Digital printing on textiles has been on the rise in recent years, and there is a need in the
industry to standardise digital printing on textiles. Standardisation raises the question of how
and which properties of the textile printing materials influence the final prints.
As a part of the Master thesis, we characterised the final prints on textile materials and
compared them with prints on paper, using the same printer for all prints. The aim of the
research was to determine the basic parameters of textile printing materials and how these
affect the colour reproduction and quality of the final prints.
Two textile printing materials and a paper were used for the experimental part. For printing, we
chose the large-format Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-4000S inkjet printer, which allows
printing with eight colours (inks). We used the i1Pro 3 spectrophotometer and eXact
densitometer to measure and evaluate the prints, and Fiery XF and i1Profiler software to
calibrate and profile the printer. We created colour profiles for each printing material and
printed the test forms that were used to evaluate the final prints. We designed the test form
ourselves.
To evaluate the quality of the final prints, we first calculated the colour differences using the
standard colour values specified for the Media Wedge Textile V1 Fogra58, Ugra/Fogra Media
Wedge V3.0 and ColorChecker Classic test charts. We measured the halftone value for 100%
black and performed an image analysis for non-uniformity of the prints and the deformation of
the graphic elements. We analysed the elements in horizontal and vertical layout, and in
positive and negative prints. The selected elements were lines with a thickness of 0.25 pt. and
2 pt., a circle with a diameter of 1mm, the minuscule »n« in Helvetica font, size 20 pt., and the
number »7« in Helvetica font, size 17 pt.
The results of the image analysis of the investigation showed that the basic properties of the
textile printing material, such as the weave, significantly affect the quality of the final prints, as
considerable ink bleeding and wicking along the warp threads was observed. With the settings
chosen, the printer used and the selected textile printing materials, we did not achieve
compliance with the Fogra58 Beta standard for printing on textiles. The selected paper
substrate, on the other hand, was suitable for printing »hard proof« for offset printing on coated
paper.
From the research, we conclude that further research into the influence of the basic properties
of textile printing materials would be necessary to provide more concrete answers as to what
and how it influences the reproduction of prints on textile materials.
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