Basics of Textile Printing

Printing techniques are the textile processes by which a thickened dye mixture or print paste is applied to the fabric. These modern processes include flatbed screen, rotary screen, or engraved copper roller printing. Printing is further classified as either dyestuff printing or pigment printing. Dyestuff printing, also known as wet printing, has five distinct processing steps. These include print paste formulation, printing, drying, fixation, and afterwashing. Afterwashing is performed to remove thickener, unfixed dye, and chemicals after the fixation step. 

Pigment printing incorporates a binder with the pigments and therefore requires no fixation or afterwashing. A typical process sequence would be to formulate the paste, print the pattern, dry, and then cure the binder. Regardless of the system used, the printing process should flow continuously from printing through drying.