DTG (direct-to-garment) printing works like an inkjet printer for fabric. Instead of pushing ink through screens (like traditional screen printing), a DTG machine sprays fine droplets of water-based ink directly onto the shirt, building up your design in full color and detail. It's the printing method we use for Bella+Canvas, Gildan, and Comfort Colors tees.

The printing process, step by step:

1. Pretreatment. The shirt is sprayed with a pretreatment solution. This step is essential — it helps the ink bond to the fabric fibers instead of sitting loosely on the surface, and it's what allows white ink to print opaque and bright on colored fabric.

2. White underbase (dark shirts only). On dark or colored garments, a layer of white ink is printed first, underneath the color layers. Without it, colors would look dull, muddy, or let the shirt color show through. On white or very light shirts, this step is skipped since the fabric itself provides the bright base.

3. Color printing. The design's colors are printed on top of the white underbase (or directly onto the fabric for light shirts), laid down in fine layers to build up the full-color image.

4. Heat curing. The shirt passes through a heat press or dryer, which cures the ink into the fibers. This sets the print and is what gives it its wash durability.

Because the ink is absorbed into the fabric rather than sitting on top of it like a thick layer of screen-printed plastisol, DTG prints tend to feel soft and breathable — you can feel the texture of the shirt through the design, especially on 100% cotton. This is generally a selling point: no heavy, stiff patch of ink on the chest.

The tradeoff is that on dark garments, that same "ink in the fibers" look means the print isn't perfectly flat. Up close, you can often see the texture of the fabric's weave through the design, and on the white underbase layer specifically, individual threads can catch the white ink slightly differently depending on how they lie. This can look like faint lines or a subtle grid running through the print.

This is normal and not a defect. It's not cracking, peeling, or a print flaw — it's the natural texture of the underbase ink following the weave of the fabric. It's most visible: