My name is Josh Ellsworth with Stahls and in this video I'm going to show you
five ways to print a shirt with heat transfers
the first way I'm going to show you to print a shirt is with a screen printed transfer
screen printing is still one of the most popular technologies for decorating apparel at retail
and as a business you should be interested in mimicking that look with your heat press with
screen printed transfers such as this goof proof transfer from transfer express you're getting
actual plastisol ink the same stuff that's used in screen printing onto a paper carrier the benefit
of this is you can group up multiple images onto one sheet as long as they're utilizing the
same colors you can order these and they start to make sense once you hit 15 shirts or more
you receive them in all you do is trim them apart and heat apply the finished result on the garment
feels great just like screen printing this is the easiest way to decorate t-shirts with a heat press
the second way I want to show you to heat press a shirt is with heat transfer vinyl
we call it CAD-CUT this product is especially popular because you can do extremely low
quantities cost effectively as little as one and personalization which is really popular right now
you can buy this by the roll load it into what's called a vinyl cutter their desktop or industrial
units you cut your vector design in a mirror image weed away the excess and you get your pieces ready
to press so unlike screen printed transfers where we're getting everything all of the colors on one
transfer sheet and they apply it once when you're working with multiple colors and heat transfer
vinyl we need to layer so we cut each roll each color separately piece them together on the shirt
at the press and finish the job because of these steps involved this isn't ideal for very fine
detail artwork because we need to complete the weeding process and you really want to keep your
color count down but one of the biggest benefits of heat transfer vinyl is the range of special
effects from reflective to glitter to metallics to foils there are so many finishes that you
can complete on a heat press with heat transfer vinyl the third way I want to show you to decorate
apparel with your heat press is print cut heat transfer vinyl it's a little bit different than
standard heat transfer vinyl because in this case the material just comes to you in clear or white
you actually need to have a printer cutter solvent latex one of these large format machines to
be able to print all of the colors that you need onto the vinyl now the benefit of this is I can do
as many colors as I want onto a transfer without increasing my cost no more layering involved
just print cut weed mask and then you're ready to heat apply print cut heat transfer vinyl
comes in many different styles and it's great from everything from t-shirts to athletic wear
and there are special effect finishes such as glitter that you can use with the process if your
design has three or more colors and it's a low quantity you're going to want to look at print and
cut heat transfer vinyl to complete the job option number four and this is one I’m really excited
about because it's brand new technology for 2020 we call it a digital screen printed transfer
so in the past we've had to use print cut heat transfer vinyl for jobs sizes that really
weren't ideal for printing cutting weeding masking completing all the steps that we just talked about
or maybe there was too much detail in the design that I didn't want to weed it and so you know
we have screen printed transfers you know we have digital which means printing's involved and so we
have this digital screen printed transfer now you can get a heat transfer that combines the best of
both worlds digital printing and screen printing allowing for fine detail cost savings as you go up
in quantity and lots of opportunity for multiple colors all on one sheet group different designs
single step application I love this technology for decorating t-shirts performance wear and
more before we get to the fifth way to decorate a t-shirt I want to show you a key to success in
something that's going to make your life a lot simpler as a decorator with choosing the right
product I call it the what to use when chart you're viewing it here there are four quadrants
to this chart if you look across the top of the chart in the size of the chart you'll see number
of colors in the graphic and quantity of logos that you need to produce by following along the
x and y axis you'll be able to arrive at the right product that we've covered so whether it's heat
transfer vinyl print cut vinyl digital screen printed transfers or a standard screen printed
transfer you can get to the right product for the job quickly and easily without second guessing
okay so we have the fifth product that we finally come to and I call this the filet mignon of heat
transfers because it is a premium finish now we're talking about more new technology that is
a water-based screen printed transfer so remember that first screen printed transfer that we applied
well that was plastisol water base is where screen printing is heading and now you can
apply water-based transfers with your heat press the advantage is that you get something that's
buttery soft on the garment that has stretch that it can apply to practically any fabric
so you want to take your business out of t-shirts and start applying nylon jackets while water-based
screen printed transfers are the ticket this product is called aqua true so those are the five
top ways to decorate a t-shirt and more with your heat press to explore more information about all
of these products make sure you subscribe to our YouTube channel or visit us over at stahls.com or
transferexpress.com thanks for watching and happy heat pressing we all know josh has been producing
videos for heat printing for years did you know he also has a podcast it's called heat press for
profit and you can listen to this wherever you're currently getting your podcast now