Continuing the series Printing on Fabric 101. Last week we looked at printer feed paths so today I’ll discuss printer inks, which is another important aspect when printing on fabric.
Understanding inkjet printer inks can get a little confusing because each printer manufacturer makes their inks using different technologies and these technologies are advancing and changing constantly. I’ll try and keep this simple to understand for those of us (including me) who don’t really care about technologies but do want our printed images to have crisp clear detail, the color to be bright and fade-resistant, and the print to be either water resistant or waterproof depending on your application.
I discussed in a previous article how to make your printed images waterproof, but what about fade-resistance, color brightness and detail? A general understanding of printer inks will help you understand these features.
Types of Inks
The most common printer inks used in home printers fall into one of two categories – pigment-based or dye-based although some printers use a combination of both types. For example some printers will use a combination of a black cartridge with pigment based ink and color cartridges with dye-based ink. If you’re not sure what type of ink your printer uses, refer to the printer manual or check online with the manufacturer.
Dye Based Inks
Dye Based Inks are generally more vivid in color than pigment based inks however as technology advances this is changing, however dye based inks are less water and fade resistant than pigment based inks. They also tend to take a little longer to dry and this can sometimes cause blurring of the image.
Pigment Based Inks
Pigment Based Inks on the other hand are more light fast and generally water resistant. Although less intense in color than dye based inks, as mentioned previously improvements are constantly being made to improve this feature.
Let’s see it in action
The best way to demonstrate is always by testing. The picture on the left is the image I used. The picture on the right is the image printed on untreated fabric using two different printers; the “pigment ink” print was printed on my Epson Workforce 1100 using durabrite (pigment) inks, the “dye ink” print was printed on my Epson RX595 using claria (dye) inks. Both prints were printed using exactly the same printer settings but the results are only *similar*, not the same.
If you look closely you can see that the “pigment ink” print has printed significantly more detail than the “dye ink” print and you can notice this particularly around the center of the main flower where the “pigment ink” print has printed the little black dots in detail, but the “dye ink” print has not and the detail is blurred. The color on the “pigment ink” print is also more true to the original image.
And this is not the only difference. After washing only for a few seconds, this is what happened… You can see that even when printed on untreated fabric the “pigment ink” print holds the ink much better than the “dye ink” print. Even though Epson doesn’t guarantee their durabrite inks to be waterproof, only water-resistant, they do in fact hold up well with a hand wash.
Fade Resistance
As technology advances, printer inks are becoming more and more fade resistant. However there are also products that can be used to ensure further fade resistance as well as additional moisture resistance, such as Krylon Preserve It! which is a spray-on preservative for inkjet prints. The manufacturer guarantees that the spray will double the life of your printed image so if you want your printed images to be around and looking as good as new in a couple of hundred years you might consider using this type of product.
I use this product and I have to warn that it should be used outside because the fumes are quite overwhelming. You would also want to leave your prints in a well ventilated area for a day or two until the smell and fumes dissipate.
Generic vs Brand Name Inks
When printing on fabric your goal is to print high quality images, preferably water and fade resistant, and I can’t stress enough that generic inks simply will not provide these features.
Regardless of what the companies that sell generic ink tell you, generic inks are not of the same quality as brand name inks and do not meet the same standards, which is why they are cheaper than brand inks. Manufacturers spend a lot of money developing their inks to meet very specific requirements such as color and image quality, and fade and water resistance which means that genuine ink cartridges will provide you with very specific results which is often important when printing high quality, long lasting, images on fabric.
So What’s The Bottom Line?
The best printer for printing on fabric without a doubt a printer that uses pigment-based inks and has a straight through or an L-shaped feed. With some brands you still may have problems feeding, however most printers have a “thick paper” setting that you could try. My personal favorite is an Epson printer that uses durabrite (pigment) inks. This type of printer always provides me with troublefree printing and always gives the best results in color, detail and clarity, and washability.
It should be mentioned that I constantly hear reports about how the ink jets on the Epson printers are prone to clogging, however I’ve used Epson printers for 8 years or so and have only ever had one occurrence of this when I put my printer into storage and didn’t use it for about 8 months. Otherwise I leave my printers on all the time and have never experienced any problems whatsoever.
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Hi Linda,
Thanks for the great website—very informative! I’m just getting started with inkjet printing on fabric. I use an Epson R1800 and Ultrachrome pigment inks with 200 thread-count cotton fabric from Electric Quilt. I made a simple tote bag that I was very pleased with until I found out that if it gets wet, and the image is rubbed, the ink will come off. I see that you’ve used inkjet printed fabric in some of your handbags and I wondered what you do to protect them against such mishaps. Is there a waterproofing agent that you recommend?
Thank you!
Hi Joy, you say you “found out that if it gets wet….”. Did you actually try it for yourself or is this something someone told you or your read somewhere? The easiest way to determine the water resistance is to try it out on a sample print. If you’re using pigment inks I’m surprised that you would experience this problem.
On my soft bags and purses I don’t use anything; the images are printed using pigment based inks, sometimes onto pretreated fabric, most often not. I always rinse the prints to ensure that they are fully water resistant.
On my rigid “art bags” I use a different process using digital grounds. You can find out more here
http://www.linda-matthews.com/category/digital-grounds/
Thank you for posting this tutorial! I just purchased and Epson R2800 and am so excited to try printing on fabric! I will let you know how it goes