Hi i want to start doing t-shirts , my question is does the digital printing machines for t-shirts are as good as Silk-screen printing ?
No they’re not.
Professional screen-printing looks great. It works best in block colour, and becomes more expensive the more colours you use.
Home-printer iron-on printing can look OK if it’s a good printer, and the image goes all the way to the edge of the printer. A full colour render cut out along the edge of the scene: fine. If you have an area of white between the edge of the image and the area of paper you cut out that looks crap.
You can set up your own silk-screening solution. Most hobby shops will sell books and supplies for silk-screening, and so long as you start with simple, one-color stuff and go from there, it’s actually not that hard at all.
For strong graphic work silkscreening is great!
…but some things to think about, if you’re going to try this at home. It’s not a very eco-friendly process - a bit like traditional photography. You got your film, your emulsion to expose, your cleaning agents and your water insoluble inks. Unless you’re a rotten person, you don’t flush those down the drains. [Companies that are set up for this, have their chemicals collected.]
Digital prints that I have seen maybe work for more photographic images, but with graphic stuff always look weaker.
…my 5c…