DTF vs. DTG vs. sublimation vs. screen printing

The four dominant ways to decorate a garment each have a lane. DTF (direct-to-film) prints designs onto transfer film that gets heat-pressed onto almost any fabric and color. DTG (direct-to-garment) inkjets directly onto the garment and is happiest on cotton. Sublimation dyes the fibers themselves and only works on light polyester. Screen printing pushes ink through stencils and is unbeatable on cost at high volume with few colors. Most shops end up choosing per job — and increasingly, DTF is the default for custom one-offs.

DTF: the flexible default

• Works on cotton, polyester, blends, nylon, leather — light or dark garments
• No garment pretreatment; transfers can be printed ahead and pressed later
• Full-color with white underbase built in; strong wash durability
• Slightly tactile surface feel compared to DTG or sublimation
• Gang sheets let one print run cover many orders — the batching economics are the draw for production shops

DTG: softest hand on cotton

• Prints directly into the fabric for the softest feel on 100% cotton
• Dark garments need pretreatment plus a white ink underbase — more steps, more variables
• Ink is absorbed differently by blends; results vary off-cotton
• One garment at a time through the printer — no ganging

Sublimation: dyed-in, but polyester-only

• Dye converts to gas and bonds into polyester fibers — zero hand feel, effectively permanent
• Only works on high-poly, light-colored fabrics (no cotton, no dark garments)
• The lane for all-over prints, sportswear, mugs, and hard goods with poly coatings

Screen printing: volume economics

• Setup (screens per color) makes small runs expensive, but per-piece cost collapses at volume
• Best for 100+ piece runs of the same design with limited colors
• Spot-color vibrancy and specialty inks (puff, metallic) remain hard to match digitally

Choosing per job

A practical rule of thumb: custom one-offs and small runs on mixed fabrics → DTF. Soft-hand fashion prints on cotton → DTG. Light polyester sportswear and all-overs → sublimation. Big repeat runs of one design → screen print. If you run an e-commerce customizer where every order is different, DTF's gang-sheet batching is what makes the economics work: forty different customers' designs can share one print run.