the use of screen and colour sepration. This revolation in digital Image processing has necessitated new ways of thinking about textile design and production . A large percentage of the resurch involving the digital printing of textile has focused on how the technology will effect marketing and merchandising strategies in the textile and apparel industry.

In assessing the potentials and limitations of digital textile printing technology.

Printing on fabric of similar structure, but different fiber content.

Printing on textile of various texture and structure.

Repeat design versus non repeating image creation.

Photo-realistic imaginary.

Variation in size scale.

Change in visual perception of motif and imagery due to change of scale and repeat.

Garment style and repeat print design integration.

Limits file size/trans portability with contemporary software and hardware.

Colour matching and processing.

Allowance at any time without significant schedule delays or cost increases.

Digital color printing is a rapidly expanding sector.The conventional printing process,while highly cost effective on longer print runs,are unable to produce short runs of color print economically.As runs lengths for all types of product continue to fail, the market for short run digital color printing will undoubtedly increase. Digital system can not achieve quality comparable to conventional printing without a heavy penalty on output items.

Digital printing system are falling in price and also improving in quality of output speed of production, and workflow management.Digital color printing supports just in time production individualization output, in house production, distributed information, visualization and short run printing.

Digital color process are faster to set up than conventional since there is no need to adjust position or inking levels. Proofing is done by printing a single copy of the job for approval on the digital press itself. Prior to output of the reminder of the print run.

Digital textile printing affects the apparel industry by:-

1. Reducing the time-cycle for product development.

2. Reducing the time-required to produce to order, and capabilities.

The design factors of digital textile printing ultimately affects the economic and performance standards of these printers by providing new opportunities for niche market products that include image enhancement not  previously possible in traditional textile printing. The biggest plus of digital printing of fabric especially for small textile companies is that they can get a strike off done at a very reasonable cost, If they were to do it the traditional way with offset printing.

References:-

1.Rattan, J.B, Morden textile management, Abhishek publication, Chandigarh, 2001

2. SMITH, J L, Textile processing, printing, dyeing, finishing, Abhishek publication, Chandigarh, 2006

3. Parvathi, K, Textile designing, Aavishar publisher, distributer, India, 2007

4. Chakravarty, Bishwanath, digital colour printing technology, Asian books private limited, London, 2009

5. Ujiie, H, Digital printing of textile, Woodhead publishing in textile, England, 2007