Heat Transfers: What's The Difference?

Custom Heat Transfers are a great way to add custom designs to garments and accessories. Simply, order your designs online and they arrive as a finished piece to your door. All you have to do is heat press them onto your product. Proven to be quicker than Heat Transfer Vinyl for garment decorationg, the use of heat transfers in apparel decorating has risen significantly in the last 5 years. 

The question is, which heat transfer type should you choose for your business?

Stahls' UK are the only single source supplier in the UK for all things heat printing. This means not only can you purchase Screen Printed, Full Colour and DTF Heat Transfers from them but they also supply Heat Presses, Heat Transfer Vinyl and all the heat printing Accessories in between.

Today we're going to compare and contrast the 3 Heat Transfers that Stahls' UK manufacture.

Screen Printed, Full Colour and Direct To Film Heat Transfers.

(And it's worth noting as well, Stahls' UK charge per sheet, not per design. So if you want to cram 100 designs onto each sheet to save money, do it!)

1. UltraColour Heat Transfers

First up, the Stahls' UK Full Colour option.

UltraColour Heat Transfers are actually the world's #1 full colour heat transfer choice.

But just because they are the #1 Heat Transfer choice for garment decorators, doesn't mean they're automatically correct for your heat printing business.

When to choose UltraColour heat transfers:

When you need over 10 sheets of heat transfers.

Because the minimum order for this product is 10 sheets, it makes more sense to use this project if you're decorating over 10-20 garments with the same design. 

UltraColour offers unlimited colours, fine detail and a photorealistic finish meaning you can achieve a fully digital finish with these heat transfers. There are no limits as to what you can achieve. If you want to upload a completely rainbow gradient background, you can. The transfer will look just as your digital design does.

Best of all, this heat transfer is the lowest fusing temperature heat transfer in the world meaning you can print sportswear and all heat-sensitive materials like polyester and acrylic at just 120 degrees celcius. 

They're also water-based, making them a fantastic eco-friendly transfer choice.

Now, you're in luck with this option.

UltraColour Max DTF Transfers are The Worlds Leading Direct To Film Heat Transfer.

These heat transfers can be ordered in a minimum order quantity of just 1, making them a fantastic solution to personalised heat transfer jobs or last minute add-on orders. Best of all, it's dispatched next day for you to help you complete those extra jobs, extra fast.

This heat transfer is applied at 145 degrees celcius and is a hot peel heat transfer which means not only do you save time ordering online, them dispatching the next day, but you also save even more time by being able to peel right there on the platen.

Similarly to UltraColour, UltraColour MAX heat transfers also have no colour limits, allowing you access to endless gradients and photorealistic finishes.

Screen Printed Heat Transfers are a fantastic low cost (and no mess) option for garment decorators who want to achieve the look and feel of a traditional screen print without the investment of the equipment. The heat transfers use traditional screen printed methods to print to a carrier so that all you have to do, is apply them in just 10 seconds with a reliable heat press.

When should you use Screen Printed heat transfers?

When you need a quanitity over 10 sheets as this is a minimum order of 10 heat transfer type.

This heat transfer can be used with up to 5 colour choices but is most profitable when sticking to 1 or 2 colours. If you're looking for a price-conscious heat transfer, try switching to UltraColour for the markets most economical heat transfer choice.

However, Screen Print heat transfers do offer something that Full Colour and DTF Heat Transfers do not...

Speciality Finishes.

These heat transfers offer the use of many shimmer ink colours so that you can achieve a subtle glittery finish that is just not achievable with any other heat transfer type. You can also choose from a selection of neon inks to really wow and turn heads too. Best of all, these speciality finishes wont cost you any extra! 

Pantone matching is also available for precise colour decision making.