Digital inkjet and laser heat transfers are often the first choice of people who wish to start up a garment decorating business at home for obvious reasons. They are easy to produce and generally easy to apply which makes them a no brainer for those who have never screen printed or those who do not have the space to screen print. They can also be an appealing option for doing lower quantities of very complex tee shirt designs. For designs with continuous tones or multiple colors in excess of your press digital heat transfers eliminate all of the prepress work and set up.

The major down side to digital heat transfers is that they do not print any white ink. As far as I know there are no home office or consumer grade laser or inkjet printers that print white ink. That means most digital heat transfers will be for light or white tee shirts only. There are many digital heat transfers made for dark garments and they often have a thick, rubbery backing which provides the white in the image when it is applied to the black or dark tee shirt. Therefore their quality and feel is often unacceptable to consumers. But some may perform better than others and it is strongly suggested that you thoroughly test any transfer paper you intend to sell commercially.

Check out this section of the website for information regarding the different heat transfer processes:

http://catspitproductionsllc.com/screen ... icles.html

Do you use digital heat transfers to create custom tee shirts for commercial purposes? If so what paper do you like best? Have you ever worked with transfers for dark garments? If so which ones and how did they work for you?

I wonder if such transfers leave a film on the garment where there is no colour, like say the absence of white.
I would like to transfer a black outline onto a white shirt, like an image from a colouring in book where the page has the picture in black and the kids colour in the spaces.

Assuming that the paper is covered with a film that holds the ink then that film might be part of the chemistry that allows this to work.

If I buy some of this transfer paper just to print a black outline does the film that carries the ink get left on the garment where there is no ink laid down please?

Standard inkjet and laser heat transfers will leave a polymer ghost just like you said. In order to achieve the print you want the way you want it you would want to use a “self weeding” transfer paper that will most likely be a two part process.

Those types of transfer papers do not leave a polymer ghost but many are limited to white garments. In my humble opinion there are no digital transfers for dark garments that will meet the soft feel requirements of today’s market.

The only one I have tested lately that I would recommend is for light colored garments by RhinoTech:

http://www.catspitproductionsllc.com/fo ... =38&t=2136

Thanks jonathan