Digital printing on textiles is very different from printing on other surfaces such as plastic, film, paper, and others. They absorb light and ink in a different way as compared to other materials. Color variations are bound to occur despite the best printer ink cartridges, and images printed on fabric are never as sharp as those printed on paper. To avoid color mismatch, color profiling software is used that decides the color and quantity of ink to be used on a particular fabric. Users print a set of color patches generated from the profiling software that is scanned with a spectrophotometer. Results derived from this process are used to create different color profiles, which help in producing different color combination's backed by the use of printer ink cartridges.

After creating different color profiles, the intended textile is fed into digital textile printers. The fabric is first sprayed with coating emulsion to suit all types of dyes, including reactive, acid and disperse dyes so printer ink cartridges can do their job. The printer also contains a fully insulated double walled infrared dryer for quick drying and minimizing heat loss. Other printers use steam based systems for performing fabric curing and printing. After this, the fabric passes through a steam chamber for curing the fabric.

Digital printing is fast replacing other mediums of textile printing such as hand block printing, perrotine or block printing by machine, engraved plate printing, engraved roller printing and stencil printing. Digital printers take less time and are cost effective in the long run. With increasing usage, the demand for digital printing services is set to keep growing. As long as your printer ink cartridges are set in place before a print command is initiated, all results will be positive. The T-shirt printing business is growing rapidly and according to estimates has a $20 billion market in the US. In addition to this the promotional products market is $13 billion that makes the total market for direct and transfer printing to about $33 billion. Reports suggest that digital t-shirt printing is being carried on at about 130 thousand sites spread all across the US.

Digital screen printers are used for printing t-shirts on a commercial scale. Apart from these, digital printing is also done by POP printers, Garage printers, and Custom printers, in house/preprint shops, Contract houses, and Transfer print houses.

T-shirt digital printers have the same basic technology used in textile printing. They have a moving table that is completely level, durable, for sustained production, and stable quality. Automatic light sensors installed in these printers adjust the table height and prevent the crashing of the print head on the media. They use RIP (Raster Image Processor) software, which acts as a communication tool between the computer and the printer. It helps in dealing with ink limitations, basic profile tweaking, scaling, and designing the layout of the prints on the fabric. Once set, the printer ink cartridges need to be checked, to ensure that the printing process is uninterrupted, and effective.