Growing in popularity is the technique of discharge screen printing. This unique garment decoration solution makes use of water based inks, which can be printed as dye discharge, direct discharge, or even used as an under base for other types of inks.Garments printed using discharge inks have a softer feel and a vintage style that many customers love.
Discharge printing is a screen printing process where the same techniques and equipment are used but instead of normal ink, discharge inks are used, which remove the shirt’s dye instead of putting a color on top of the shirt. It is somewhat similar to bleaching in a design, except it doesn’t damage the fibers like bleaching would. It results in an extremely soft print, and shows the weave of the shirt. It can be used by itself, as an underbase for other colors to be put on top, or with pigments added. Pigmenting discharge can be difficult to achieve exact color results, as the discharge efficacy affects the color, and what you see is not what you get when mixing the pigments, but it can still be a great way to achieve colors on dark garments.
