Top 10 T-Shirt Printing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

| 29 August 2025 | 3 Min. To Read

T-shirt printing is among the most rapidly expanding sectors in the garment personalization market. Fashion companies, event planners, and even individuals all depend on printed T-shirts as a means of branding, marketing, or self-expression. Although the process appears to be straightforward, newbies tend to do expensive things that compromise print quality, wear, and end-user satisfaction. Regardless of your use of vinyl, heat press, or a DTG printer for t-shirts made of cotton, steering clear of pitfalls is the secret to obtaining pro-level results.

In this tutorial, we will be talking about the top 10 t-shirt printing errors and how to prevent them, including design centring, heat problems, material incompatibility, and more.

1. Off Design Centring

One of the most blatant errors is when a design is off-centre or poorly aligned. Off-centre photos or tilted logos could be used to destroy a potentially wonderful T-shirt.

How to Prevent

Always utilize rulers, templates, or laser alignment tools to guarantee accuracy. Prealign the t-shirt on the platen and preview the print beforehand, before printing with a DTG printer if printing cotton t-shirts.

2. Forgetfulness of Heat Setting

Heat is a critical element in T-shirt printing, either to cure inks or transfers. Overheating fabric scorching results when too much heat is used, and low heat results in the designs peeling off.

Prevention:

Use the manufacturer's instructions for temperature, pressure, and time. Cotton may need warmer temperatures than polyester. Cure the ink to the recommended temperature of the cotton tee and DTG printer, to prevent washing problems.

3. Printing on the Wrong Fabric

Not all fabrics are good to print all types of printing. Polyester print by DTG or sublimation on dark cotton can be disappointing.

How to Avoid

Match the fabric with the print technology. A DTG printer on T-shirts made of cotton, for instance, will best operate with 100% cotton or a high-cotton percentage. Sublimation is great on polyester, but heat transfer vinyl will work on a wider variety of fabrics.

4. Low-Resolution Designs

Low-resolution design is not retrievable even with the best equipment. Low-resolution graphics will blur or pixelate in such a way that it is not professional-looking.

How to Avoid

Always use high-res images (minimum 300 DPI). Vector files are ideal for DTG printing, but high-res PNGs without artefacts will work too.

5. Not Pretreating Cotton

Failure to pretreat using DTG technology is a catastrophe waiting to happen. Without it, cotton printed tees on black shirts can appear blotchy or watered down.

How to Avoid

Pre-treat all cotton T-shirts prior to printing, particularly dark shades. Pretreatment solution will ensure the ink will stick well, and prints for a DTG printer for cotton tees will be long-lasting and vivid.

6. Forgetting Curing or Drying

Poor curing is one of the biggest peeling, cracking, or losing colours in design. It's mostly all newcomers rushing, and that upsets customers.

How to Avoid

Regardless of using a heat press, conveyor dryer, or any process, make sure to follow the curing process. For DTG, be sure to fully cure inks within the right temperature and time. A properly cured design will prolong the life of your cotton T-shirt prints.

7. Test Print Skipping

Skipping the test typically costs materials and dissatisfied customers.

Prevention:

Always make test prints in advance. This will enable you to test for alignment, colour quality, and curing. From a DTG cotton t-shirt printer, a test print guarantees pretreatment, design, and setup as good as possible before printing in large quantities.

8. Incorrect Size Placement

Great on a medium tee can be too small or worse, mis-placed on a 2XL.

How to Avoid

Shrink and print art onto a fit garment size. Design size-specific templates for an overall uniform appearance within your product line.

9. Poor Fabric Preparation

Printing wrinkled, wet, or dusty tees produces spotty prints or annoying transfers.

How to Avoid:

Pre-press shirts to evaporate water and wrinkles. This is particularly vital prior to loading on a DTG printer for cotton t-shirts because an uneven surface will lead to misprints.

10. Not Following Customer Care Instructions

If you fail to instruct customers to handle the shirt with care, even if you succeed in creating a flawless print, they will destroy it. This normally results in returns and complaints.

How to Avoid

Add aftercare information with each order. Inform customers to wash T-shirts inside out, cold water only, and never iron on the print. Proper care keeps designs longer, particularly with DTG prints on cotton.