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How to Pretreat Dark Colored Polyester

Learn the basics of pretreating black and darker colored polyester garments.

Brian WalkerJanuary 6, 2016

Less than a minute

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When printing black or darker colored polyester, the first step is pretreating the garment. Getting the ink to readily stay on top of the garment requires a significantly higher amount of pretreatment when compared to a standard 100 percent cotton garment. This is generally because of the wicking nature of the polyester fabric. A good starting point is around 32-40 grams for a 14″ X 16″ area.

Brian Walker

Brian Walker started in the screen printing industry in the mid-1980s while still in high school and has since been involved extensively with the direct-to-garment printing market. Currently, he is the CEO and owner of RTP Apparel and Image Armor. RTP Apparel provides pretreated T-shirts to the DTG industry. Image Armor is a DTG solutions provider that manufactures inks and pretreatments.